Jeremy Tepper , who relentlessly championed the outlaw country genre by highlighting both its revered icons and rebellious upstarts in his role as program director for SiriusXM’s “Outlaw Country” channel, died Friday. Tepper’s wife, the singer-songwriter Laura Cantrell, announced his death of a heart attack at their home in New York City. He was 60.
Tepper was a gregarious, ubiquitous presence in the country, Americana, and rock universe, seemingly always in the crowd or backstage at concerts and festivals, from the Luck Reunion at Willie Nelson’s ranch in Spicewood, Texas, to the Americana Music Festival in Nashville, to the opening last week of an exhibit at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame honoring Mojo Nixon, Tepper’s close friend and Sirius XM colleague who died in February. An encounter with Tepper at a show reliably came with two things, a “yeah baby” greeting and a burly bear hug. Born in 1963, Tepper was a graduate of NYU, where he majored in journalism.
In 2004, he joined the satellite-radio giant SiriusXM as program director of a new channel launched by Steven Van Zandt called “Outlaw Country.” Backed by an army of eccentric, often outspoken DJs, including Nixon, former WWE wrestler Hillbilly Jim, Jackass ’s Johnny Knoxville, Steve Earle, and Elizabeth Cook, Tepper established a community for misfits and outsiders — both artists and listeners alike. The channel’s playlists cast a wide musical net and featured outlaw country pioneers like Way.
