Alan Jackson, Jelly Roll, Buddy Cannon, Ashley Gorley honored at 7th annual Nashville Songwriter Awards

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Alan Jackson, Buddy Cannon to be honored at 7th annual Nashville Songwriters Awards

“The Painter” named NSAI Song of the Year

by Preshias Harris with additional reporting by Tori Perry

The real stars in Nashville aren’t the world-famous artists singing to thousands of adoring fans from the stages of arenas and stadiums. They are the unsung heroes, virtually unknown to most fans. They are the songwriters, the men and women who truly put the music in Music City

On September 24, the music industry came together to honor some of those unsung heroes at the 7^thannual Nashville Songwriter Awards, presented by City National Bank, at the Ryman Auditorium.

Photo credit: Jason Davis for NSAI

During the performance-filled evening, awards were presented for Song of the Year, Songwriter of the Year and Songwriter-Artist of the Year, in addition to the Kris Kristofferson Lifetime Achievement Award, NSAI President’s Keystone Award and the peer-voted Ten Songs I Wish I’d Written awards.

The show began on a high note with the announcement of NSAI’s 2024 Legendary Song Award bestowed upon “Always On My Mind”, written by Wayne Carson, Johnny Christopher and Mark James, and recorded by Brenda Lee, Gwen McCrae, Elvis Presley and Willie Nelson among others. Attendees were treated to a performance of the song by Amanda Shires.

One of the highlights for me personally was the award of Songwriter of the Year going to fellow Kentuckian Ashley Gorley – for a record eighth time. Ashley has had more than four hundred songs recorded by major artists and has scored more than seventy-nine Number Ones in a unique career that shows no sign of slowing down.

During the presentation, Chris Young performed “Young Love and Saturday Nights” that Ashley co-wrote with Jesse Frasure and Josh Thompson. (The late David Bowie also receives writing credit as it includes a sample from Bowie’s “Rebel, Rebel.”) Nate Smith performed “World on Fire” that he cowrote with Ashley alongside Lindsay Rimes and Taylor Phillips.

Benjy Davis, Kat Higgins and Ryan Larkins received the top honor of the evening with the presentation of the Song of the Year Award for “The Painter,” recorded by Cody Johnson.

Alan Jackson received the Kris Kristofferson Lifetime Achievement Award, bestowed for a lifetime of songwriting achievement to an individual whose works have made a significant contribution to the American Songbook and has inspired the career of others.

In her introductory remarks, Jennifer Turnbow, COO of Nashville Songwriters Association International (NSAI) noted Jackson’s thirty-five Number Ones, nine multi-Platinum albums and described Jackson as “a monolith of country music, both as a songwriter and an artist.”

The NSAI President’s Keystone Award was presented to the iconic songwriter, producer and music publisher Buddy Cannon. 

Introducing Cannon, NSAI President Lee Thomas Miller described him as “a rare treasure” adding, “Since the early 1970s, Buddy has ridden the buses and shared the stages with artists who have gone on to be not just stars but Grand Ole Opry legends. He not only toured with them, he sang and played on many of their records.” Miller stated that Cannon’s “natural sense of leadership” led him to become a publishing executive. Cannon has helped “launch the careers of Shania Twain, Billy Ray Cyrus, Sammy Kershaw, just to name a few,” said Miller.

In his acceptance speech, Cannon recalled his early days in Nashville: “A guy named Mel Tillis heard a demo that I had done with six songs on it and he cut four of the six songs on that demo and signed me to a publishing deal that lasted about twelve years.” Cannon offered special thanks to his songwriting hero, Willie Nelson. “As a matter of fact,” he said, “Tomorrow we’re flying down to Austin to record vocals on our thirtieth album together.” 

An ever-popular segment of the Songwriter Award is the one devoted to “Ten Songs I Wish I’d Written” in which professional songwriter members of NSAI vote for songs would like to have been in their own catalogs.  This year’s songs:

“Handle On You” Written by: Monty Criswell, Parker McCollum (recorded by: Parker McCollum)

“I’m Not Pretty” Written by: Mackenzie Carpenter, Micah Carpenter, Megan Moroney, Ben Williams (recorded by: Megan Moroney)

“Last Night” Written by: John Byron, Ashley Gorley, Charlie Handsome, Jacob Kasher Hindlin (recorded by: Morgan Wallen)

“Man Made A Bar” Written by: Rocky Block, Jordan Dozzi, Larry Fleet, Brett Tyler (recorded by: Eric Church and Morgan Wallen)

“Need A Favor” Written by: Jelly Roll, Austin Nivarel, Joe Ragosta, Rob Ragosta (recorded by: Jelly Roll)

“Next Thing You Know” Written by: Jordan Davis, Greylan James, Chase McGill, Josh Osborne (recorded by: Jordan Davis)

“Pretty Little Poison” Written by: Ryan Beaver, Jared Keim, Warren Zeiders (recorded by: Warren Zeiders)

“Standing Room Only” Written by: Tommy Cecil, Patrick Murphy, Craig Wiseman (recorded by: Tim McGraw)

“Try That In A Small Town” Written by: Kurt Allison, Tully Kennedy, Kelley Lovelace, Neil Thrasher (recorded by: Jason Aldean)

“Where The Wild Things Are” Written by: Randy Montana, Dave Turnbull (recorded by: Luke Combs)

“White Horse” Written by: Chris Stapleton, Dan Wilson (recorded by: Chris Stapleton)

Sharing their thoughts about writing “Need A Favor” writers Austin Nivarel, Joe Ragosta and Rob Ragosta recalled that, at the beginning, everything about the track was wrong, except the line “I need a favor.” They explained: “We never sent it to anybody, we never did anything because it wasn’t what we thought it should be.  It didn’t come together until Jelly came into the equation.  His big thing that he likes to do, he wants the first line of a song to be the moment where people immediately feel.  We had that line at the end of the chorus in the original version.  Jelly comes in and says, that’s the song. It was an ‘aha’ moment.  Everything went easy after that.”

Jelly Roll was recognized with the Songwriter-Artist of the Year Award.  He was recently named CMA’s “New Artist of the Year” and was nominated for “Best New Artist” at the Grammy Awards. His songs frequently share pieces of his difficult past.

Prior to the ceremony, I took the opportunity to catch up with many of the attendees on the red carpet. 

Ashley Gorley told me that there was something special about “Young Love And Saturday Nights” that Chris Young was going to sing later that evening.  “I think I had the second song he ever put out back in the day,” Ashley recalled, “We’ve had some hits and some cuts but we’d never had a Number One [together], so we actually hung out in town for about fifteen minutes last week and celebrated when this one went to Number One.” Ashley added, “It’s so amazing, how long we’ve been at it and people not kicking us out!”

Parker McCollum’s song “Handle On You” the Platinum single that he recorded and cowrote with Monty Criswell was voted one of the “Ten Songs I Wish I’d Written.” On the red carpet, I asked Parker to name some of his accomplishments this year.

“Probably getting to be here!” he said.  “The Songwriter Awards, I think, are the ones that hold the most weight. They don’t get so much publicity, probably, as they’re not on national television, but they mean a lot to me and this is my first one. So, as a songwriter, to be invited is pretty special.” Parker then added, “I’m not sure you could consider it an accomplishment, but I became a dad at the beginning of August so it’s hard for anything to top that!”

Mackenzie Carpenter and Ben Williams stopped by to talk to me about writing “I’m Not Pretty” with Micah Carpenter and Megan Moroney who released the song in August 2023. Mackenzie described the experience as: “Just getting to be part of writing new music with people that I love, getting to release new music out into the world, playing shows.” She added, “Two years ago I came to this Award Show and I saw Taylor Swift and Garth Brooks perform. Now, two years later, we get to receive an award for a song that we wrote together, it’s really special.”

Echoing Mackenzie’s thoughts, Ben told me: “Just seeing some of the songs that we’ve written – we’ve written a lot of these songs in our living room – reach the other side of the world, Australia, Europe. Everything that’s happening with Megan and her career. I just feel really fortunate and blessed.”

NSAI President’s Keystone Award recipient Buddy Cannon shared with me that one of the highlights of his long career has been getting to work with Willie Nelson. “I’ve produced thirty albums for him and we’ve been writing songs together,” he said, “And I would have to say there have been a lot of highlights but it would be hard to top that one for me.”

I asked Ryan Larkins how it felt to be honored as a cowriter of the Song Of The Year for “The Painter,” the Number One song recorded by Cody Johnson. “I can’t believe it,” he said excitedly. “It’s a dream come true. It doesn’t feel real and I’m just soaking it all up.” Ryan’s current single, “Home State” was released September 13. 

Greylan James was on the red carpet before being honored alongside co-writers Jordan Davis, Chase McGill and Josh Osborne for “Next Thing You Know,” recorded by Jordan Davis, one of the Ten Songs I Wish I’d Written. Greylan wanted to give a shout out to his buddy Ron Stuve, Vice President of A&R at UMPG who signed him to Universal Publishing. “Before then I’d been dropped by my first two publishing deals and I was inclined to be a paint salesman at Home Depot,” said Greylan. “But Ron was like, ‘You don’t need to be doing that. Let me sign you over here at Universal.’ He believed in my songs and just gave me the leash to go figure out how to be bad, to be so bad that I had to figure out how to be good! He gave me the opportunity to stay in Nashville.  It’s finding someone who believes in you and gives you that opportunity to decide what kind of songwriter, what kind of artist you want to be in Nashville.”

I asked Lee Brice about his motivation to become a songwriter and a singer. He said it started when he was ten years old. “I was sitting in class thinking, one day I want to find a really pretty girl and I want her to be the love of my life and I’ll want to write a song for her, so I thought I’d better start writing songs – and I did.  All I ever wanted to do was write a song for my girl, surprise her on our wedding day, have it be on the radio, win awards, be on the CMAs and so on, make her feel like a princess. That was all I really wanted. To this day I just get on stage, just me and a piano, and I just sing to her every night.” Lee’s inspiration? His longtime girlfriend and now wife Sara, the mother of their three children.

At NSAI they say, “It all begins with a song.” And the Nashville Songwriter Awards shine the spotlight on the unsung heroes that make it happen.

As Blake Shelton said during a party celebrating five of his Number One hits in 2015: “I’m literally nothing, I don’t even exist, without these songwriters who write songs for me.”  Yes, the recording artists recognize the vital role played by the wordsmiths who craft the songs, even if they are largely unknown to the general public.

NSAI’s Nashville Songwriter Awards will return for the 8th annual ceremony on September 23rd, 2025 to Ryman Auditorium.  More about NSAI here. https://www.nashvillesongwriters.com