Garth Brooks, J.J. Cale nominated for Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame
Garth Brooks (AP file)
J.J. Cale (AP file)
From Friday’s Weekend Look section of The Oklahoman.
Garth Brooks, J.J. Cale nominated for Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame
Oklahoma natives Garth Brooks and J.J. Cale are among the 15 nominees for the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame.
The 2011 nominees include five songwriter/artists, including Brooks, and 10 songwriters, including Cale.
“This is an amazing group of songwriters and songwriter/artists,” said John Van Mol, chairman of the Nashville (Tenn.) Songwriters Hall of Fame Foundation, which owns and administers the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame, in Monday’s announcement. “Every one of them is extremely worthy of induction, and it is our honor to place each of their names in nomination.”
Brooks was inducted last week into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in New York City. Among the Owasso resident’s many chart-topping hits are 10 that he co-wrote, including “If Tomorrow Never Comes,” “Unanswered Prayers,” “The Thunder Rolls,” “The River,” “That Summer,” “We Shall Be Free” and “Ain’t Going Down (’Til The Sun Comes Up).”
The Tulsa-born, Yukon-bred superstar also co-wrote Chris LeDoux’s “Whatcha Gonna Do With A Cowboy” and a pair of his own duets with wife Trisha Yearwood: “Like We Never Had A Broken Heart” and “In Another’s Eyes.” He was ASCAP’s Country Songwriter of the Year in 1993 and 1994 and Nashville Songwriters Association International’s 1992 Songwriter/Artist of the Year.
A four-time CMA Entertainer of the Year and Grand Ole Opry member, Brooks lived in Nashville from 1987 to 2005, when he moved back to his home state.
He has been certified by the Recording Industry Association of America as the top-selling solo artist in U.S. history. Brooks has sold more than 128 million albums and is the only solo artist in RIAA history to have six albums top the 10 million mark.
Amy Grant (“Baby Baby,” “Every Heartbeat,” “Tennessee Christmas”), wife of Oklahoma native and Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame member Vince Gill, also is nominated in the songwriter/artist category.
Other nominees in the songwriter/artist category are Alan Jackson, Larry Gatlin and the late Townes Van Zandt.
Famed for his bluesy, rootsy, laidback style, Cale was born Dec. 5, 1938, in Oklahoma City but raised in Tulsa. He moved to Nashville in 1959 and found work as a guitarist with touring Grand Ole Opry troupes.
After stints in Los Angeles and Tulsa, Cale returned to Music City in 1970 to record his debut album. In 1972, he built his own studio in Nashville, where he continued to record and live part-time throughout the ’70s and early ’80s.
Both Eric Clapton and Mark Knopfler have acknowledged the Tulsa Sound pioneer’s influence as a guitarist, with the former making international hits of Cale’s “After Midnight” and “Cocaine.” Over the years, Cale’s various albums have yielded “Crazy Mama” (a pop hit for him in 1972), “Call Me The Breeze” (turned into a rock standard by Lynyrd Skynyrd), “Clyde” (a top 10 country hit for Waylon Jennings in 1980), “Any Way The Wind Blows” (Brother Phelps in 1995) and “The Sensitive Kind” (Santana in 1981), as well as the oft-covered “I Got The Same Old Blues,” “Magnolia” and “Travelin’ Light.”
As an artist, Cale has released 16 albums since 1971, including the Grammy-winning collaboration with Clapton, “The Road to Escondido” (2006), followed by “Roll On” (2009).
The other nominees in the songwriter category are John Bettis (another 2011 Songwriters Hall of Fame inductee), Allen Shamblin (who co-wrote Tishomingo resident Miranda Lambert’s career-altering hit “The House That Built Me”), Robert Byrne, Jan Crutchfield, Mark James, Dan Penn, Gretchen Peters, Thom Schuyler and John Scott Sherrill.
The Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame 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 inductees will be announced in the coming weeks before the 41st Anniversary Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame Dinner and Induction Ceremony on Sunday, Oct. 16 in Nashville.
-BAM
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