Jesse Frasure was named songwriter of the year by the BMI Country Awards, which was held online for a second consecutive year in lieu of the usual CMA Awards eve gathering in Nashville. “One of Them Girls,” a Lee Brice hit, was announced as song of the year for picking up the most plays.
Heated competition in the publishing sphere was evident as two companies tied for the publisher of the year honor, Sony Music Publishing Nashville and Warner Chappell Music.
Warner Chappell had singularly won the BMI prize for the previous three years running, and now can claim four wins in a row, shared or not. Sony Music Publishing last picked up the honor in 2017. The latter company also just won the publisher of the year award from ASCAP during that its comparable web ceremony last week.
There was some additional overlap between the BMI and ASCAP honors, as “One of Them Girls” also won song of the year from ASCAP last week, but in BMI’s case, the trophy goes to the pair of co-writers it represents, Dallas Davidson and Ben Johnson. The Brice hit spent a rare three weeks at No. 1 on the airplay chart and has more than 390 million on-demand streams to date.
Frasure was enjoying his second time getting the songwriter of the year honor. He co-wrote five songs that ended up on BMI’s list of the most-performed tunes: “Almost Maybes,” “Hole in the Bottle,” “One Big Country Song,” “One Thing Right” and “What’s Your Country Song.”
Frasure filmed a performance of “What’s Your Country Song” with the artist he wrote it with, Thomas Rhett.
Among the recording artists who picked up plaudits for co-writing contributions this year were Ashley McBryde, Miranda Lambert, Kane Brown, Luke Combs, Parker McCollum, Taylor Kerr of Maddie & Tae, Michael Hardy, Natalie Hemby and Shy Carter.
A complete list of winners and a number of acceptance speeches and acoustic performances by writers can be found here.
