Under the Hat Productions.

Under The Hat Productions was founded by Cash Edwards in Berkeley, California in 1984. Edwards arrived at this name for her business due to the multiplicity of booking, promotion, and publicity, “all under one hat.” Her journey did not begin or end in northern California, but this is where, while working as a publicist for the venue Freight and Salvage, Under the Hat Productions got its start.

Cash Edwards is a fourth generation native Texan. She spent many summers at her Grandparents farm in San Benito, Texas, where she encountered a wide variety of American and Mexican music through live performance and radio. Throughout her childhood and adolescence, she traveled with her Air Force father to assignments in exotic places like Germany. Her experiences in Europe exposed her to classical music, ballet, and European folk music which only fostered her appreciation of American folk music. Upon her return, Edwards realized that American music was beautiful and had a unique value.

Edwards received her BA in Economics from Wells College in New York prior to landing in Texas where she pursued a graduate degree in Agricultural Economics at Texas A and M University. It was while attending A and M that her Texan roots manifested in a love for the music of Texas singer-songwriters. After her time at A and M, she migrated to Austin around the same time as some of the other Bryan/College Station “front porch” crowd which included Robert Earl Keen and Lyle Lovett. She moved to California in 1984 where her tenure as the publicist for Freight and Salvage and her work with the historic Fort Mason Club in San Francisco helped evolve her company into a booking agency and Under the Hat Productions was born. Returning to Austin in 1987, Edwards began booking bluegrass, Cajun, folk, and Texas singer-songwriters. Her smashingly darling logo was designed by famed Austin artist Guy Juke. Roger Polson joined as a partner in 1998. She, and later, her team, guided the careers of many successful national and regional acts. It is a business fraught with economic perils, hardship, and emotional peaks and valleys. One does not enter into such a business lightly. It takes dedication, professionalism, and the kind of heart possessed by few in this world. Her love of music, her intense commitment, and the enthusiasm she showed manifested in the brilliant success of her clients. Her personal touch with her clients time and again displayed her keen understanding of artists’ needs.

Edwards closed the agency in 2000, after 16 years. Realizing the historic value of her records, she donated her papers concerning bluegrass artists to the International Bluegrass Music Association Museum in Nashville, TN., www.ibma.org . Edwards is currently a publicist for the Folk Alliance, www.folk.org.

This collection represents the sum of the papers that are to be donated.

From the guide to the Under the Hat Productions Collection Collection 082., 1984-2000, (Southwestern Writers Collection, Special Collections, Alkek Library, Texas State University-San Marcos)