2025 Nashville Songwriter Awards honor the best of the best

Related Stories

Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame Gala honors ‘Class of 2024’

Alabama, Ashley Gorley, Brenda Lee, Matthew West, Josh Phillips’ “Dirt Cheap” among honorees

Is there such a word as “fourpeat”? If not, the word should be invented for songwriter extraordinaire Ashley Gorley. Last year, it was a threepeat as he took home the Songwriter of the Year for the third year in a row. At the 2025 Nashville Songwriter Awards, held Tuesday, September 23, 2025 at the Ryman Auditorium, Gorley scored his fourth consecutive win in the Songwriter of the Year category – and his ninth win overall in addition to having been hailed as Songwriter of the Decade, 1010 – 2019.  Before the show, on the red carpet, Ashley talked to me about his “momentous” year. See his remarks, below.

The Nashville Songwriter Awards are produced by Nashville Songwriters Association International (NSAI) and take place every September presented by City National Bank and other supporting partners.

• PHOTO: Ashley Gorley (left) and Alabama’s Randy Owen meet up on the red carpet. Photo credit: Kayla Slater

The Song of the Year Award went to “Dirt Cheap,” written by Josh Phillips, the Sanford, SC, native who was voted one of MusicRow’s 2022 Songwriters to Watch. In addition to Cody Johnson’s hit recording of “Dirt Cheap” (originally intended for Luke Combs) Josh has cuts on more than 100 major artists.

Known and loved by fans worldwide, “I Will Always Love You,” written by Dolly Parton was honored with the Legendary Song Award. 

Perennial fan favorites (and dear friends of mine) Alabama received the Kris Kristofferson Lifetime Achievement Award, given in recognition to a songwriter whose works have made a significant contribution to the American songbook and who has inspired the careers of others. Alabama’s Randy Owen was on hand to accept the Award on behalf of his bandmates, Teddy Gentry who was unable to attend due to illness, and the late Jeff Cook. Kris’ widow, Lisa Kristofferson made the presentation. 

The Artist-Songwriter of the Year Award was presented to Matthew West, the only Christian artist to win the Award twice, in 2022 and again this year. Matthew has charted 38 No. 1 songs among his 275+ writing credits. On the red carpet – see below – Matthew shared some of the blessings that 2025 has brought him.

An emotional highlight of the evening was the presentation of the President’s Keystone Award to Brenda Lee who scored her first Billboard hit at the age of 12 in 1957 but had been singing since the age of nine. The Award recognizes special individuals for their contributions to the betterment of all songwriters, chosen by the current NSAI President. Trisha Yearwood led the audience in a performance of “Sweet Nothin’s”, one of Lee’s early hits. Receiving the award, Brenda said, “This is really such an honor for me because of the people that are giving me this. The songwriters have been the backbone of everything I’ve done.”

A unique aspect of Nashville Songwriter Awards is the section devoted to “Ten Songs I Wish I’d Written.” Each year, these highly-coveted Awards are voted on by Professional Songwriter Members of NSAI honoring the work of their songwriter peers. Songs eligible for the award have at least one Nashville-based writer and charted in the Top 20 of Billboard Airplay chart in the Christian, Country, Mainstream Top 40, and/or Rock genres between May 1, 2024, and April 30, 2025. The NSAI Song Of The Year is the highest vote-getter. See a complete list of the ten songs and the writing credits here at NSAI’s website.

Before the show, on the red carpet, I talked with fellow Kentuckian, Ashley Gorley who has now racked up his unprecedented 85th No. 1 single at Country Radio. I asked Ashley about being inducted into the National Songwriters Hall of Fame in New York earlier this year.

“That New York trip and the Songwriters Hall of Fame, overall, that was insane!” he said, shaking his head in disbelief. “And in my first year of eligibility, that was nuts. It’s going to be hard to top that! We had three tables of people there for that. It was really cool and I love to represent Nashville in that space where it’s not just Country.” 

He then stipulated, “I love the Nashville Awards, they’re the best. This is a great night, but to be the ‘Nashville dude’ among the Beach Boys, the Doobie Brothers, George Clinton, it definitely didn’t feel like I should be there, but to be the Country writer in the mix there, I think that’s really cool.”

I had a chance to catch up with Drew Baldridge on the red carpet and we talked about “She’s Somebody’s Daughter (Reimagined)” that he co-wrote with Cameron James and Jimmy Yeary and was one of this year’s Ten Songs I Wish I’d Written. 

“It’s just been a long journey for us and this song especially, ‘She’s Somebody’s Daughter.” It’s been out for six years, and I wrote this back when I met my wife’s dad and I just wrote it for them.  We had it on an old record label and that label closed its doors almost as soon as we put this song out and I thought, ‘well, that’s done.’ But I believed in the song. Fast-forward a couple of years later, me and my wife got married and I made a special version just so she could dance to it with her dad. The next week I posted it on social media and that’s when we woke up and we had almost ten million views on it. I thought, ‘man, record labels are going to be calling!’ Nobody did! I had meetings and things and I don’t blame them. They were saying, ‘We’ve known you for ten years. You’ve been here. You’ve had four singles you’ve put out that didn’t work. What makes this different?’ I said, ‘I’m telling you this song is special and I’ve been watching it mean a lot to a lot of people.’ We just never gave up on it because I believe in it. Me and my wife, we created our own record label and I sent this song to radio by myself on a prayer, just hoping we’d get Top Forty. I never dreamed that doing that would lead us to doing one of ‘the Ten Songs I Wish I’d Written.’ 

Drew’s persistence paid off. In addition to this peer-voted accolade, “She Somebody’s Daughter (Reimagined)” peaked at number three on Billboard’s Country Airplay and 29 on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart. He noted that he finally got a tour bus this year.

“It’s very exciting,” he admitted. “After I was in a van for twelve years and drove myself for hundreds of thousands of miles. Now to have a bus and traveling in a very unique way and to be in a tour with other artists that I never dreamed of having this opportunity again. So I could count lots of blessings this year.”

I asked Matthew West – before he received his Songwriter-Artist of the Year Award – what was his happiest moment of the year.

“That’s a great question,” he replied. “My oldest daughter went on a six-month mission trip to third-world countries so the happiest moment for me was when she came home. She had suffered a very serious illness so I’m thanking God these days that her health is on the mend and that she’s here tonight to celebrate. So having my daughters and my wife here tonight, and maybe by the end of this year I’ll probably look back at this night and go, ‘that might have been the best night of the year.’”

Matthew said that so many neat things had happened in his life this year. “You could see certain songs you’d created that maybe get the chance to see the light of day and hopefully impact people,” he explained. “There’s just so many different moments throughout this past year where I go, ‘Wow! That was really special’ and it turned out to be even more special than I intended because God had bigger plans.” 

During the evening, Lukas Nelson performed “Loving Her Was Easier (Than Anything I’ll Ever Do Again)” to honor Kris Kristofferson. On the red carpet I asked Lukas what has been the best thing about working with his father, Willie Nelson. 

“Everything, really!” he said.  “Being able to share this life with him that he gave me, to work together at what we love. There’s nothing better than that. He’s a kind soul.”

Lukas noted that he thinks of his voice as a wind instrument that needs to be kept in tune. “That’s why I quit drinking and smoking, because I have to keep my throat good,” he told me. 

• Make a note in your calendar: The date of the 2026 Nashville Songwriter Awards is Tuesday, September 22, 2026.

Established in 1967, The Nashville Songwriters Association International (NSAI) is the world’s largest not-for-profit songwriters trade association consisting of thousands of professional and developing songwriters from all genres. NSAI maintains the steadfast commitment, set by its founding songwriters, to protect the rights and future of the profession of songwriting and to educate, elevate and celebrate the songwriter. With more than 90 chapters throughout the U.S. and beyond, NSAI acts as a unifying force within the music community and the community at large.