Bill Ivey is an American folklorist and author. He was the seventh chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, and is a past chairman of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences. Early life Billy Ivey was born in Detroit, Michigan on September 6, 1944. He was reared in Calumet, a mining town located in the Keweenaw Peninsula of Michigan's Upper Peninsula. He graduated from the University of Michigan with a degree in American history in 1966, received a master's degree in folklore and ethnomusicology from Indiana University in 1970, and became a Ph.D. candidate in folklore and history at that institution in 1971. Career Ivey was the first full-time director of the Country Music Foundation and the related Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, having been promoted to the directorship a few months after first being hired as CMF librarian. He served from 1971 until 1998, though his tenure was not without controversy and scandal. In 1972 Ivey also became the founding editor of the Journal of Country Music, serving as editor until 1975. In 1974 Ivey won a Billboard Country Award for album note writing. He also served as the chairman of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (NARAS) from 1981 to 1983 and then again from 1989 to 1991, the only individual elected to two separate terms. In 1983 he said of the organization he headed that, “As time goes on, the Grammys have come closer and closer to satisfying the critics by recognizing what is happening now, but I don't think we will ever get to the point where the critic's choice for the most imaginative and innovative record of the year is going to be the Grammy winner. There will always be a little distance, and that's probably healthy.” In 1988 Ivey was co-writer of the 30th Grammy Awards Telecast, and in 1994 President Bill Clinton appointed Ivey to the President's Committee on the Arts and the Humanities. In 1989, Ivey was one of the founders of Leadership Music, a program that brings together artists and music executives to build a stronger and more collaborative music community in Nashville. Ivey was appointed chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, by then-President Bill Clinton, serving from 1998 to 2001. His "Challenge America" small-grant initiative is credited with restoring congressional confidence in the sometimes-embattled NEA. He gained national notoriety in 1999