Grammy-winning Nashville singer-songwriter Brett James, who grew up in Oklahoma and penned hits for Carrie Underwood, Rascal Flatts, Jason Aldean and many more, has died in a plane crash. He was 57.
James, whose full name was Brett James Cornelius, died Thursday, Sept. 18 after a small-engine plane crashed in a field in Franklin, North Carolina, The Tennessean reports. According to FlightAware, the plane was registered to James under the name Cornelius.
The Federal Aviation Administration confirmed to Asheville, North Carolina’s WLOS News 13 that a Cirrus SR22T plane with a pilot and two passengers on board crashed in a field near the Iotla Valley Elementary School in Franklin, North Carolina, about 3 p.m. local time on Sept. 18.
There are no known survivors at this time, reports Nashville’s WZTV Fox 17.
The FAA and National Transportation Safety Board are investigating the crash.
James is survived by his wife, Sandra Cornelius, and four children.
Grammy-winning songwriter grew up in OKC and Cordell
Born Brett James Cornelius on June 5, 1968, in Columbia, Missouri, the Grammy winner grew up in Oklahoma City and Cordell. While he was in college at Baylor University, his parents gave him a $90 pawn shop guitar for a Christmas gift.
“As soon as I learned three chords, I just thought it’d be fun to write a song with ’em,” James told The Oklahoman in a 2009 interview. “I just kind of did it for fun, and I certainly never dreamed it would be a job.”
Instead, he planned to follow in the footsteps of his father, the late Oklahoma City family practitioner Dr. Sam Cornelius. But in his sophomore year at the University of Oklahoma medical school, James recorded a demo of his songs and took a spring break trip to Nashville, where a friend helped set up meetings with three record labels.
“Two of them kind of patted me on the head and sent me packing, but the third one was with Arista Records, and at the time, they were the best record label around,” he told The Oklahoman.
Oklahoma native Tim DuBois, Arista’s president at the time, offered him a record deal, so in 1993, James quit medical school and moved to Nashville. His self-titled debut album came out in 1995.
“My singles never really worked out at radio,” he told The Oklahoman in 2009. “Everybody thought I was gonna be a big shot, and then seven years later, I lost my record deal, lost my publishing deal. And I decided I’d better go back to med school and figure out how to feed my kids.”
He signed a new, less lucrative publishing deal and returned to OU to again hit the pathology books. While his wife and children were in Nashville trying to sell their house, James lived with his parents, repeating his sophomore year of med school by day and writing songs into the night.
Then, just days after restarting school, he got word Faith Hill was cutting his co-write “Love Is a Sweet Thing” for her album “Breathe.”
“I got 33 cuts in Nashville in the next nine months while I was going to school every day. Which was just crazy. I’d had two cuts up to that point in my career,” he recalled in 2009.
“It was like every day my publisher was calling saying, ‘Hey, Martina McBride cut this, and Tim McGraw cut that.’ … Just when I had kind of given up the dream of ever making it in the music business at all, it kind of all just fell in my lap.”
So, he left medical school for good and settled back in Nashville.
Brett James won a Grammy for penning one of Carrie Underwood’s signature hits
In 2007, James won the Grammy Award for best country song for co-writing “Jesus, Take the Wheel,” which fellow Oklahoman Carrie Underwood took to the top of the charts.
Co-written by James, Hillary Lindsey and Gordie Sampson, the power ballad, which became one of Underwood’s signature smashes, also was nominated for the 2007 Grammy for song of the year.
“We wrote it before Carrie was even on ‘American Idol,’” James recalled to The Oklahoman. “That’s just one of those magic things where the song kind of finds its way to just the right artist at just the right time.”
He also co-wrote Underwood’s hits “Cowboy Casanova,” “Something in the Water” and “Somethin’ Bad,” a duet with Miranda Lambert.
Other country hits written or co-written by James include Jason Aldean’s “The Truth,” Kenny Chesney’s “Out Last Night,” Chesney and Uncle Kracker’s duet “When The Sun Goes Down,” Dierks Bentley’s “I Hold On,” Rodney Atkins’ “It’s America,” Jessica Andrews’ “Who I Am,” Martina McBride’s “Blessed” and “Summer Nights” for Rascal Flatts, which includes Joe Don Rooney of Picher.
James was named ASCAP Country Songwriter of the Year in 2006 and 2010.
“Heartbroken to hear of the loss of my friend Brett James,” Aldean posted on social media. “I had nothing but love and respect for that guy and he helped change my life. Honored to have met him and worked with him. Thoughts and prayers going out to his family.”
On social media, Bentley also paid tribute to James, calling him “One of the best singer-songwriters in our town.”
“I brought a couple of roughy sketched verse ideas of I Hold On to Brett after my dad died and he just did his thing. The chorus is all him. When I sing that song live, I’m always thinking of my dad, but I also think about that day we wrote it. He just got it, just lit into it,” Bentley posted.
“It was one of the first times we wrote and I decided to drop the most meaningful and necessary idea of a song I had on him, because I felt like God was telling me to do so. Our friendship and that song changed my life.”
Grammy winner was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame
Plus, James penned songs for pop and rock stars like Bon Jovi, Nickelback, Leona Lewis and Daughtry and produced albums for Taylor Swift and Jessica Simpson. He even earned a Top 5 Latin hit with “The One You Love (Todo Mi Amor)” by Paulina Rubio.
“Like a lot of songwriters, I kind of fell backward into it by the failure of my artist career. I always planned on being the guy singing the songs … but I realize that it’s fun to be the guy behind the scenes,” he told The Oklahoman in 2009.
“In some ways it’s more fun because I don’t have to write songs just for me.”
But James returned to music as a singer-songwriter in 2020, releasing an EP titled “I Am Now,” followed by another EP, “Tell the People.”
“I hadn’t put out my own music in about 25 years,” James told The Tennessean in 2020. “I woke up on my 50th birthday and was like, ‘Man. I think it’s time to do my own thing for a little while.’ I had this epiphany. I don’t think my kids have ever heard me sing.”
He told The Tennessean he wrote “True Believer,” the moving lead single from “I Am Now,” in part for his then-19-year-old daughter, Clare.
Also in 2020, James was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame, considered one of the country’s most highly prized songwriting achievements.
“Brett James’ passing is tragic. I think his impact on country music goes beyond even what people think they might know. He was a truly prolific songwriter,” said Jake Krumwiede, director of the future OKPOP Museum in Tulsa, in a statement to The Oklahoman.
“Creativity has a way of outliving the person who gave it life. The hundreds of songs he wrote in his career will continue to be songs in the hearts of people for years to come.”
This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Brett James dies in plane crash; look back at his life in Oklahoma
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