BMI will celebrate the incredible songwriting career of Tom T. Hall by naming him a BMI Icon at the company’s 60th annual Country Awards. The private ceremony will be held on Tues., Oct. 30 at BMI’s Music Row offices in Nashville.

The BMI Icon award is given to songwriters who have had a “unique and indelible influence on generations of music makers.” At the ceremony an all-star musical tribute will pay homage to Hall, and BMI will crown the Country Songwriter, Song and Publisher of the Year. The writers and publishers of the past year’s 50 most-performed songs from BMI’s country catalog will also be honored. BMI President & CEO Del Bryant will host the ceremony with Jody Williams, BMI Vice President, Writer/Publisher Relations, Nashville; and Clay Bradley, BMI Assistant Vice President, Writer/Publisher Relations, Nashville.

Hall, a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame, is one of the original master craftsmen of country music, a distinct voice who elevated the art form. Nicknamed “The Storyteller,” his songs are vivid vignettes, with sharply drawn characters. As a recording artist, Hall had seven No. 1 singles, all self-penned: “A Week in a Country Jail” (1969–70), “The Year That Clayton Delaney Died” (1971),“(Old Dogs, Children and) Watermelon Wine” (1972–73),” “I Love” (1973–74), “Country Is” (1974), “I Care” (1974–75), and “Faster Horses (the Cowboy and the Poet)” (1976).

The Grammy winner also famously wrote smashes for others, including “Harper Valley P.T.A.,” which Jeannie C. Riley took to No. 1 on country and pop charts in 1968, as well as “The Pool Shark,” a chart-topper for Dave Dudley; “(Margie’s at) the Lincoln Park Inn” and “That’s How I Got to Memphis,” recorded by Bobby Bare; and “Little Bitty,” a mega-hit for Alan Jackson in the late 90s. Hall has earned a total of 31 BMI Awards for songwriting spanning country and pop genres, and six of his songs have accumulated more than one million performances each.

The Kentucky native’s success also spread to Americana and bluegrass. He has collaborated extensively with his wife Miss Dixie, and the Halls were named SPBGMA Songwriter of the Year for 10 consecutive years. It is never surprising to see as many as five or six Hall compositions at a time on the bluegrass charts, several of them reaching No. 1, such as “Bill Monroe For Breakfast,” which Hall recorded himself; a new version of “That’s How I Got To Memphis” by Charlie Sizemore; “Clinch Mountain Mystery” by The Larry Stephenson Band; “Train Songs” by Ralph Stanley II; “Train Without a Track” by Junior Sisk and Rambler’s Choice; and “The Boys In Hats and Ties” by Big Country Bluegrass, just to name a few.

Hall’s personal story is also uniquely tied to BMI: He met Miss Dixie, his wife of 45 years, at the 1965 BMI Country Awards in Nashville.

Past BMI Icons include Bill Anderson, Billy Sherrill, John Fogerty, Kris Kristofferson, Willie Nelson, Isaac Hayes, Merle Haggard, Brian Wilson, Dolly Parton, Loretta Lynn, the Bee Gees, Bobby Braddock, Ray Davies, James Brown and more.

 

When Cameron Strang came on board as Warner/Chappell Music Chairman & CEO in January 2011, he brought an entrepreneurial spirit with him that created a positive shift company wide. That spirit—established while building his own New West Records—has combined with keen strategies for a string of hits across all genres.

With 17.1 percent market share, Warner/Chappell recently secured the No. 1 spot on Billboard’s second quarter Publisher Airplay Chart. Contributing to the tally are stakes in monster pop/rock hits Gotye’s “Somebody That I Used To Know,” fun.’s “We Are Young” and the Wanted’s “Glad You Came.”

On the local front, the Nashville team led by VP/GM Phil May notched a string of nine No. 1 hits in as many months, racking up 15.1 percent of country radio airplay, more than any other publisher in Q2. It is Warner/Chappell’s first time leading Billboard’s country airplay chart since Q3 2010.

“We’re having a really good year, and when we sit back and think about what is working for us, it is two fold,” explained May during a recent interview. “Since Cameron Strang came on board with his entrepreneurial background, he’s really changed the way we operate locally because he empowers us to take A&R risks when we find someone we really believe in, which is fantastic. The second part is that we work and operate as a small company even though we’re a worldwide company. Our decision making process, in deals and especially in relation to signing writers, is very quick.”

In the last several months, May and VP A&R Steve Markland have used this agility and careful planning to ink new writers Dean Alexander, Josh Abbott, Laura Veltz, and duo TJ and John Osborne.

Since taking on their current roles about three years ago, May and Markland have focused on maintaining a roster with the right mix of songwriters. “We’ve worked to keep a balanced roster,” explained May. “We have developing writers and then our veteran hit writers, as well as rising artist writers, which we hope will ultimately get a label deal.” Indeed Alexander and Abbott have signed separate recording agreements with Warner Music Nashville.

Strang elaborated on the company’s initiatives: “At the core of Warner/Chappell’s strategy is an uncompromising commitment to service. We are forging long-term relationships with incredibly talented songwriters, composers and publishing partners, based around their needs in the music publishing business. At the same time, we are building an ambitious team with an entrepreneurial spirit that is completely dedicated to providing superior music publishing services.

“Our recent success in Nashville is a good example of how that vision is paying off. Phil, Steve and the team are well-connected, fast-moving, getting great results for our writers and showing real leadership in the Nashville community.”

Local Warner/Chappell songwriters Wendell Mobley and Michael Dulaney have celebrated multiple No. 1s in recent months. They co-wrote Jason Aldean’s “Tattoos On This Town,” Dulaney penned Aldean’s “Fly Over States” with Neil Thrasher, and Mobley wrote Rascal Flatts’ “Banjo” with Thrasher and Tony Martin.

“It’s great for us when we have multiple writers on a song,” said May, “but the most important thing for us is getting the best songs. Sometimes that’s when one of our writers has a great connection with writers [from other publishing companies]. There are those writing teams that gel well together and that’s one of the things we try to do is find those people for our writers.” To facilitate this, Warner/Chappell often organizes trips or camps with songwriters from different publishing companies.

Among these successful collaborations are Mobley’s numerous hits with Thrasher, and Ben Hayslip’s (Warner/Chappell/This Music) slew of chart-toppers with fellow Peach Pickers Dallas Davidson and Rhett Akins.

Also contributing to Warner/Chappell’s recent string of hits are Dave Haywood and Charles Kelley (“We Owned The Night”), Brett James (“Reality”), Johnny Bulford (“A Woman Like You”), Brantley Gilbert and Jim McCormick (“You Don’t Know Her Like I Do”), and Ashley Gorley, signed with Combustion Music (“Good Girl”).

Elsewhere on the charts are singles by Warner/Chappell writers Sean McConnell, Blair Daly (with Combustion Music), and Tim Nichols and Marv Green (both with This Music).

“From our standpoint the country market is very strong,” continued May. “We’ve had years of decline in terms of record sales. Now we’re doing really well from a performance standpoint, from radio airplay, but that’s why it’s key to have writers that are writing successful, commercial songs that work in the current market on radio.

“We’re also seeing real growth in other markets, whether it is film, TV, or online. On the TV side, the most recent interesting thing for the country market as a whole is the new show Nashville. It’s very well done, and what’s different than other shows is that the producers want the characters on Nashville to be known for their own songs that aren’t already hits by someone else. We are pitching songs to the music supervisors that are uncut songs, which is very rare. They’ve really engaged the Nashville community, instead of just using publishers’ film and TV offices in L.A. Shows like that bring people to our market who we might not otherwise reach. The number of people using music is probably greater than its ever been and that’s a really good trend.”

MusicRow is excited to share three essays from renowned songwriter Marcus Hummon, which are part of his larger collection, Letters to a Young Songwriter. Hummon’s best known hits include Sara Evans’ “Born to Fly,” Tim McGraw’s “One of These Days,” and Dixie Chicks’ “Ready to Run” and “Cowboy Take Me Away.” Hummon and co-writers Bobby Boyd and Jeff Hanna won a 2005 Grammy for Best Country Song for Rascal Flatts’ “Bless The Broken Road.”

by Marcus Hummon

The life of the songwriter is filled with a steady diet of near misses and outright rejection. There’s really no gentle way to put this. I remember when I first headed off to Los Angeles the summer after I graduated from college, I can still see my mother crying as I packed my bags. “You’ve picked a hard life for yourself,” she said. I remember thinking, “poor woman, look how needlessly emotional she is…I’ll be famous in a matter of months!” The reality is that my first major label recording deal was a decade away.

Still, if being persistent, thick-skinned and optimistic to the point of delusional is the currency of the songwriter; then, the pay-off is measured in joy. I am speaking of joy in the work itself, joy in the freedom from the grind of a 9-to-5, joy in the small victories…and, certainly, mardi-gras-like-high-fiving-knee-slapping-joy in the rare case of an outright break!

My first break seemed to drop out of the blue in the shape of an anonymous phone call. I was a few years into my Nashville journey. The call came around Christmas time. It was before my wife and I had kids, meaning we were busy doing whatever the hell we felt like…I was playing the piano on one end of the little shotgun house, and she was busy at the other end of the house. Our phone rang.

“Can you get it honey, I’m kind of closing in on a song here!”
“I’m busy too!”

This was back in the days of answering machines, so the phone clicked, answered, and a voice began to record.
 “Hi, this is Wynonna Judd calling from Los Angeles and your publisher just played me the most beautiful song…” We both ran to the phone and stopped short, exchanging furtive glances as the voice identified as “Wynonna” continued on.

“Pick it up Becca!”
“You pick it up!”
“I’m not going to pick it up.”

Wy went on to comment that she loved this particular song, and was surprised to be in LA listening to the work of a Nashville songwriter, and she hoped we could meet and she could hear more of my music…and then, “sorry you’re not home, and God bless!” 
CLICK.

It was a terrible sound, that…”click!” It was the sound of my lucky break slipping through my fingers and shattering beneath me on the floor. It was the sound of a door slamming on my career! 
So I decided to go to the office of MCA Records, Wynonna’s label at the time, and sit in the waiting room every day until she finally happened to walk in. Then, I would remind her of the phone call, and her love of my song, and her interest in my catalogue, and I would become Jimmy Webb to her Glen Campbell, and supply her with a steady stream of hit songs!

Actually, I just hoped that the nice lady at the MCA Records front desk would take pity on me and not have me forcibly removed from the premises.

Murphy’s Law prevails in the music business, but every now and then, the universe makes an exception. Just for an instant, a door opens somewhere and you have to be ready to walk through it.

On Day Two of my vigil, Wynonna did indeed walk into the offices of MCA Records, and I introduced myself. She remembered me, and the phone call and the song, and was as good as her word cutting “Only Love” on her second solo LP, Tell Me Why. Superstar producer Tony Brown even invited me to play the acoustic guitar on the track alongside the brilliant Don Potter. Surfing a wave of serendipity, “Only Love” (written with Roger Murrah) went on to become a single, go No. 1 on the R & R chart, feature a seductive video where Wynonna kissed her on-screen Latin lover, and receive a Grammy nomination.

The day it went No. 1, I remember that it was raining and I was cutting a demo session on the Row. When I got word of the song’s hitting the top of the chart I calmly excused myself, and stepped outside the studio, and then just started running…nowhere in particular. I was running for the pure joy of it.

I found a pay phone and called my Mom and Dad. Soaked to the bone I gave them my good news and I remember my Dad saying something like, “well, no one can ever take it away from you.” (It had never occurred to me that someone would take it away from me) I was lost in the pleasure of the moment…of beating the odds…of hearing above the chorus of “no’s,” one glorious, soaring “yes!”

Since that day, 20 years ago, there have been only a few moments of comparable professional joy, but there have been chapters filled with close calls and disappointments. Still, I have not forgotten the magic of that first breakthrough.

I am still celebrating.