Tom Roland has served as editor of the Billboard Country Update since 2010, arriving in its first year of publication and focusing its coverage on trend stories and essential profiles in country music.
A graduate of Belmont University’s music business program in Music City, Tom has lived and worked for at least seven years each in Nashville, New York and Los Angeles. Previously, he worked as the senior music writer at Nashville’s morning newspaper, The Tennessean, and wrote thousands of hours of network radio programs for Westwood One and the United Stations Radio Networks. He’s also compiled credits in The Hollywood Reporter, The Orange County Register, Country Music magazine, Country Weekly and GACtv.com, among others – he even spent four years as the music consultant for the CMT game show The Singing Bee.
Tom has authored two books – ‘The Billboard Book Of #1 Country Hits’ and the Diamond Rio autobiography ‘Beautiful Mess: The Story Of Diamond Rio’ – and contributed to both editions of the Country Music Foundation’s reference book, ‘The Encyclopedia of Country Music.’
Additionally, Tom created RolandNote.com, the ultimate country music database. The website catalogs 70,000 events from country music history, forming an ever-growing resource that’s used by some Nashville journalists as a key fact-checking source.
The Country Music Association recognized his efforts in 2018, presenting him the CMA Media Achievement Award.
