Michael Barbaro

Yeah, so I wrote about the three honorees on our list who are probably the least well-known because they operate mostly behind the scenes.

Not entirely behind the scenes because one of our three, Brandi Clark, is herself a hallowed singer-songwriter.

But she does a lot of work

behind the scenes, coming out of the tradition that is referred to by the catch-all music row, which of course refers to the kind of row of song publishing offices in Nashville that has been the epicenter of the country music business and songwriting tradition for decades, generations.

The other two people who are in this little collective that we chose to recognize is a songwriter named Shane McAnally and a guy named Josh Osborne.

Collectively, between them, they have written dozens and dozens of hits over the past decade and a half.

But they represent this tradition of writers who approach songwriting as a nine-to-five job.

They get together, have what they call co-writes, little sessions that last for a couple hours.

Usually it starts at 11 in the morning.

And then they ping-pong ideas, chord changes, melodies back and forth.

And they tend to produce a lot of songs, like many songs over the course of a week.

And of course, these writers aren't the ones, generally speaking, whose names go on the record.

You know, they kind of shop their songs to stars, to performing artists.

It's a different mode of production than, you know, okay, the singer-songwriter who's pouring out his or her heart, you know, in that kind of, like, Byronic romantic mode.

These people are trying to write hits and trying to place songs.

What are some of the hits that this collective of three songwriters...

Yeah, so this group are notable because while they operate out of this music road tradition, they're also kind of, I would say, subverters of tradition.

That is, they came in and kind of innovated a little bit.

They kind of teamed up with some of the more progressive stars down in Nashville.

So artists like Casey Musgraves.