Taylor Swift and Ashley Gorley will be special honorees during the upcoming Nashville Songwriter Awards from the Nashville Songwriters Association International (NSAI).
Swift will be named songwriter-artist of the decade, while Gorley will be named songwriter of the decade during the event, slated to be held Sept. 20 at Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium.
The decade award winners are determined by their cumulative songwriting successes in the designated years. Gorley and Swift are being honored for their songwriting accolades from 2010 to 2019, and points are calculated based on the percentage of songwriting credit in a Nashville-associated song, according to each song’s performance on a weekly basis in the top 20 of the Billboard Country Airplay Chart, Billboard Pop Songs chart, Billboard Christian Airplay chart or Billboard Rock Airplay chart. For the songwriter-artist of the decade honor, the writer must also be the recording artist on a song for the points to count.
Previous songwriter-artist of the decade honorees include Toby Keith (2000-09) and Vince Gill (1990-99). Swift was previously named NSAI’s songwriter-artist of the year seven times. She has also earned three of NSAI’s “10 songs I wish I’d written” honors for “Lover” (2020), “Better Man” (2017) and “Shake It Off” (2015).
Gorley has earned NSAI’s songwriter of the year honor five times in the past eight years, and has previously earned nine NSAI awards, including the 2008 song of the year honor for “You’re Gonna Miss This,” co-written with Lee Thomas Miller and recorded by Trace Adkins. Gorley has also earned three “10 songs I wish I’d written” honors, for “I Lived It” (2018), “Marry Me” (2018) and “Dirt on My Boots” (2017).
This year’s Nashville Songwriter Awards will also honor Garth Brooks with the Kris Kristofferson lifetime achievement award, and Sony Music Publishing chairman/CEO Jon Platt with the NSAI president’s keystone award.
Additionally, the evening’s performers lineup has been bolstered with the additions of Jordan Davis, Little Big Town, Luke Combs, Parmalee and Alana Springsteen. These performers will join previously announced performers Pat Alger, Tony Arata, Babyface, Kent Blazy, Jacob Davis, GAYLE, HARDY, Walker Hayes, Josh Jenkins, Matt Jenkins, Matt McGinn, Thomas Rhett, Matt Rogers, Jenn Schott, Nathan Spicer and Matthew West.
