Rodney Atkins nailed the capstone on his red-letter year by receiving six nominations, including Top Male Vocalist, Album and Song of the Year. One of the feel-good stories of 2007, Atkins saw his ACM-nominated project If You're Going Through Hell achieve platinum status. After toiling in Nashville for 10 years in relatively ambiguity, the universally loved honky tonker's hard-earned recognition and fan-driven success slapped smiles on faces all over Music Row.

Duos Big & Rich and Sugarland each scored four nods. Charismatic and eclectic, Big & Rich earned recognition in the prestigious Top Vocal Duo category and Single, Song and Video of the Year for the poignant ballad "Lost in this Moment." Big Kenny landed an additional two nominations for his producing credits. Sugarland underscored their staying power with a Top Vocal Duo nod as well; the pair's stirringly original tune "Stay" became one of the industry's buzz songs, earning nominations for Single Record, Song and Video of the Year. Member Kristian Bush also earned recognition for his production of the tune.

Miranda Lambert and Taylor Swift snagged three nods each. Critical darling Lambert's nominations for Top Female Vocalist, Album and Single Record of the Year reflect both the growth of her audience and creativity. Country's favorite wunderkind Taylor Swift's nominations reflect the strength of her year: nods in both Top Female Vocalist and Top New Female Vocalist reiterate the breakout strength of her year.

BMI affiliates swept both the Top Vocal Duo and Top New Male Vocalist categories. Duo nominees include Brooks & Dunn, Halfway to Hazard and Montgomery Gentry; Luke Bryan, Jack Ingram and Jake Owen will vie for the Top New Male Vocalist prize.

Additional BMI nominees include Keith Urban for Entertainer of the Year and Top Male Vocalist; Rascal Flatts, also for Entertainer of the Year plus Top Vocal Group; Martina McBride and Carrie Underwood for Top Female Vocalist; Diamond Rio, the Eagles and Little Big Town for Top Vocal Group; Sarah Buxton for Top New Female Vocalist; Lady Antebellum and The Wreckers for Top New Duo Vocal Group; Gary Allan and his latest no. 1 single "Watching Airplanes" for Single Record of the Year; producers Tony Brown, Mark Wright, Nathan Chapman, Scott Borchetta, John Hobbs, Justin Niebank and Byron Gallimore; songwriters Rodney Clawson and Keith Anderson for co-penning Big & Rich's "Lost in this Moment"; as well as Tim McGraw, Vince Gill and Sheryl Crow in the Vocal Event of the Year category.

2008 BMI ACM Award Nominees

ENTERTAINER OF THE YEAR
Rascal Flatts
Keith Urban

TOP MALE VOCALIST
Rodney Atkins
Keith Urban

TOP FEMALE VOCALIST
Miranda Lambert
Martina McBride
Taylor Swift
Carrie Underwood

TOP VOCAL GROUP
Diamond Rio
Eagles
Little Big Town
Rascal Flatts

TOP VOCAL DUO
Big & Rich
Brooks & Dunn
Halfway To Hazard
Montgomery Gentry
Sugarland

TOP NEW MALE VOCALIST
Luke Bryan
Jack Ingram
Jake Owen

TOP NEW FEMALE VOCALIST
Sarah Buxton
Taylor Swift

TOP NEW DUO OR VOCAL GROUP
Lady Antebellum
The Wreckers

ALBUM OF THE YEAR [Award to Artist(s)/Producer(s)/Record Company]
Crazy Ex-Girlfriend
Miranda Lambert (Columbia)

If You're Going Through Hell
Rodney Atkins (Curb)
Co-produced by Rodney Atkins

Taylor Swift
Taylor Swift (Big Machine)
Produced by Scott Borchetta, Nathan Chapman

SINGLE RECORD OF THE YEAR [Award to Artist(s)/Producer(s)/Record Company]
Famous In A Small Town"
Miranda Lambert
Columbia

Lost In This Moment"
Big & Rich
Co-produced by Big Kenny
Warner Bros/WRN

"Stay"
Sugarland
Co-produced by Kristian Bush, Byron Gallimore
Mercury

"Watching Airplanes"
Gary Allan
Co-produced by Gary Allan, Mark Wright
MCA Nashville

SONG OF THE YEAR [Award to Composer(s)/Publisher(s)/Artist(s)]
"Don't Blink"
Co-written by Casey Beathard
Publishers: Lavender Zoo Music (BMI), Sony/ATV Acuff
Rose (BMI)

"Lost In This Moment"
Big & Rich
Co-written by Keith Anderson, Rodney Clawson
Publishers: Warner-Tamerlane Publishing Corp. (BMI), Writer's Extreme Music (BMI)

"Watching You"
Rodney Atkins
Co-written by Rodney Atkins, Steve Dean
Publishers: Bethar Music (BMI), Mike Curb Music (BMI)

"Stay"
Sugarland

VIDEO OF THE YEAR [Award to Producer(s)/Director(s)/Artist(s)]
"Lost In This Moment"
Big & Rich
Co-produced by Big Kenny

"Stay"
Sugarland
Producer: Kristian Bush, Byron Gallimore

"Watching You"
Rodney Atkins

VOCAL EVENT OF THE YEAR [Award to Artist(s)/Producer(s)/Record Company]
"Because Of You"
Produced by Tony Brown
MCA Nashville

"Find Out Who Your Friends Are"
Featuring Tim McGraw

"What You Give Away"
Vince Gill With Sheryl Crow
Produced by Vince Gill, John Hobbs, Justin Niebank
MCA Nashville

This fall, past BMI Country Songwriters of the Year Bob DiPiero and Jeffrey Steele will grin for omnipresent cameras, let viewers in on their jokes and welcome curious eyes and ears into the world of Nashville hit songwriters. DiPiero and Steele, along with co-writers and cohorts Craig Wiseman and Tony Mullins, star in The Hitmen of Music Row, a new reality series on GAC.

Pictured (l-r): Pictured are (l to r): Tony Mullins, Bob DiPiero, Jeffrey Steele and Craig Wiseman.

“Everyone wants to know what it’s like to be in the music industry, and what we do on this show is pretty much it.” says Steele. “We are out there (in the world) like everybody else, seeing life and figuring out how to put it into words.”

Steele’s stacked catalog of singalongs includes Montgomery Gentry’s “Hell Yeah” and “Speed;” Trace Adkins’s “Chrome;” Tim McGraw’s “Cowboy in Me;” and Rascal Flatts’ “What Hurts the Most.” DiPiero counts George Strait’s “Blue Clear Sky” and “Cowboys Like Us;” Shenandoah’s “Church on Cumberland Road;” Montgomery Gentry’s “If You Ever Stop Loving Me;” Reba McEntire’s “Little Rock;” and Ty England’s “Should’ve Asked Her Faster,” among the countless hits he’s penned for the stars. Frequent collaborators, the two also co-wrote Montgomery Gentry’s smash “Gone.”

Bob DiPiero

When the hitmakers aren’t writing or performing, the cameras will keep rolling, following the four characters through side-splitting adventures and everyday quandaries that later resurface in their songs.

“I know there’ll be that one cynic who will say, ‘They didn’t just write that,’ but we did because that’s what we do,” DiPiero says of the group’s uncanny ability to collaborate while “in the moment.” “Some people are going to watch the show and think that stuff didn’t really happen, but it did. It’s REAL reality television. We are as real as you can stand.”

Jeffrey Steele

The Hitmen of Music Row premiered Wednesday, September 26 on GAC at 7pm. For upcoming show times, please visit www.thehitmenofmusicrow.com or www.myspace.com/thehitmenofmusicrow.

“I think all songwriters are observers,” says Steele. “My favorite part of playing is hearing people tell me their stories afterward. It’s important to be a listener, and I keep all of it logged in my head. As a writer, you’ve got to be observant and learn to back off and look at the other angles. I have this really visual brain, and if I read something, or talk to somebody, I always remember it.”

Steele has had a love affair with words pretty much all his life, and he still lives for that exact moment when he completes a song. “I’m a real word freak — the word has to be the right word when I write. I really still have that passion for when words fall the right way. . . . I love when things get twisted, and turned, and somehow they come out right, and you find a new way to say an old cliché.”

An imaginative, gifted kid who found school a bit too restricting, Steele started writing early. “I was terrible in school. I was a smart kid with a supposedly high IQ, but if I questioned the teacher or had an opinion outside of what they were teaching, I would always get scolded for it. And it kind of drove me out of school. But I liked to write songs.”

Forming country band Boy Howdy in 1990, Steele enjoyed success with hits like “She’d Give Anything” but decided to try Nashville solo in 1994. He weathered several label deals and continued to write songs, with minor success at first. But he never forgot those early days playing around Riverside, or the plentiful characters he met back then. And when he hit a writing slump around 1997, he turned to his past for inspiration. “I spent 20 years playing bars all over and you meet so many different characters. So I asked myself why aren’t you writing about that? And I started to look at stuff with my father that had been left unsaid and undone, and there were all these little moments of time that I wasn’t even looking at in my life. So I finally realized I should draw off of all that and use it.”

He also stopped worrying about pleasing the masses and got back to the basics. “I decided I was just going to write what I needed to write and not worry about the paycheck. And I found the old proverb to be true: ‘Dumb it down and it will be profound.’ The simpler you make it, the more profound you can be.”

Letting go proved to be the ticket for Steele, who began scoring hits right and left with “The Cowboy In Me,” “Chrome,” “Speed” and others. Named BMI’s Songwriter of the Year in 2003, he was tapped to produce albums by Montgomery Gentry and Keith Anderson. In 2005, when Rascal Flatts cut “What Hurts The Most,” Steele had no idea just how strongly people would identify with those lyrics he had chiseled out in London years earlier. Written about his father, Steele had retooled the song as a love song and honestly thought it would be a pop cut. It skyrocketed to the top of the country and A/C charts for multiple weeks, and received ACM and Grammy nominations.

“I left home early to chase dreams and left a lot of strings untied and there were a lot of things I didn’t do with my old man before he passed away. He was sick near the end and I didn’t get back until the very end and there was a lot of sadness . . . but I know he wanted me to be out there. And he didn’t let on he was as sick as he was because he didn’t want me stopping. So that song was about that.”

Though thrilled with the song’s reception, Steele still feels he’s chasing that benchmark tune, his “Angel Flying Too Close To The Ground,” or “Sunday Morning Coming Down,” or “Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For.” “If I can ever get a song anywhere near that league that will hang around that long and still be valid, then I think I’d feel like ‘yeah, this was worth every failure, every sacrifice, every tradeoff, every compromise, every sticking to your guns, maybe it was worth it.’ Whatever kind of importance is drawn to my songs and what I do, if the lyrics hold up and it still affects people in 20 years, I’m happy.”

DiPiero and Steele will lead a session focusing on "The Making of a Hit" at the annual gathering for radio broadcasters. To be held at the Minneapolis Marriott City Center, June 27 – July 1, this year’s conference is titled "Radio Under Construction."

BMI, an organization that represents thousands of songwriters, composers and music publishers, has regularly sponsored events at the Conclave to promote better understanding between the professions. "The Conclave is an excellent educational opportunity for radio industry professionals, and it's appropriate that songwriters should be a part of that learning experience," said Mike O'Neill, BMI Senior Vice President, Licensing.

An award-winning songwriter, Steele noted that, "While some of the songwriting process is inspiration, we writers rely on the skills we've developed through the years to bring us to that place where 'the magic' happens. Bob and I will talk about co-writing partnerships — the good and the bad of collaborating — and also share some stories about the unique combination of words, music and, of course, luck that made certain songs hits for us."

As a songwriter, artist and producer, Jeffrey Steele is enjoying one of the hottest streaks in music. Named Songwriter of the Year by BMI (2003) and by the Nashville Songwriters Association International (2003, 2005-06), he was nominated for a 2007 Grammy Award for the crossover Rascal Flatts smash, "What Hurts the Most." Among the more than 300 songs he's had recorded in the past six years are the #1 singles "The Cowboy in Me" (Tim McGraw), "These Days" and "My Wish" (Rascal Flatts), "Something To Be Proud Of" (Montgomery Gentry) and "Brand New Girlfriend" (Steve Holy). Other highlights of his catalog — recognized by BMI for more than 25 million airplays — are the hit singles "Chrome," "Hell Yeah," "Help Somebody," "Unbelievable" and "My Town." Steele performs frequently around the country — solo and with his band — and has produced recent projects for Montgomery Gentry and Keith Anderson, among others.

With literally hundreds of songs recorded over the last 20 years, Bob DiPiero is one of Nashville's most celebrated songwriters: 19 Top 10 hits, 13 of them number ones. He's won 19 BMI Awards, including the 1995 Robert J. Burton Award for most-performed country song of the year for Neal McCoy's "Wink." He was named 1998's Songwriter of the Year at the Nashville Music Awards and in both '95 and '96 he won CMA Triple Play (an award for having three number one songs in a 12-month period) for chartbusters including Faith Hill's "Take Me As I Am," Reba McEntire's "Till You Love Me," George Strait's "Blue Clear Sky, and Vince Gill's "Worlds Apart." He has also had songs recorded by pop artists including Neil Diamond, Dusty Springfield and Jason and the Scorchers.