Tom Silverman

Tom Silverman is the founder and CEO of Tommy Boy, a record label established in 1981. Silverman also co-founded the annual New Music Seminar, which initially ran from 1980 to 1994 and relaunched in 2009, and continues every June in New York City. He co-founded Dance Music Report magazine, which ran from 1978 to 1992. Tom co-founded the Dance Music Hall of Fame, which existed from 2003 to 2005. Silverman was also a vice president of Warner Bros. Records from 1986 to 2002, while Tommy Boy was an independently distributed subsidiary of that company.

Silverman serves on the boards of, SoundExchange, the American Association of Independent Music (A2IM and its predecessors NAIRD/AFIM), Merlin, a global rights agency representing the world's most important set of independent music rights, and RIAA. He previously served on the boards of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Dance Music Hall of Fame, plus the NARM Manufacturer’s Advisory Board. Silverman is also co-founder of the independent film and television company Tommy Boy Films.

In 2012 he was awarded the A2IM Libera Lifetime Achievement Award.

He received the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences Heroes Award in 2000. Silverman received his degree in environmental science from Colby College, and attended graduate school at Western Michigan University, where he majored in environmental geology.

References

Interviews/Articles

• Building the $100 Billion Music Business
• Tom Silverman Radio Interview (October 2009)
• Industry Profile: Tom Silverman (CelebrityAccess MediaWire; March 2012)
• Tom Silverman Video Interview (Association for Computing Machinery Computers in Entertainment; July 2012)
• Tom Silverman on DIY
• Aspire to Nothing
• Tom Silverman Songwriting Tips
• Tommy Boy: The Earliest Days
• The Tragedy of the Long Tail

Videos

• Tom Silverman Austin Tech Talk
• Tom Silverman's Beginning