Merle Haggard appears in...
Kenny Chesney Leads List of 2012 ACM Awards Nominees

BMI songwriters and artists overwhelmingly dominate the list of 2012 Academy of Country Music Awards nominees, announced Thursday, January 26. BMI has historically represented the majority of country music’s leaders – from Hank Williams, Loretta Lynn and Porter Wagoner, to Willie Nelson, Dolly Parton and Merle Haggard – and a review of…
Hillbilly Rock: With ‘V,’ Kenny Vaughan Takes the Mic

If you live in Nashville, you’ve probably seen guitarist Kenny Vaughan around. Matter of fact, if you don’t live in Nashville, you’ve probably seen him around — on a stage, on your television, in your wildest rockabilly fantasies. Even off-stage, this lanky, western-shirt-wearing fellow has the look of someone who carries a guitar pick in his pocket and a box of promo CDs in the trunk of…
The BMI Holiday Countdown: Buck Owens, “Santa Looked A Lot Like Daddy”

Buck Owens, “Santa Looked A Lot Like Daddy” Written by Buck Owens and Don Rich Buck Owens was a young truck driver the first time he passed through Bakersfield—a flat, hardscrabble stretch of central California whose musical identity he’d soon shape. Inspired by the heartfelt honky-tonk of Wynn Stewart and the double Texas fiddles of Bob…
Miranda Lambert: Disparate Housewife

I guess I’m just a housewife now,” chortles Miranda Lambert, 2010’s CMA Female Vocalist of the Year. Lambert is joking, of course. Between promoting two new recording projects and a fall tour, the much-decorated, multi-platinum country artist has seen more of her tour bus than husband Blake Shelton, whom she wed in May 2011. In truth, it’s hard to imagine her any other way.…
Bobby Braddock, Rhett Akins, Dallas Davidson, Sony/ATV & More Honored at 2011 BMI Country Awards

BMI celebrated the songwriters and publishers behind country music’s most-performed songs of the past year during the 59th annual BMI Country Awards. BMI staged the event in its Nashville offices, located in the heart of Music Row, where behind-the-scenes hit-makers and center stage superstars came together to toast one another as songwriters. Rhett Akins and Dallas Davidson share the Songwriter of the Year crown. Georgia natives and close…
Remembering Liz Anderson, 1930-2011

Longtime BMI songwriter Liz Anderson has died. She was 81. The writer behind Merle Haggard’s “(My Friends Are Gonna Be) Strangers” and “Just Between the Two of Us,” which Haggard recorded with Bonnie Owens, Anderson also penned songs for Jerry Lee Lewis, Del Reeves, Roy Drusky, Waylon Jennings, and others, including her daughter, Lynn Anderson, whose career gathered…
Bobby Braddock to be Honored as Icon at 59th BMI Country Awards

BMI will honor Bobby Braddock as a BMI songwriting Icon during its 59th annual Country Awards. The private ceremony is slated for Tuesday, November 8 at BMI’s Music Row offices in Nashville. The Icon award is given to BMI songwriters who have had a “unique and indelible influence on generations of music makers.” Braddock, who will be celebrated with an all-star musical tribute that evening, joins a…
David Foster to be Named BMI Icon at 59th Annual BMI Pop Music Awards

Event Honoring 2010’s Top Pop Songwriters to be Held May 17 in Los Angeles David Foster will be celebrated as a BMI Icon at the 59th annual BMI Pop Music Awards, slated for Tuesday, May 17 at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel in Los Angeles. Hosted by BMI President & CEO Del Bryant and Barbara Cane, BMI Vice President & General Manager, Writer/Publisher Relations, Los…
Charlie Louvin Dies

Charlie Louvin passed away early Wednesday morning at his home in Wartrace, Tennessee. He was 83 years old. With his brother Ira, he began his career as one half of the Louvin Brothers. The legendary duo’s harmonies were as complex as they were haunting, delivering many of hillbilly country’s most forlorn love songs, gospel musings, eerie murder ballads, and winking story songs on albums including “Tragic Songs…
Jerry Lee Lewis, Great Ball of Fire

Against all conceivable odds, expectations, predictions, rumors, gossip and reason, Jerry Lee Lewis is 75 years old. He still sounds like he could hit the key of a piano with his pinky harder than most men could hit it with their right fist. His legacy—a smoldering trail of mayhem and masterpieces that stretches from here to Ferriday, Louisiana—was forged with the scorching barrelhouse piano and Pentecostal brimstone…
Recent Merle Haggard events
| Dec 5 2010 | Kennedy Center Honors: Washington, DC |
| Nov 4 2006 | BMI Country Awards: Nashville |
