The Top of Tennessee

One of the  primary differences between the Americana and Nashville music scenes is who writes the songs that an artist records.  While most artists on the Americana scene write and record their own music, many of the mainstream ‘Nashville’ country artists have others do it for them.  Just for kicks, I went to CMT.com and looked at their top 10 for the week of July 15^th and, with a little research; I was able to find who the actual writers of these songs were.   As you can see in the listing below, only ONE (Taylor Swift) of the top ten songs was solely written by the person who performs it.

CMT (Nashville) top 10:

1: Jason Aldean – Dirt Road Anthem  (written by Brantley Gilbert)

2: Taylor Swift – Mean (written by Taylor Swift)

3: Blake Shelton – Honeybee (written by Rhett Akins & Ben Hayslip)

4: Chris Young – Tomorrow (“co-written” with Chris Young)

5: Lady Antebellum – Just a Kiss (written in “collaboration” with Dallas Davidson)

6: Kenny Chesney – You and Tequila (“co-written” with Matraca Berg & Deana Carter)

7: Jake Owen - Barefoot Blue Jean Night (written by Eric Palsay)

8: Luke Bryan – Country Girl (Shake it for me) (“co-written” with Dallas Davidson)

9: Trace Adkins – Just Fishin (written by Casey Beathard, Monty Criswell and Ed Hill)

10: Eric Church - Homeboy (“co-written” by Casey Beathard)