Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame Inducts Four Legends
Music City honored the artistry of four exceptional tunesmiths Sunday night, inducting Rosanne Cash, Mark James, Even Stevens and Craig Wiseman into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame. The 45th annual gala awards dinner at Nashville’s Music City Center was attended by more than 1,000 music industry professionals and featured tribute performances to the new Hall of Fame members from Tim McGraw, Hunter Hayes, Emmylou Harris, Vince Gill, Ronnie Dunn and more.
Cash, who enjoyed a string of chart-topping hits throughout the Eighties including “Seven Year Ache,” “Blue Moon With Heartache” and the Grammy-winning “I Don’t Know Why You Don’t Want Me,” has evolved into one of the genre’s most sophisticated, confessional writer-performers. She continues, at age 60, to possess a strong, expressive voice, both literally and in terms of the material she’s written and recorded recently, especially 2014’s multi-award-winning The River and the Thread. She also remains an outspoken advocate on topics including gun control and fair compensation for songwriters. Vince Gill and Emmylou Harris both sang Cash’s songs during the event, and her former producer and ex-husband Rodney Crowell did the formal induction.
“It means everything to me,” Cash told Rolling Stone Country of the honor prior to the ceremony. “As an 18-year-old songwriter, [I] was really struggling to begin to write good songs and couldn’t quite find the keyhole, but just kept soaking up those good songwriters around me. . . what they said and how they did it, deconstructing songs for myself to figure out why they worked. Then, here we are 40 years later and other songwriters are recognizing me? It’s the best feeling in the world. I’m trying to take it in. I’m a little shocked.”
Even Stevens was inducted by his longtime friend, Hall of Fame songwriter Hugh Prestwood (“Ghost in This House,” “The Song Remembers When”), and celebrated with Loving Mary’s performance of the 1980 crossover smash, “Drivin’ My Life Away,” which was just one of some 900 songs he and Rabbitt penned together. James recalled the hardscrabble early days living in Nashville and sleeping in his converted postal vehicle before striking gold with hits that also included “When You’re in Love With a Beautiful Woman,” a worldwide hit for Dr. Hook, which was performed at the ceremony by American Idol alum Paul McDonald.
Mark James, who was responsible for, among other hits, the best-selling single in the phenomenal career of Elvis Presley, was inducted by BMI executive Jody Williams, and feted with Hunter Hayes’ dynamic performance of the aforementioned hit, 1969’s “Suspicious Minds.” Singer B.J. Thomas then delivered a powerful rendition of “Hooked on a Feeling,” which was twice a major pop hit; first by Thomas in Thomas in 1968, then a Number One blockbuster for Blue Swede in 1974. James was also a co-writer of “Always on My Mind,” the Elvis hit that later came to life on the pop charts with two incredibly different versions, one by Willie Nelson, the other by English duo Pet Shop Boys.