Townes Van Zandt and More Headed to Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame
There will be four new faces in the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame come this October. The organization has revealed its Class of 2016: Townes Van Zandt, Bob Morrison, Aaron Barker and Beth Nielsen Chapman.
“The strength and power of the Nashville songwriting community is legendary all over the world,” says Pat Alger, a member of the Hall of Fame and the chair of its Board of Directors. “The legacy of the creative forebears of the songwriters currently making the noise in our town is annually recognized by the induction of a few of those great writers into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame."
Van Zandt, who passed away in 1997, is best known for songs such as “No Place to Fall” and “To Live Is to Fly;" in 2012, he became part of the Texas Songwriters Hall of Fame. Morrison, meanwhile, earned a Grammy in the Best Country Song category for a tune that Kenny Rogers recorded, "You Decorated My Life," and was named ASCAP’s Country Songwriter of the Year in 1978, 1981 and 1982.
Barker hit No. 1 with a song he penned for George Strait, "Baby Blue," and continued to work with Strait on well-known songs such as “Love Without End, Amen,” “Easy Come, Easy Go” and “I Can Still Make Cheyenne;” like Van Zandt, he is a member of the Texas Songwriters Hall of Fame. And Chapman has written songs for Trisha Yearwood, Lorrie Morgan, Alabama and Faith Hill; in fact, Hill's "This Kiss" brought Chapman the 1999 Song of the Year honor from ASCAP and the CMA.
All four Class of 2016 inductees will be honored on Oct. 9, as part of the 46th annual Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame Gala, which will be held at Nashville’s Music City Center. They will join 199 current Hall of Fame members, including 2015 inductees Rosanne Cash, Craig Wiseman, Mark James and Even Stevens.