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The Morgan Wallen smash “Last Night” continued its dominance of performing rights organizations’ awards, as the tune was named song of the year at the 72nd annual BMI Country Awards, held Tuesday night at the org’s headquarters in Nashville. BMI’s most played song of the year was co-penned by BMI writers John Byron and Charlie Handsome.
Songwriter of the year honors found Chase McGill and Zach Bryan in a tie, with each each songwriter co-writing six of BMI’s most-performed songs in the field. Bryan’s half-dozen songs were all tunes he recorded himself: Bryan serves as a writer behind “Burn, Burn, Burn,” “Dawns,” “Hey Driver,” “I Remember Everything,” “Oklahoma Smokeshow” and “Sun to Me.” For his part, McGill co-wrote Morgan Wallen’s “Ain’t That Some,” Luke Bryan’s “But I Got a Beer in My Hand,” Conner Smith’s “Creek Will Rise,” Russell Dickerson’s “God Gave Me a Girl,” Jordan Davis’ “Next Thing You Know” and Thomas Rhett’s “Mamaw’s House.”
Warner-Tamerlane Publishing Corp. was named publisher of the year, an accolade it picked up by having publishing on 34 of BMI’s 50 most-performed songs of the year.
The night’s musical performances came in salute to BMI Icon award recipient Randy Owen, of the group Alabama. The artists paying Owen tribute were Riley Green, with “My Home’s in Alabama,” Luke Bryan, singing “Feels So Right,” and Blake Shelton, doing “Mountain Music.”
The evening began with one non-Alabama song — a group performance by Ella Langley, Lukas Nelson and Aaron Raitere of “With a Little Help from My Friends,” in salute to the country community’s charitable efforts throughout the year.
The roll that Wallen’s “Last Night” is on includes having been also named song of the year by ASCAP the night before BMI feted it with its own award of that name. The hit likely didn’t have much competition for either org’s top honor, having been No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 for 16 nonconsecutive weeks.
A full list of the honored songs and writers can be found here.