Grammy-winning songwriter Brett James died in a small-engine airplane crash on Thursday, September 18th, as confirmed in a press release by the Nashville Songwriters Corridor of Fame. He was 57. The Nationwide Transportation Security Board is at present investigating the reason for the crash.
James was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Corridor of Fame in 2020, and gained a Grammy award for his work on Carrie Underwood’s 2006 primary hit, “Jesus, Take The Wheel.” In response to the Nashville Songwriters Affiliation Worldwide, James has had greater than 500 of his songs recorded, showing on albums with mixed gross sales of over 110 million copies.
Along with his work with Underwood, James has written for artists together with Taylor Swift, Bon Jovi, Billy Currington, and Dierks Bentley. The latter shared an Instagram publish mourning his pal and collaborator, writing that James was “one of the best singer-songwriters in our town… total legend.” The 2 labored collectively on Bentley’s track “I Hold On,” on which Bentley mirrored: “our friendship and that song changed my life.”
James was born on June 5, 1968, in Columbia, Mo, and had a novel path to songwriting. He initially dropped out of medical faculty to pursue a music profession as a singer-songwriter, however after time spent struggling within the enterprise, he re-enrolled. Across the similar time, music producer Mark Vivid signed James to his publishing firm as a songwriter, the place James discovered new success with the songs he composed in between lessons. He dropped out of medical faculty for the ultimate time, and went on to have his prolific profession.
“He was a kind, giving, delightful soul,” Mark Ford, govt director of the Nashville Songwriters Corridor of Fame, shared in a press release. “We join Brett’s family and our entire industry in mourning not only his untimely passing but also the songs that he had left to write – the songs that would have made us smile, laugh, and cry in the years and decades to come.”
