2017 ‘MusicRow’ Awards Winners Revealed

MusicRow honored the songwriters, publishers and artists behind some of the year’s top hits and breakthrough songs during the 29th annual subscriber-voted MusicRow Awards on Wednesday, June 28, during a private ceremony hosted for the first time by SESAC, and sponsored by Anderson Benson insurance in the CMA’s event space.

Winners included producer Jay Joyce, who earned his second MusicRow Award win in this category for his work with Eric Church, Brandy Clark, Little Big Town, Carrie Underwood, Brothers Osborne, Devin Dawson, LANCO, The Wild Feathers, and more.

Eleven all-star musicians were honored for their work on the most Billboard Top 10 album credits in eight categories over the past 12 months. Winners included: Jimmie Lee Sloas (bass), Justin Niebank (engineer), Aubrey Haynie (fiddle), Ilya Toshinskiy (guitar), Charles Judge (Keyboards), Russell Terrell (vocals) and a tie for Fred Eltringham and Greg Morrow (guitar), and Dan Dugmore, Paul Franklin and Russ Pahl (steel).

Maren Morris, who has previously earned MusicRow‘s Breakthrough Songwriter honor, was honored this year as Breakthrough Artist, while Lauren Alaina was honored with MusicRow’s inaugural Artist-Writer category, for co-writing her first Top 10 hit, the No. 1 single, “Road Less Traveled.”

Parallel Music Publishing’s Jesse Lee was honored as this year’s Breakthrough Songwriter.

This year’s MusicRow Awards recognized Song of the Year “Blue Ain’t Your Color,” recorded by Keith Urban and written by Hillary Lindsey, Clint Lagerberg and Steven Lee Olsen.

The 2017 MusicRow Awards June/July print issue was also revealed at the ceremony. The new issue features SESAC’s Kelli Turner and Dennis Lord, with the Creative Services team on the cover.