Longtime Memphis concert promoter Jim Green has died

From struggling "hair bands" at the New Daisy on Beale Street to superstar rock icons U2 at the Liberty Bowl to — most recently — such rootsy acts as Steve Earle and Son Volt at Lafayette's Music Room in Overton Square, Jim Green brought music to Memphis.

A concert promoter for some 30 years, Green died Monday night after a heart attack at his home in Olive Branch. He was 50.

"Any time we lose anybody in the music community, it's sad," said Green's music-business mentor, Mike Glenn, owner of the New Daisy. 

In the 1990s and early 2000s, Green worked for the area's major concert bookers, Mid-South Concerts and Beaver Productions. He started his own company, Big Green Machine, in 2009.

He was the original booker for the Snowden Grove Amphitheater (now known as the BankPlus Amphitheater) when that venue opened in 2006, bringing such acts as the White Stripes, the Dave Matthews Band and Kenny Chesney to Southaven. 

More recently, he was music booker at Minglewood Hall in Midtown and at Lafayette's, an anchor spot in Overton Square that — pre-coronavirus — featured 15 live shows per week.

“We’re reeling," said Lafayette's general manager, Julien Salley, in response to the news of Green's death.

"No joke, we get at least 100 emails a day from bands wanting to play here," Salley said. "To go through all that and communicate with those artists and make those contracts, we're talking about a monumental task, but Jim loved the business. We butted heads constantly, but we both wanted Lafayette's to be great."

Green's professional accomplishments weren't entirely musical. In 2008, he produced the first presidential debate between Democratic candidate Barack Obama and Republican nominee John McCain, held at Green's alma mater, the University of Mississippi in Oxford.

Born in Water Valley, Mississippi, Green grew up in Southaven. Majoring in management and marketing at Ole Miss, Green merged his business instincts with his love of music, managing up-and-coming bands while also promoting band tours.

After booking several bands at the New Daisy, Green started working at the club in the early 1990s, when the venue began regularly hosting the so-called "alternative" bands whose music was being played on Memphis' hip new radio station, 96X.

"It was like a change overnight," Glenn said. "It went from the hair bands of the '80s to grunge. I literally remember doing the BulletBoys on a Sunday and Nirvana on a Monday."

In 1994, Green joined Mid-South Concerts, the area's dominant booking company for major acts, and began promoting rock spectacles showcasing such bands as KISS and the Rolling Stones. After founding his own company, his bookings became more fluid, and he moved back and forth between large and small venues, producing shows for Mud Island, the Memphis Botanic Garden and the Beale Street Music Festival.

Green also managed musical groups, including Beanland, an Oxford-based jam band, and Memphis' Ingram Hill, which signed in the 2000s with a major label, Hollywood Records, and scored hits on the Adult Contemporary charts. He also occasionally produced and promoted entire tours, including the 2009 ZZ Top tour of North America and the 2010 Jagermeister tour headlined by Eric Church.

In addition, Green was an avid tennis player, helping to establish adult recreational tennis leagues in North Mississippi.

Green leaves his wife, Tammy Hedges, executive vice president for university relations at the University of Memphis. Green and Hedges were married 18 years ago on Halloween, during a costume-party wedding held in the New Daisy. 

He also leaves his mother, Rose Green of Southaven; two brothers, Allen Green of Southaven and Bryan Green of Hernando, Mississippi; two beloved wire fox terriers, Bishop and Sloane; and countless concert memories in the minds of thousands and thousands of Mid-Southerners, most of whom didn't know his name, but enjoyed seeing performances by Bush, Oasis, Chicago, Blake Shelton, the Spin Doctors, the Steve Miller Band and Hootie & the Blowfish, to name a very few of the acts Green brought here.

A "Celebration of Life" service will be held at 1 p.m. Monday at Memorial Park, with  a livestream of the service available for viewing at memorialparkonline.com. Masks will be available for those . Visitation will be from 4-6 p.m. Sunday and from noon to 1 p.m. Monday. Memorial donations can be made to the Tunica Humane Society or the Jim Green Music Scholarship Fund at the University of Memphis.