Mac McAnally
Record-setting 10x CMA Musician of the Year, Mac McAnally is a Nashville Songwriters HoF, Mississippi Musicians HoF, and Alabama Music HoF inductee. The renowned songwriter, singer, and instrumentalist has written dozens of hit records for other artists, several of which peaked at #1. His own recording career began with the debut hit single“It’s A Crazy World” and grew to 14 album releases. He has written hits for Alabama, Jimmy Buffett, Kenny Chesney, and Sawyer Brown, and has studio credits that include albums by Toby Keith, Linda Ronstadt, George Strait, and Dolly Parton, among many others.
Scotty Emerick
Before joining Toby Keith’s traveling road show, writing #1s “Beer for My Horses”, the driving Willie Nelson duet, “As Good as I Once Was,” “I’m Just Talkin’ About Tonight,” “I Love This Bar,” and “Whiskey Girl” along with 46 other Keith cuts, the likable Emerick was forging relationships with the greatest songwriters of the past fifty years. Impressed by his knowledge of not just the songs and the stars, but the people who wrote, played, produced and engineered them, whoever came in contact with the emerging writer – from Willie Nelson and George Strait to Kenny Chesney and Keith – kept him around.
They liked his creative juice, the way life just flows through his songs. An eclectic group of top shelf artists from, Eric Church, Alan Jackson, Sammy Hagar, Ronnie Milsap, and Billy Currington, as well as the above names, have made Emerick’s songs their own. Emerick continues to surround himself with the greats, opening for Jimmy Buffet on his “Second Wind” tour.
Emerick’s ability to channel authenticity into song has seen him earn NSAI’s Songwriter of the Year as well as Best Country Song Grammy and CMA nominations.
While some come to Nashville with a plan and a defined sense of making it, Emerick just wanted to be where the music was, to suck up knowledge and exhale songs. Three decades in, not much has changed for the guy whose songs have helped sell tens of millions of albums.