15 Nominated For Nashville Songwriters Hall Of Fame FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT:   Karen Byrd                  Karen Byrd Public Relations                  615-595-1500                  Karen.byrd@gmail.com    NASHVILLE SONGWRITERS HALL OF FAME  ANNOUNCES FIFTEEN NOMINEES FOR 2008   Hall of Fame Induction and Dinner Scheduled for October 26   NASHVILLE, TENN.  (June 13, 2008 ????) — Ten songwriters and five songwriter/artists have been nominated for one of the nation's highest songwriting honors – induction into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame.  Of the nominees, two from the songwriter category and one from the songwriter/artist category will be inducted during the annual Hall of Fame Dinner and Induction Ceremony to be held on Sunday, October 26, at the Renaissance Nashville Hotel. "Each of these nominees has honed the songwriting craft to perfection, and the songs they’ve given us are absolute treasures," said Roger Murrah, a 2005 inductee and current chair of the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame Foundation (NaSHOF), which owns and administers the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame. The slate of nominees, divided into Songwriter and Songwriter/Artist categories, seeks to recognize songwriters whose first significant works achieved commercial success and/or artistic recognition at least 20 years ago and who have “positively impacted and been closely associated with the Nashville music community and deemed to be outstanding and significant.”     This year’s ten nominees in the Songwriter category are:  Matraca Berg (“Strawberry Wine” by Deana Carter), Paul Craft (“Hank Williams, You Wrote My Life” by Moe Bandy), Kye Fleming (“I Was Country When Country Wasn’t Cool” by Barbara Mandrell), Larry Henley ("The Wind Beneath My Wings" by Bette Midler), the late John Jarrard ("Blue Clear Sky" by George Strait), Bob Morrison ("You Decorated My Life" by Kenny Rogers), Mark D. Sanders (“I Hope You Dance” by Lee Ann Womack), Tom Shapiro (“Ain't Nothing 'Bout You” by Brooks & Dunn), John Scott Sherrill (“Would You Go With Me” by Josh Turner) and Sharon Vaughn (“My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys” by Willie Nelson). The five nominees in the Songwriter/Artist category are:  the late Paul Davis (“I Go Crazy”), Larry Gatlin (“All The Gold in California”), John Hiatt (“Ridin' With the King”), the late Johnny Horton (“Honky Tonk Man”) and Tony Joe White (“Rainy Night in Georgia”). (Biographical information on the nominees is available on this page following this release.) The ballot was recommended to the board by the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame Foundation (NaSHOF) Nominating Committee, which is comprised of Hall of Fame members and Music Row historians.  Votes are cast by Hall of Fame members, Professional Songwriter members of the Nashville Songwriters Association International (NSAI), and the boards of the NaSHOF and NSAI. Established in 1970, the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame boasts 168 members, including songwriting luminaries such as Johnny Cash, Rodney Crowell, Bob Dylan, Don & Phil Everly, Flatt & Scruggs, Vince Gill, Harlan Howard, Roger Miller, Bill Monroe, Roy Orbison, Dolly Parton, Carl Perkins, Dottie Rambo, Jimmie Rodgers, Cindy Walker, Jimmy Webb, Hank Williams Sr. and Hank Williams Jr.  It was announced in September 2007 that the future home of the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame will be the historic building at 34 Music Square East, former home of the Quonset Hut, Columbia Studio A, Columbia and Epic Records and Sony Music Nashville.  The Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame will become the first organization honoring songwriters to emerge from a virtual entity to one with a physical location. The Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame Foundation, Inc. is a non-profit foundation that owns and operates the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame. The NaSHOF’s principal purposes are to educate, archive, celebrate and honor the legacy of songwriting that is uniquely associated with the Nashville music community.   # # #

2008 Nominees For The Nashville Songwriters Hall Of Fame (NOTE: This information is embargoed until 11:30 a.m. Wednesday, June 17, 2008.) 2008 NOMINEES FOR THE NASHVILLE SONGWRITERS HALL OF FAME - SONGWRITER CATEGORY - Nashville native Matraca Berg was still a teenager when she had her first hit as a songwriter.  “Faking Love” became a #1 smash for T.G. Sheppard & Karen Brooks in 1982.  Later a recording artist herself for RCA in 1990-94 and Rising Tide in 1997-98, Berg is one of BMI’s most prolific contemporary writers and has collected more than a dozen of the organization’s Country songwriting awards.  She is particularly notable for providing massive hits for female Country artists, such as Deanna Carter (“Strawberry Wine” – NSAI Song of the Year in 1996; CMA Song and Single of the Year in 1997), Reba McEntire (“The Last One To Know”), Patty Loveless (“I’m That Kind Of Girl” and “You Can Feel Bad”), Trisha Yearwood (“Wrong Side Of Memphis”), Martina McBride (“Wild Angels”), the Dixie Chicks (“If I Fall You’re Going Down With Me”) and Gretchen Wilson (“I Don’t Feel Like Loving You Today”) among others. Memphis-born Paul Craft has a special niche in the Nashville songwriting community.  He is one of Music Row’s most prolific providers of songs to the Bluegrass world.  Among his 200 cuts in that genre are recordings by stellar artists such as Earl Scruggs, Ralph Stanley, The Lewis Family and The Nashville Bluegrass Band.  The Osborne Brothers have recorded 10 Craft tunes; the Seldom Scene have recorded nine.  In addition to creating wickedly humorous fare such as “It’s Me Again, Margaret” (Ray Stevens) and Country hits such as “Blue Heartache” (Gail Davies), “Brother Jukebox” (Mark Chesnutt) and “Come As You Were” (T. Graham Brown), Craft is one of only four songwriters to have a pair of solely-written songs nominated for a Best Country Song Grammy in the same year.  He accomplished that feat in 1977 with “Dropkick Me, Jesus” (Bobby Bare) and “Hank Williams, You Wrote My Life” (Moe Bandy).  Craft’s catalog also contains several “standards” that have never become hit singles: “Midnight Flyer,” “Keep Me From Blowing Away” and “Teardrops Will Kiss The Morning Dew.” A “Navy brat” from Arkansas, Rhonda Kye Fleming started writing songs at 14 and spent her early 20s on the Folk-music circuit performing original material.  In 1977, she signed with Pi Gem Music as a staff writer.  She and another young songwriter, Dennis Morgan, started collaborating, and their catalog reads like a Country music-greatest hits package of the ’70s and ’80s: “Years,” “Sleeping Single In A Double Bed” and “I Was Country When Country Wasn’t Cool” (Barbara Mandrell) “Smoky Mountain Rain” and “I Wouldn’t Have Missed It For The World” (Ronnie Milsap), “Roll On Mississippi” (Charley Pride), as well as BMI’s 1983 Country Song of the Year “Nobody” (Sylvia).  Fleming was NSAI Songwriter of the Year in 1981 & 1982.  She was BMI Country Songwriter of the Year in 1980, 1982 & 1983.  She was BMI Pop Songwriter of the Year in 1981 & 1982.  In 1987, her “Give Me Wings” (Michael Johnson) was named Billboard’s Country Song of the Year.  With more than 45 BMI awards — 10 of them earning Million-Air status — she is one of the most-awarded songwriters in Country music history. Texas native Larry Henley is one of only a handful of Music City composers to win a Grammy for Song of the Year (in 1989 for “The Wind Beneath My Wings,” featured in the 1988 film Beaches).  Henley is also distinctive in that he has had major success on both the Country and Pop charts.  He first achieved fame in the 1960s Pop group The Newbeats.  His falsetto was unforgettable on discs like “Bread And Butter” (1964) and “Run Baby Run” (1965).  By the 1970s he was forging a second career as a songwriter in Nashville with hits such as “If It’s All Right With You” (Dottie West) and “The World Needs A Melody” (the Carter Family w/ Johnny Cash), followed by “’Til I Get It Right” (Tammy Wynette), “Lizzie And The Rainman” (Tanya Tucker), “He’s A Heartache (Looking For A Place To Happen)” (Janie Fricke) and “Is It Still Over?” (Randy Travis).  In addition to the Grammy, “The Wind Beneath My Wings” was the ACM’s 1983 Song of the Year and the CMA’s 1984 Song of the Year.  Henley was NSAI Songwriter of the Year in 1983. A native of Gainesville, Ga., John Jarrard moved to Nashville in 1977 to pursue his songwriting career.  As a result of his severe diabetes, Jarrard was blind by 1979.  Nevertheless, he became a familiar figure on Music Row, negotiating its streets on foot with the use of a cane.  His determination never failed, and he started getting his songs recorded in 1982-83.  During the 1980s and 1990s, he co-wrote 16 Top-10 hits for artists such as Don Williams (“Nobody But You”), Alabama (“There’s No Way” and “You’ve Got The Touch”), John Schneider (“What’s A Memory Like You (Doin’ In A Love Like This)”), Diamond Rio (“Mirror, Mirror”), John Anderson (“Money In The Bank”), BlackHawk (“I Sure Can Smell The Rain”) and George Strait (“Blue Clear Sky”).  Of his 161 ASCAP-registered songs, well more than half were recorded, which is an impressive percentage.  Jarrard was a staff writer for Alabama’s publishing company and the superstar group recorded a number of his songs.  Jarrard died of complications from diabetes on February 1, 2001, in Nashville. After graduating from Mississippi State University in 1965 with a degree in nuclear engineering, Biloxi native Bob Morrison decided to abandon that career path to pursue music.  He moved to Nashville in 1973, signed with Combine Music and was having his songs recorded regularly a year later.  In 1980, Morrison won a Best Country Song Grammy for “You Decorated My Life” (Kenny Rogers).  That was also the year of Urban Cowboy, whose theme song was Morrison’s “Lookin’ For Love” (Johnny Lee).  The movie’s love theme, “Love The World Away” as sung by Rogers, was also a Morrison tune.  Other highlights from Morrison’s catalog include “You’re The One” (The Oak Ridge Boys), “The Love She Found In Me” (Gary Morris), “Don’t Call Him A Cowboy” (Conway Twitty), “Whiskey, If You Were A Woman” (Highway 101) and “Tonight The Heartache’s On Me” (Dixie Chicks).  Morrison was ASCAP’s Country Songwriter of the Year in 1978, 1980, 1981 and 1982.  He was NSAI Songwriter of the Year in 1980.  California native Mark D. Sanders was a literature major in college, which might explain his penchant for story songs.  He taught high school on the West Coast, but one of his early jobs in Music City included driving a tourist bus around Twitty City.  His career skyrocketed in the early 1990s thanks to hits by Diamond Rio (“Mirror, Mirror”), Tracy Lawrence (“Runnin’ Behind”) and John Anderson (“Money In The Bank”).  Sanders was NSAI Songwriter of the Year in 1995 and 1996 and ASCAP Country Songwriter of the Year in 1997.  His “No News” (by Lonestar) was ASCAP’s 1996 Country Song of the Year.  His “I Hope You Dance” (by Lee Ann Womack) was 2000 Song of the Year for NSAI, the ACM and the CMA, earned a 2000 Grammy for Best Country Song, became ASCAP’s 2001 Country Song of the Year and inspired a book.  Other Sanders songs have garnered hit singles for artists such as George Strait (“Blue Clear Sky”), Ricochet (“Daddy’s Money”), Jo Dee Messina (“Heads Carolina, Tails California”), Trace Adkins (“No Thinkin’ Thing”) and Alan Jackson (“That’d Be Alright”).  A native of Kansas City, Mo., Tom Shapiro began his songwriting career in Los Angeles. After earning a music degree from Boston University and briefly teaching at Berklee, he moved to the West Coast in 1974.  After some initial success in R&B with “Never Give Up On A Good Thing” by George Benson, Shapiro relocated to Nashville in 1982 and shifted his focus to Country songwriting.  Since then he has had more than 50 Top-10 hits with artists such as Ronnie McDowell (“In A New York Minute”), Tanya Tucker (“Highway Robbery”), Lee Greenwood (“Touch And Go Crazy”), Holly Dunn (“Are You Ever Gonna Love Me”), Neal McCoy (“Wink” – 1995 BMI Country Song of the Year), Sara Evans (“No Place That Far”), Brooks & Dunn (“Ain’t Nothing ’Bout You” – 2002 ASCAP Country Song of the Year), Trace Adkins (“Hot Mama”) and Montgomery Gentry (“She Don’t Tell Me To”).  Shapiro was BMI Country Songwriter of the Year in 1993, 1996, 1997 and 2002.  NSAI named him Songwriter of the Decade for the 1990s.  He was Music Row magazine’s Songwriter of the Year in 1995. John Scott Sherrill was born in New York City but grew up north of the metropolis in Mount Kisko, N.Y.  Dropping out of college, he became a Folk singer in Boston, then a performer in a hippie band that played northeastern colleges.  In 1975, he decided to travel to California, stopping in Nashville en route.  When his van broke down in Music City, he stayed.  He scored his first hit when Johnny Lee released “When You Fall In Love” in 1982.  Working with a variety of collaborators, Sherrill has seldom been off the charts since.  Among his 14 BMI-awarded songs are “Wild And Blue” (John Anderson), “Some Fools Never Learn” (Steve Wariner), “Just Say Yes” (Highway 101), “The Church On Cumberland Road” (Shenandoah) and “No Man’s Land” (John Michael Montgomery).  His “Nothin’ But The Wheel” has been recorded by Country’s Patty Loveless, the Bluegrass band Special Consensus and the Rock duo of Peter Wolf & Mick Jagger.  In the late 1980s, Sherrill was a member of the Country group Billy Hill.  Among his most recent successes are “How Long Gone” (Brooks & Dunn) and “Would You Go With Me” (Josh Turner). Florida native Sharon Vaughn was originally brought to Nashville by Mel Tillis, who had heard her singing in a club in Orlando.  On Music Row, she sang background vocals for legends such as Porter Wagoner, Dolly Parton and B.J. Thomas, as well as jingles for Kentucky Fried Chicken, Coca-Cola and United Airlines.  Her first notable success as a writer, however, occurred in 1976 when Waylon Jennings recorded “My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys” on Wanted: The Outlaws, Country’s first Platinum LP.  Her first hit as a writer came with the Oak Ridge Boys 1977 smash “Y’all Come Back Saloon.”  Vaughn is also responsible for hit singles by Mark Chesnutt (“Broken Promise Land”),  Keith Whitley & Lorrie Morgan (“Til A Tear Becomes A Rose”), Reba McEntire (“I’m Not That Lonely Yet”), Patty Loveless (“Lonely Too Long”), Randy Travis (“Out Of My Bones”), Trisha Yearwood (“Powerful Thing”) and Jimmy Buffett & Martina McBride (“Trip Around The Sun”).  - SONGWRITER/ARTIST CATEGORY - Paul Lavon Davis was a native of Meridian, Miss., who achieved fame both as a hit vocalist and a hit songwriter.  He broke into the music business as an R&B songwriter for Malaco Records, based in Jackson, Miss.  Then Ilene Berns,  widow of songwriter/producer Bert Berns, discovered Davis and signed him to her Bang Records label in 1969.  Davis delivered hits for the company throughout the 1970s, including such self-penned compositions as “I Go Crazy,” “Sweet Life,” “Do Right,” “’65 Love Affair” and “Cool Night.”  He was on Arista Records in 1981-82, and in 1984, Davis moved to Nashville to pursue songwriting full-time and scored hits with Dan Seals (“Meet Me In Montana” with Marie Osmond and “Bop”), Tanya Tucker (“Love Me Like You Used To” and “Down To My Last Teardroop”) and Lorrie Morgan (“Back In Your Arms Again”).  Though not a prolific writer, a strikingly high percentage of his songs became enormously successful.  To date, he has earned 13 BMI Awards.  He died of a heart attack on April 22, 2008, the day after his 60th birthday. Larry Wayne Gatlin began his musical career singing Gospel music in West Texas with his siblings.  He joined the Imperials and was performing in Las Vegas with the group when he was discovered by Dottie West.  After hearing his songs, she sent him a plane ticket to Nashville and signed him to her publishing company.  His early songs were recorded by her, as well as Johnny Cash, Kris Kristofferson and Elvis Presley.  Gatlin also wrote two of Johnny Rodriguez’s biggest hits, “If Practice Makes Perfect” and “I Just Can’t Get Her Out Of My Mind.”  Gatlin wrote 17 Top-10 hits for himself and his brothers in the 1970s and 1980s, including “Broken Lady” (1976 Grammy for Best Country Song), “Statues Without Hearts,” “I Just Wish You Were Someone I Love,” “Night Time Magic,” “All The Gold In California,” “Houston Means I’m One Day Closer To You,” “The Lady Takes The Cowboy Every Time” and “She Used To Be Somebody’s Baby.”  In recent years, his Gospel songs have been recorded by many artists.  To date, he has earned 21 BMI Awards. An inventive performer and poignant songwriter, Indianapolis native John Hiatt has captured and held the attention of audiences and critics alike in a career that has spanned more than 30 years and 20 albums as an artist.  While developing his own signature sound through the years, Hiatt has attracted performers from all over the musical map to his catalog.  In addition to Hiatt, artists who have interpreted his self-penned tunes include Three Dog Night (“Sure As I’m Sittin’ Here”), Joe Cocker (“Have A Little Faith In Me”), Rosanne Cash (“The Way We Make A Broken Heart”), The Jeff Healy Band (“Angel Eyes”), Suzy Bogguss (“Drive South”), Earl Thomas Conley (“Bring Back Your Love To Me”), B.B. King & Eric Clapton (“Ridin’ With The King”), The Neville Brothers (“Washable Ink”), Bonnie Raitt (“Thing Called Love”) and Elvis Costello  (“She Loves The Jerk”).  He was named 1987’s Rock Male Vocalist of the Year by Rolling Stone magazine and Artist-Songwriter of the Year at the 2000 Nashville Music Awards.  In 2007, Hiatt was awarded a star on Nashville’s Music City Walk of Fame.  In 2008, he received the Americana Music Association’s 2008 Lifetime Achievement Award for Songwriting. Known as “The Singing Fisherman,” Johnny Horton rose to Country stardom as a cast member of the Louisiana Hayride on KWKH in Shreveport, La.  Though he did not write his 1959 Grammy-winning hit “The Battle of New Orleans” (it was penned by Jimmy Driftwood), most of Horton’s other hits were self-composed, and several — such as “Honky Tonk Man,” “I’m A One Woman Man,” “I’m Comin’ Home,” “When It’s Springtime In Alaska (It’s Forty Below)”), “Sink The Bismark” and “North To Alaska” — have become Country standards.  Because of his penchant for historical and story songs, he is sometimes called the King of the “Saga Song” Singers.  Though his recording career spanned less than a decade (he was killed in a car crash at age 35), his music influenced generations of artists ranging from George Jones to Dwight Yoakam to BR5-49.  He is a member of the Rockabilly Hall of Fame. One of the musical world’s great minimalists, Tony Joe White needs nothing more than his “whomper stomper” guitar and swampy baritone voice to mesmerize listeners.  Discovered by Nashville’s Bob Beckham, the Louisiana native initially gained popularity in France, but 1969’s “Polk Salad Annie” made White an American star, as well.  Dusty Springfield popularized his song “Willie And Laura Mae Jones,” and Elvis Presley had a big hit with White’s “I’ve Got A Thing About You Baby.”  White collaborated with Tina Turner on her 1989 album Foreign Affair, which featured her singing his “Steamy Windows.”  Other popular White compositions include “Roosevelt And Ira Lee” (Tony Joe White), “For Ol’ Times Sake” (Elvis Presley) and “Mississippi Moon” (John Anderson).  The ballad “Rainy Night In Georgia,” which he wrote and originated, has been recorded by a multitude of artists, including Brook Benton, who took it to the top of the charts in 1970.  He was the subject of two 1998 film documentaries in Europe, and his 2004 comeback CD was nominated for an Americana Music Association award.