You may not know his name, but you know his songwriting. Nashville songwriter Brett James has more than 25 No. 1 songs to his credit and a 2006 Grammy for co-writing the Carrie Underwood hit "Jesus, Take the Wheel."

Brett joined Behind the Setlist at his office in Nashville to talk about co-writing "Out Last Night" with Kenny Chesney on a Caribbean island, how "Jesus, Take the Wheel" came together and impacted his career, what it's like to co-write songs with Carrie Underwood and Dierks Bentley, the work ethic of Nashville songwriters, and much more.

He launched his career as a solo artist with an album for Career Records, an Arista Nashville imprint, in 1995 and released his latest solo album, True Believer, in 2020. Brett has had more than 500 of his songs recorded by some of the biggest artists in the world, such as Underwood, Tim McGraw, Kenny Chesney, Jason Aldean, Luke Bryan, Bon Jovie, Taylor Swift, Keith Urban, Miranda Lambert, Kip Moore, Faith Hill, Dierks Bentley, Backstreet Boys, will.i.am, Martina McBride and many others. In all, his songs have appeared on albums that have combined sales of over 110 million copies.

Links:

Billboard's podcast page

Glenn Peoples @theglennpeoples

Jay Gilbert (Label Logic)

Brett James' Wikipedia page

Brett James' Instagram page

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