Nashville Songwriters Association International

The Nashville Songwriters Association International is a 501(c) not-for-profit trade organization that works to help songwriters in three ways: through legislative advocacy, through education and advice about the actual craft of songwriting, and through teaching about the music industry, and how to best position a song for success within it. They own the Bluebird Cafe.

HISTORY OF NSAI

As songwriters know, sometimes the best ideas appear during lunch, and that was the case more than 40 years ago with songwriters Eddie Miller, Buddy Mize and Bill Brock. In 1967, over lunch at Ireland's Restaurant in Nashville, the three came up with an idea to build a community: a songwriters association.

That kernel of an idea, planted and nurtured four decades ago, took root and has since grown into the 4,500+ member Nashville Songwriters Association International (NSAI), which today promotes awareness of songwriters' cultural contributions (through events such as Tin Pan South Songwriters Festival), champions the legal rights of professional songwriters and helps develop the abilities of aspiring songwriters.

But such growth and prosperity didn't occur overnight. Back in the late ‘60s, Nashville's songwriting community consisted of only a few dozen writers who received little credit for their achievements and whose royalty compensation was small, largely because of an antiquated copyright law. Additionally, outside of the performing rights societies ASCAP, BMI and SESAC, songwriter recognition was virtually non-existent.

Then, one November day in 1967, Miller (a 1975 inductee into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame and founding member of the Academy of Country Music in California) encouraged fellow songwriters Mize and Brock to begin an association for writers in Nashville. Mize and Brock loved the idea, and all three set out to make it happen.

Within a month, Eddie, Buddy and Bill were conducting the group's first organizational meeting at the Old Professional's Club on Music Row. The meeting attracted some 40 songwriters, including Liz & Casey Anderson ("The Fugitive"), Felice & Boudleaux Bryant ("Wake Up Little Susie"), Kris Kristofferson ("Me And Bobby McGee") and Marijohn Wilkin ("One Day At A Time"). Those 40 -- more than half the songwriters in town at that time -- became the founding membership of NSAI and began spending countless hours around Marijohn’s kitchen table brainstorming, discussing and refining ideas.

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