Rosanne Cash, Taylor Swift and Craig Wiseman Among Those Honored at 2015 Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame Gala
Rosanne Cash, Taylor Swift and Craig Wiseman were just three of the honorees on Sunday evening (Oct. 11), during a gala honoring the 2015 Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame inductees and the 2015 winners of awards from Nashville Songwriters Association International. Cash and Wiseman were among the Hall of Fame inductees, while Swift was one of the NSAI winners.
Cash was inducted into the Hall of Fame in the songwriter / artist category, while Wiseman and Mark James entered under the songwriter category. The fourth honoree, Even Stevens, was inducted in the veteran songwriter category.
"Look, I came here sleeping in a van. All I ever wanted to be was a songwriter. That's my identity. That's who I am," Wiseman tells the Tennessean. "When I get this [award], and it goes home, the Grammy and the CMA Awards, all of those things go to the side. This [award] goes dead center, because this is it."
Cash told the Nashville newspaper that she was especially honored by her induction because her father, Johnny Cash, is one of the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame's 196 previously inducted members.
“It makes me want to cry just to think about it,” she says. “It's so special.”
Also handed out during the gala were NSAI's 2015 awards, which recognize the year's most popular songs from Music City tunesmiths. Swift took home the award for Songwriter / Artist of the Year; it was her seventh time wining the award, which is a new record.
“There’s really no community that I respect or admire more than the songwriting community," Swift said in a video message (she is still out on her 1989 World Tour and was unable to attend the event in person). "I wouldn’t be where I [am] as an artist or a writer without the songwriters who taught me what it is to work hard."
Rodney Clawson, whose songs have been recorded recently by artists such as Kenny Chesney, Lady Antebellum and Florida Georgia Line, received the 2015 Songwriter of the Year trophy, while Little Big Town's "Girl Crush," penned by Hillary Lindsey, Lori McKenna and Liz Rose, earned the Song of the Year title.
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