NASHVILLE, TN (BMI) -- BMI, the first home for country music, was also the first to honor the genre's songwriters and publishers with its own awards show in 1953. The tradition turned a healthy 54 years old this year as the BMI Country Awards were held Saturday, Nov. 4 at the performing right organization's
Music Row offices. BMI President & CEO Del Bryant and Jody Williams, Vice President of Writer/Publisher Relations, Nashville, hosted the black-tie ceremony and presented Certificates of Achievement to the writers and publishers of the past year's 50 most-performed country songs in the BMI repertoire.
Toby Keith's hit "As Good As I Once Was," co-written by Keith and Scotty Emerick, was named Song of the Year. Keith also shared his third Songwriter of the Year crown with Ed Hill and Vicky McGehee, while Sony/ATV Music Publishing Nashville snagged Publisher of the Year honors for the fifth consecutive year. The capstone of the evening took the form of the Icon tribute to Merle Haggard, featuring performances by Martina McBride, John Anderson and Hank Williams Jr.
"As Good As I Once Was" landed the 38th Robert J. Burton Award for Most Performed Country Song of the Year for co-writers Keith and Emerick, along with publishers Big Yellow Dog Music, Florida Cracker Music, Sony/ATV Tree and Tokeco Tunes.
McGehee, Hill and Keith form the three-way tie for Country Songwriter of the Year, as each lays claim to three of the top 50 award-winning songs. In the past year, McGehee's hits included "All Jacked Up," "Hicktown" and "Like We Never Loved At All," while songwriting veteran Ed Hill's hits this year included, "Georgia Rain," "Somebody's Hero" and "Songs About Me," earning him his first BMI Songwriter of the Year title. Country superstar Toby Keith added a third BMI Songwriter of the Year crown to his collection with the hits "Big Blue Note," "HonkyTonk U" and "As Good As I Once Was."
With 17 songs among this year's top 50, Sony/ATV Music Publishing Nashville (through its companies Sony/ATV Acuff Rose, Sony/ATV Songs LLC and Sony/ATV Tree) picked up its fifth consecutive Publisher of the Year win. The publishing powerhouse accumulated the highest percentage of copyright ownership thanks to award songs like "Believe," "Class Reunion (That Used To Be Us)," "Do You Want Fries with That," "God's Will," "Lot of Leavin' Left to Do," "Me and Charlie Talking," "My Give A Damn's Busted," "Nobody But Me," "Play Something Country," "She Don't Tell Me To" and "She Let Herself Go."
Haggard's numbers are staggering: 48 BMI Country Awards, nine BMI Pop Awards, a BMI R&B Award, and 16 BMI "Million-Air" awards for hits like "Big City," "The Fightin' Side of Me," "I Had A Beautiful Time," "Mama Tried," "Okie From Muskogee," "Today I Started Loving You Again" and "Workin' Man Blues," all from a catalog of songs that adds up to over 25 million performances and illustrates the legend's genre-bending mastery. A total of six CMA awards, 17 ACM awards, two Grammys and a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award are also credited to the artist dubbed the "Poet of the Common Man."
The 2006 BMI Country Awards also honored songwriters Brett Beavers, Ronnie Dunn, Scotty Emerick, Aimee Mayo, Terry McBride, Tom Shapiro, Shaye Smith, Jeffrey Steele, George Teren, Keith Urban and Phillip White, who each supplied two songs to the top 50 list. "Goodbye Time," co-written by Roger Murrah and James Dean Hicks, earned its second BMI Country Award this year. Joe South's "(I Never Promised You A) Rose Garden," 1971's Country Song of the Year, won its seventh award this year thanks to Martina McBride's recent version. Lynn Anderson's 1970 version collected the song's first six awards.
Publishers winning three or more awards were Big Yellow Dog, Careers-BMG Music Publishing, EMI-Blackwood Music, Inc., Music of Stage Three, Sagrabeaux Songs, Songs of Windswept Pacific, Tokeco Tunes and Warner-Tamerlane Publishing Corp.
Broadcast Music, Inc.® (BMI) is an American performing right organization that represents more than 300,000 songwriters, composers and publishers in all genres of music. Celebrating over 65 years in business, BMI represents a repertoire of more than 6.5 million musical works from around the world. The non-profit-making corporation collects license fees from businesses that use music, which it then distributes as royalties to the musical creators and copyright owners whose works have been performed.
A complete list of 2006 BMI Country Awards winners is available at www.bmi.com. High-resolution photos from the event will be available to registered users only at www.press.bmi.com. To request access, please contact [email protected].
