{"id":22736,"date":"2020-11-18T08:27:01","date_gmt":"2020-11-18T14:27:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/?p=22736"},"modified":"2020-11-18T08:27:01","modified_gmt":"2020-11-18T14:27:01","slug":"after-25-no-1-hits-baylor-alum-named-to-nashville-songwriters-hall-of-fame","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/2020\/11\/after-25-no-1-hits-baylor-alum-named-to-nashville-songwriters-hall-of-fame\/","title":{"rendered":"After 25 No. 1 hits, Baylor alum named to Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Brett<\/p>\n

After more than two decades of songwriting success — including No. 1 hits for such artists as Carrie Underwood and Martina McBride — Baylor alum Brett James (BS ’91) is being inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Even if his name isn’t familiar, you’ve heard James’ work. He wrote or co-wrote such hits as “Jesus, Take the Wheel<\/a>” (Underwood), “Blessed<\/a>” (McBride), “Who I Am<\/a>” (Jessica Andrews), “It’s America<\/a>” (Rodney Atkins), and “The Truth<\/a>” (Jason Aldean). Outside of country music, he’s also had his songs recorded by such diverse performers as Chicago, the Backstreet Boys, Bon Jovi and Kelly Clarkson.<\/p>\n

All told, James — who might be better remembered by his BU classmates as Brett James Cornelius — has written\u00a025 No. 1 hits, earned a Grammy and three CMA Triple Play Awards, and has been named ASCAP\u2019s Songwriter of the Year twice.<\/p>\n

The road to success began when James was a student at Baylor, when his parents gave him a $90 pawn shop guitar for Christmas. “As soon as I learned three chords, I just thought it\u2019d be fun to write a song with \u2019em,\u201d he told The Oklahoman<\/em><\/a>. “I just kind of did it for fun, and I certainly never dreamed it would be a job.\u201d<\/p>\n

It didn’t come easy for James<\/a>. After graduating from Baylor, he dropped out of medical school at Oklahoma to pursue a recording career. When that didn’t work out, he returned to med school — which is where he was when Faith Hill and others began recording some of his work. After a year of double-duty, he left med school a second time to focus on on his songwriting; the second go-round clicked, and here we are, two decades later.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m a very proud Baylor graduate,\u201d\u00a0he told the\u00a0Lariat<\/em><\/a> back in 1995 as he was beginning his career. \u201cI tell everyone about it… For me, Baylor was the perfect school.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sic \u2019em, Brett James!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After more than two decades of songwriting success — including No. 1 hits for such artists as Carrie Underwood and Martina McBride — Baylor alum Brett James (BS ’91) is being inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame. Even if his name isn’t familiar, you’ve heard James’ work. He wrote or co-wrote such hits […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22736","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-alumni","category-honors"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22736","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22736"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22736\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22736"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22736"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22736"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}