Toby Keith and Amy Grant are among the 2021 nominees for the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame.

Rhett Akins, Buddy Cannon and John Scott Sherrill will join them at the “50/51” Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame Gala on November 1 at the Music City Center alongside the organization’s previously named Class of 2020.

In addition, two more nominees – a veteran songwriter and a veteran songwriter/artist – will be named to the Class of 2021 later.

Oklahoma native Keith has placed 45 self-penned Top 20 songs on the Billboard charts. He was named BMI’s 2001 Songwriter of the Year, 2004 Writer/Artist of the Year and 2006 Songwriter of the Year. He was also NSAI’s 2003, 2004, 2006 Songwriter/Artist of the Year, as well as that organization’s Songwriter/Artist of the Decade (2000-2009). He was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in New York in 2015.

In the middle of a long career that also included innumerable hits in the contemporary Christian music arena, Grant is currently celebrating the 30th anniversary of one of her landmark albums, Heart in Motion. Grant popularized many of her own compositions, including “Baby Baby,” “That’s What Love Is For” and “Tennessee Christmas.”

Valdosta, Georgia, native Akins began his professional music career as a performer. He was named BMI Country Songwriter of the Year in 2011 and 2014, ACM Songwriter of the Year in 2017, and as the ACM Songwriter of the Decade in 2019.

Throughout the 1980s and into the 2000’s, Sherril enjoyed more No. 1 hits. Sherrill’s hits include “Wild And Blue” (John Anderson), “The Church On Cumberland Road” (Shenandoah) and “How Long Gone” (Brooks & Dunn).

Born in Lexington, Tennessee, Cannon began his diverse career as a songwriter/singer/musician/publisher/producer/label executive in the early 1970s.

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