Skip to content 
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) – Taylor Swift signed her first publishing deal in Nashville at the age of 14. Some 22 years and 14 Grammys later, she joined the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame along with Lyle Lovett, Shawn Camp, Lee Thomas Miller, Bruce Channel and JI Allison.
Swift added another honor to her trophy wall with her second hall of fame induction this year and was honored at the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame Gala on Monday in a ballroom packed with artists, writers and country music’s elite.
“I knew from the moment I wrote my first song that even if it wasn’t my career, it would be my joy,” Swift said.
She described absorbing lessons from other writers like a sponge, learning how to push through writer’s block and write about the human condition, even when her writing partner was starving or going through a divorce.
Swift recalled that her mother would regularly pick her up from high school and drop her off at a publishing house on Nashville’s Music Row, where she poured out her feelings to one of her first co-writers, Liz Rose. She met Nathan Chapman, who produced her self-titled debut album in 2006, which was released 20 years ago this month.
Swift, who brought her talents to a much wider audience outside of country music, attributed her ability to “genre hop” to learning the basics of songwriting in Nashville.
“I am deeply honored to be inducted into this hallowed club,” Swift said.
Brad Paisley, one of the first major artists to tour after her debut album, introduced her as “the voice of a generation”.
He joked that Swift “went to Brad Paisley High School” as a 17-year-old traveling the country while on tour with him. Swift later said Paisley took the joke too far in 2007 when it filled the bus with thousands of crickets.
“For months I couldn’t sleep. Just chirp, chirp, chirp,” she said.
Lainey Wilson performed a bluegrass version of “Love Story” with fiddle and upright bass from Swift’s second album, “Fearless.”
Swift wasn’t the only big star to be celebrated, as George Strait, the lauded “King of Country Music,” received a Career Maker Award from the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame. Caolas, a Country Music Hall of Famer, is known for picking great songs from other songwriters and placing them at the top of the country charts for five decades.
Surrounded by songwriters on stage, Caolas seemed to be very brief in his speech as he thanked all the writers who had sent him songs over the years.
“They made my career,” said Strait. “I didn’t do theirs.”
Lovett spent his speech naming mentors and artists and writers who took advantage of him.
“I’m humbled just to be in the room with these amazing Hall of Fame songwriters and amazing recording artists,” Lovett said. “It’s an honor to be able to go through your life and do what you want to do.”
Allison, who died in 2022, was a member of Buddy Holly’s band The Crickets and co-wrote hits like “That’ll Be The Day” and “Peggy Sue”. Camp, a multi-instrumentalist who plays guitar, violin and more, wrote songs like “Two Pina Coladas” for Garth Brooks and “How Long Gone” with Brooks & Dunn, as well as hits for Blake Shelton and George Strait and many bluegrass songs.
The channel co-wrote “Hey! Baby!” a song that would become part of the movie “Dirty Dancing” but would also be a country hit for Anne Murray and many others. Miller co-wrote award-winning songs such as “You’re Gonna Miss This,” performed by Trace Adkins and “In Color,” performed by Jamey Johnson.
