Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame
The vibe for the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame induction on Nov. 6 was a little odd.
Less than 24 hours after an election with results that many pundits see as a pushback against diversity, the Hall welcomed six new members whose output covered a nicely diverse stylistic landscape that touches on country, pop and R&B.
The class featured two performing artists — The Bellamy Brothers’ David Bellamy and late multigenre figure Tony Joe White — plus Liz Rose (“You Belong With Me,” “Crazy Girl”), Victoria Shaw (“I Love the Way You Love Me,” “The River”), Al Anderson (“Unbelievable,” “Love’s Gonna Make It Alright”) and Dan Penn (“Cry Like a Baby,” “Do Right Woman — Do Right Man”).
It was just the third time in the Hall’s 54-year history that two women were inducted together. Prior to Rose and Shaw simultaneously joining, Shania Twain and Hillary Lindsey (“Blessed,” “Jesus, Take the Wheel”) were installed in 2022, and Tammy Wynette and Kye Fleming (“Smoky Mountain Rain,” “Nobody”) were recognized in 2009.
“It’s extra special that there’s two women this time,” Shaw noted in her acceptance speech. “Someday we won’t have to point that out, but it’s still nice.”
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The diversity of the current class was represented by performances that ranged from swamp rock to gospel-flecked soul to pure country. Karen Fairchild applied a spiked tone to Little Big Town’s four-part harmony on Rose’s “Girl Crush,” Nikki Lane balanced a cutting vocal resonance against Kenny Vaughan’s smoky guitar on White’s bluesy “Polk Salad Annie,” and Garth Brooks milked the silence between the phrases in a folky rendition of the Shaw co-writes “A Friend to Me,” “She’s Every Woman” and “The River.” John Andersonoffered a greasy, driving interpretation of Bellamy’s “Redneck Girl”; Wendy Moten prefaced Penn’s induction with a dramatically dynamic version of the 1960s soul single “The Dark End of the Street”; and Vince Gill participated in Al Anderson’s segment by performing“Some Things Never Get Old,” a ballad Anderson recorded as a solo artist, with backing vocalist Carolyn Dawn Johnsonand bassist Glenn Worf.
Nikki Lane performs onstage during the 54th Anniversary Nashville Songwriters Hall Of Fame Gala at Music City Center on November 06, 2024 in Nashville.
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Acceptance in the Hall is notable. It’s an unpredictable — and thus, insecure — vocation, and sustained success is often elusive. Bellamy recalled that his father pestered him to develop a backup plan in the early part of his career, assuming that songwriting wasn’t likely to pay the bills. Jim Stafford’s recording of Bellamy’s “Spiders and Snakes” changed that, starting a hit list that includes “Old Hippie,” “Kids of the Baby Boom” and “If I Said You Have a Beautiful Body Would You Hold It Against Me.”
“My dad called me — I was on the road somewhere,” Bellamy noted during his speech. “He had been to the mailbox and got my first royalty check. He said, ‘Son, I think you’re going to be able to make a living at this.’ ”
For Al Anderson, songwriting built upon his guitar skills, burnished during a run in the eclectic band NRBQ. He became adept at creating hooky, uptempo songs.
“He knows 400,000 chords,” fellow songwriter Sharon Vaughan (“Powerful Thing”) said while inducting Anderson. “During the writing of a song, he uses about 200,000 of them before you get to the second verse.”
Anderson was enthusiastic. He enlisted fellow writer Tia Sillers (“I Hope You Dance”) to speak on his behalf, and she stood at his side on a box, placing her at his eye level. But Anderson still got in a few words before leaving the stage.
“It’s a beautiful thing, writing songs,” he quipped. “You can’t beat it. It’s just the shit.”
Penn’s induction embodied the country/R&B blend that has become increasingly prominent in country circles. He fashioned hits for the likes of Ronnie Milsap,Johnny Rodriguez and T.G. Sheppard in the 1970s, though his journey was rooted more typically in pop and soul. His career started in earnest in the Muscle Shoals region and took off after he moved to Memphis, where he scored with James & Bobby Purify’s recording of “I’m Your Puppet” and James Carr’s “The Dark End of the Street.”
“Dark End” exemplifies Penn’s ability to fuse styles. It rose to prominence in the 1960s, when he still lived in Memphis, though he authored it during a break in a Nashville poker game. Despite its soul history, “Dark End” authors David Cantwell and Bill Friskics-Warren recognized it in the Country Music Foundation book Heartaches by the Number: Country Music’s 500 Greatest Singles. It fits both blue-collar genres in part because of its theme.
“We were always trying to come up with the best cheating song ever,” he was known to say, according to his inductor, songwriter Gretchen Peters (“Independence Day”).
White’s career path likewise wound through both Tennessee music capitals — son Jody White, in accepting his late father’s induction, recalled The Blues Brothers hanging out at the family’s house in Memphis and watching football at Waylon Jennings’Nashville home. White’s biggest copyright, “A Rainy Night in Georgia,” also transcended boundaries, providing soul singer Brook Benton with a classic recording and becoming a country hit for Hank Williams Jr.
“It just invokes a feeling of loneliness,” Jody said before ceremony, “and I think that’s what’s special about it. It’s hard to just make someone have that strong of a feeling by listening to your song.”
Rose is also a genre-hopper. While her songs have succeeded primarily in country, she’s co-written 17 Taylor Swift releases, and they include both country hits (“Tim McGraw,” “Teardrops on My Guitar”) and music from her pop era (particularly the 10-minute “All Too Well”).
Despite the ceremony’s proximity to a contentious election, the Hall of Fame demonstrated how songwriters can pull together even when they disagree. A bit surprisingly, during the course of the evening, neither presenters nor inductees mentioned the election.
“What’s great about this community, everybody’s walking in that room, [feeling] part of the music community as songwriters,” Rose said on the red carpet. “There should be no politics. We all love each other, and that’s being an American.”
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The Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame has revealed its slate of inductees for the Class of 2024, including Al Anderson, David Bellamy, Dan Penn, Liz Rose and Victoria Shaw.
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This year’s inductees in the contemporary songwriters category are Al Anderson and Liz Rose, while Dan Penn and Victoria Shaw are feted in the veteran songwriters category, and Bellamy is honored in the veteran songwriter-artist category.
During a press conference held the Columbia A Studio in Nashville, Nashville Songwriters Board of Directors chair Rich Hallworth opened the announcement event, while Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame executive director Mark Ford announced this year’s inductees. Ford also revealed that singer-songwriter Brad Paisley is the winner of this year’s contemporary artist/songwriter category, but will be inducted as part of next year’s class, due to a scheduling conflict.
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“This is surreal, absolutely surreal,” Shaw said in reaction to the news. “I love this business. I love the art of songwriting. I’m still stunned and deeply grateful.”
Penn took the stage and said, “It’s a privilege to be inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame alongside so many of my friends.” He added, “I’ve had the blessing of writing with so many talented people here over the years…I’m grateful to be here and proud to be included in such fine company.”
Anderson could not be there in person, but accepted via video. “To be accepted into this group is such a privilege,” Anderson said.
Rose was not in attendance, but said via video, “Wow, I’m really blown away. Thank you so much to the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame. This is really sinking in right now and I’m so sad that I’m not there. I’m out of town writing songs. I’m really excited to be in this amazing group of the best songwriters in the world.”
Bellamy, known for his songwriting craft and for his work with his brother Howard as part of The Bellamy Brothers, took the stage, saying, “I’m still in shock. Thank you so much. I have to thank Howard because he was probably the best sounding board for a songwriter. He’ll tell you if he doesn’t like something. He’s always been critical of my work and it’s made it better.” Bellamy wrote many of the songs he recorded with his brother, including their signature 1979 track “If I Said You Had a Beautiful Body (Would You Hold It Against Me).”
Among Anderson’s writer credits are Tim McGraw’s “The Cowboy in Me,” Carlene Carter’s “Every Little Thing,” Trisha Yearwood’s “Powerful Thing” and “Trip Around the Sun,” recorded by Jimmy Buffett & Martina McBride. Shaw’s credits include “The River,” recorded by Garth Brooks, the Ricky Martin/Christina Aguilera collab “Nobody Wants to Be Lonely,” and John Michael Montgomery’s “I Love The Way You Love Me.” Rose earned her first hit in 2004 with Gary Allan’s “Songs About Rain” and then worked with then-newcomer Taylor Swift to craft songs including “Tim McGraw,” “Teardrops on My Guitar” and “White Horse,” with Rose’s credits also including Carrie Underwood’s “Cry Pretty” and Little Big Town’s “Girl Crush.” Penn’s credits include “Do Right Woman, Do Right Man” and “The Dark End of the Street,” among others.
Since its founding in 1970, the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame has honored many of Music City’s top-shelf songcrafters, including Willie Nelson, Dolly Parton, Garth Brooks, Loretta Lynn, Don and Phil Everly and plenty more.
The new group of inductees will be honored during the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame Gala, slated for Nov. 6 at Nashville’s Music City Center, with additional honorees to be announced.
Early in his emergence as a national country artist, Keith Urban assembled a string of singles that reveled in the moment.
“Days Go By,” “Who Wouldn’t Wanna Be Me,” “Somebody Like You,” “Raining on Sunday” and “You’re My Better Half” — some of them from the appropriately named album Be Here — celebrated living life in the present rather than wallowing in the past or stressing about the future. Mastering that is one of the biggest challenges of day-to-day existence in the device-encumbered 21st century. But it has always been a huge hurdle for creators, particularly when business — with its need to plan future marketing and account for past expenses — distracts from making art in the moment.
Urban and fellow composers Kix Brooks, David Lee Murphy, Casey Beathard and Rafe Van Hoy will face an intersection of past, present and future tonight (Oct. 11) when they’re officially inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame. The event at the Music City Center is by definition a celebration that occurs in the moment, but it’s an achievement built on previous accomplishments, and the enshrinement creates a marker that will exist in a permanent future.
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Urban is likely as prepared for that clash of time stamps as is possible, given how often he has encouraged listeners to grab the moment as it arrives. He recognizes the importance of embracing the now as a steppingstone between the established past and the unknown future.
“I like feeling a part of a through line,” he says, “where I’ve come from, how I got to be where I am, but mostly, I’ve always looked forward.”
Finding the glory in a moment is frequently the task at hand in writing hits. Many fans, often when commuting to or from a job they dislike, look to find escape in recordings that help make their present moments better.
Songs that focus on the instant as it passes can certainly accomplish that, though material that draws on the past or imagines a future event can have value in the current moment, too. Figuring out what kind of song to create is frequently a decision best made by reading the room.
“I like those live-in-the-moment kind of things because I try to [live like] that,” Murphy says. “But I look back fondly on things that I’ve done. So I just kind of take them as they come.”
Murphy has indeed created some lasting songs in present tense: His own “Party Crowd,” the Kenny Chesney hit “Living in Fast Forward” and Jason Aldean’s “Big Green Tractor” all focus on events as they unfold. His 1996 hit “The Road You Leave Behind” leans on past childhood lessons to create a worthwhile present, and his Chesney duet, “Everything’s Gonna Be Alright,” applies optimism to future uncertainty.
The other Hall of Fame entrants have similar mixes. Beathard’s “Don’t Blink,” made famous by Chesney, employs a centenarian character whose advice for successful living is to experience each moment while it’s here. The Eric Church co-write “Like a Wrecking Ball” anticipates a rockin’ bedroom in the very near future. And Beathard’s Jeff Bates hit, “The Love Song,” looks back to understand key relationships.
Brooks’ hit list as a writer includes The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s backward-glancing “Modern Day Romance,” Brooks & Dunn’sright-now declaration “Brand New Man” and a celebration of future possibilities, “Only in America.” But he was living in the present when he wrote it.
Brooks remembers that “Only in America” came together after he and songwriters Don Cook and Ronnie Rogers had spent the day four-wheeling. He describes it as “grown men getting corny, just going, ‘God, are we lucky to be born on this part of the planet?’ We complain about our world sometimes, but man, you know, we are blessed to just have been born here. No matter what your background is, the opportunity is there.”
Creating in the present is tricky — yoga and meditation are currently trendy in part because people find it so difficult to tune into what’s happening now. That’s one of the hurdles that makes the songwriting process — and any other creative endeavors — so challenging. Younger songwriters who are just sticking their toes in the water are prone to get distracted by imagining the song’s future as they create it. Veteran writers more often get hung up by their accumulated experience, measuring the current writing session against previous successes and failures.
The now, of course, is all that’s available. Getting rid of the years of clutter from the past is key to making the most of each fleeting moment as it passes.
“A friend of mine said I had beginner’s mind,” notes Urban. “And I think that’s probably what it is, where I truly walk into a studio to make a record, almost thinking, ‘How do I do this? What? How?’ Where I have no real feelings at all that I’ve ever done a record. And it’s not something I have to try to do. It’s just naturally how I feel. It’s a blank canvas, and it feels very fresh and brand new and exhilarating and anxiety-ridden and everything all at once.”
As simple as that sounds, time is a jumble. Even when writing in the present tense, most songs are informed by other time frames. As an example, the biggest hit for the late John Jarrard, who’ll be added to the Hall of Fame as a legacy entry, was arguably George Strait’s “Blue Clear Sky,” which centered on the instant when a single person recognizes their soul mate. But the present has power because it’s informed by past disappointments. And Jarrard quite often mixed time frames. The Collin Raye cut “My Kind of Girl” and Tracy Lawrence’s “Is That a Tear” paired verses grounded in the past with choruses firmly in the current moment, and his John Schneider cut, “What’s a Memory Like You (Doing in a Love Like This),” blends past and present in a troubling haze.
Van Hoy, meanwhile, earned his first hit with George Jones & Tammy Wynette’s“Golden Ring,” a story song that traces a series of present-tense events in the life cycle of a piece of jewelry. His most enduring song — “What’s Forever For,” recorded numerous times before Michael Martin Murphey cut the hit version — is obsessed with the future.
The Hall of Fame inductees have mostly come to terms with that issue. As they celebrate the present moment at the Oct. 11 ceremony, they have enough past experience to recognize the successful futures they created weren’t necessarily shaped by the songs they expected.
“You never know,” Van Hoy says, “which of those are going to connect and hang around.”
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