Background
Sholes was born in Washington, District of Columbia and moved with is family to Merchantville, New Jersey, at the age of nine, near where his father worked in the Victor Talking Machine Company plant in Camden.
Sholes was born in Washington, District of Columbia and moved with is family to Merchantville, New Jersey, at the age of nine, near where his father worked in the Victor Talking Machine Company plant in Camden.
Rutgers University.
Sholes started work at Victor as a messenger boy in 1929 and worked part-time for the firm while a student at Rutgers University. Scholes worked for a time in Radio Corporation of America Victor"s radio division, but his experience playing saxophone and clarinet in dance bands led him to the record division. During World World War II, he worked in the Army"s V-disc operation, which made records for radio broadcast and for personal use by army personnel.
In 1945, he became head of the country division in Nashville, Tennessee and was responsible for recruiting such talent as Chet Atkins for Radio Corporation of America Victor.
When he left Nashville, Atkins took over as head of the country music division. He also recruited Eddy Arnold, The Browns, Hank Locklin, Homer and Jethro, Hank Snow, Jim Reeves, and Pee Wee King.
In 1955, he signed Elvis Presley for Radio Corporation of America Victor. He eventually had fifteen chart topping hit singles in the United Kingdom as a record producer for Presley.
In 1982 he reached fourth place on the list of most successful record producers on the United Kingdom charts.
He convinced Radio Corporation of America to build its own recording studio in Nashville on Seventeenth Avenue South in 1957. He became the company"s popular singles manager the same year, popular singles and albums manager in 1958, and West Coast manager in 1961. The latter promotion took him to Los Angeles, California.
In 1963, Sholes became Radio Corporation of America Victor vice president for popular A&R and returned to New New York
He served on the Country Music Association (CMA) and Country Music Foundation (CMF) boards of directors. Sholes was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame, which he had worked to create, in 1967.
Sholes died in Nashville of a heart attack at the age of 57.