{"id":4836,"date":"2025-09-20T10:34:44","date_gmt":"2025-09-20T10:34:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/grow48.us\/?p=4836"},"modified":"2025-09-20T10:34:44","modified_gmt":"2025-09-20T10:34:44","slug":"nashville-has-lost-one-of-its-brightest-lights-brett-james-the-acclaimed-songwriter-whose-pen-gave-life-to-hits-for-carrie-underwood-kelly-clarkson-kenny-chesney-jason-aldean-scotty-mccreery-fa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/grow48.us\/?p=4836","title":{"rendered":"Nashville has lost one of its brightest lights. Brett James, the acclaimed songwriter whose pen gave life to hits for Carrie Underwood, Kelly Clarkson, Kenny Chesney, Jason Aldean, Scotty McCreery, Faith Hill, and countless others, perished in a devastating plane crash on Thursday. He was 57.  For decades, James stood behind some of country and pop music\u2019s greatest voices, crafting the words and melodies that became the soundtrack of millions of lives. From Underwood\u2019s anthems of resilience to Chesney\u2019s tales of summer nights and freedom, his fingerprints were everywhere. Friends often said he had a gift for \u201chearing the heart of a story before anyone else could.\u201d  But the man who lived to tell stories met an ending that felt unbearably sudden. According to reports, James was aboard a small private aircraft heading out of Tennessee when tragedy struck. Eyewitnesses describe the plane struggling in poor weather conditions before disappearing from radar. Within minutes, what should have been a routine flight turned into heartbreak&#8230; WATCH MORE BELOW \ud83d\udc47\ud83d\udc47"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2 id=\"h-brett-james-cornelius-the-grammy-award-winning-songwriter-known-professionally-as-brett-james-was-killed-in-a-plane-crash-on-thursday-september-18-according-to-reports-he-was-57\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">Brett James Cornelius, the Grammy Award-winning songwriter known professionally as Brett James, was killed in a plane crash on Thursday (September 18), according to reports. He was 57.<\/h2>\n<p>Local news outlets reported that a small aircraft registered to Brett Cornelius of Brentwood, Tennessee, crashed outside of Franklin, North Carolina, on Thursday afternoon.<\/p>\n<p>FlightAware data indicates that the Cirrus SR22T took off from John C. Tune Airport in Nashville at 12:41 p.m. (CDT) before it crashed in North Carolina, according to\u00a0WSMV. The Federal Aviation Commission said that the aircraft went down near an elementary school and was carrying three passengers, all of whom perished in the crash.<\/p>\n<div class=\"code-block code-block-4\"><\/div>\n<h2 id=\"h-who-was-brett-james\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">Who Was Brett James?<\/h2>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/plugins\/post.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2FTheFranklinPressNC%2Fposts%2Fpfbid0v2LPJUjiQveFn4naFZUCgvACzAxQdxsQ8wBJJHaUvYUZpAM1Z3NxfVKL1iSnWX4al&amp;show_text=true&amp;width=500\" width=\"500\" height=\"792\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\" data-origwidth=\"500\" data-origheight=\"792\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Brett James was a renowned songwriter who was inducted into the\u00a0Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame\u00a0in 2020. He was also a two-time recipient of the ASCAP Country Songwriter of the Year Award (2006 and 2010).<\/p>\n<div class=\"code-block code-block-5\"><\/div>\n<p>James earned his first No. 1 hit in 2001 with Jessica Andrews\u2019 \u201cWho I Am.\u201d Other songs that he either wrote or co-wrote include Carrie Underwood\u2019s \u201cSomething In The Water,\u201d \u201cJesus, Take The Wheel\u201d and \u201cCowboy Casanova,\u201d Kenny Chesney\u2019s \u201cWhen The Sun Goes Down,\u201d \u201cOut Last Night,\u201d and \u201cKeg In the Closet\u201d), \u201cI Hold On\u201d by Dierks Bentley, \u201cThe Truth\u201d by Jason Aldean, and Rascal Flatts\u2019 \u201cSummer Nights.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Brett James On Co-Writing Carrie Underwood's &quot;Jesus, Take The Wheel&quot; | CMT I Wrote That\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/uMlXleFQPvc\" width=\"350\" height=\"235\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\" data-origwidth=\"350\" data-origheight=\"235\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>\u201cJesus, Take The Wheel\u201d earned James a Grammy for Best Country Song in 2006 and trophies for ACM Single of the Year, ASCAP Country Song of the Year, and NSAI Song of the Year.<\/p>\n<p>Brett James had over 300 songs recorded on major labels over the course of his career.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Carrie Underwood - Something in the Water (Official Video)\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/mH9kYn4L8TI\" width=\"350\" height=\"235\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\" data-origwidth=\"350\" data-origheight=\"235\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Brett James Cornelius, the Grammy Award-winning songwriter known professionally as Brett James, was killed in a plane crash on Thursday (September 18), according to reports. He was&#8230; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4837,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4836","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/grow48.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4836","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/grow48.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/grow48.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grow48.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grow48.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4836"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/grow48.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4836\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4838,"href":"https:\/\/grow48.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4836\/revisions\/4838"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grow48.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4837"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/grow48.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4836"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grow48.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4836"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grow48.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4836"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}