BMI Awards

A story 14 years in the making.

The marble and stone foyer of that downtown office building looked like the Taj Mahal through the eyes of a 9-year-old kid.

Walking in with my baby Martin guitar strapped to my back and wearing my favorite short-sleeve plaid button-down shirt, I had been waiting for this day for months. The excitement of any excuse to leave 3rd grade early that afternoon mixed with the fact that I was having my very first meeting on Music Row—it was the coolest thing my young self could ever imagine.

His name was Clay Bradley, the man I was there to see. He was one of the executives at BMI (Broadcast Music, Inc.), a company in Nashville that collects royalties for songwriters and artists every time their song is played around the world. Clay had heard a story about me and loved it so much that he wanted to meet me in person. The story came from a family beach trip to Destin, Florida, where, on a sunny June afternoon, I took my guitar to the beach and walked chair to chair playing original songs in hopes of collecting money for the Nashville flood relief effort. The flood had devastated my hometown earlier that year in 2010. After a couple of hours barefoot on the beach, I came back with the biggest smile and $200 in cash inside a blue sandcastle bucket to show my parents. To me, it felt like a million dollars.

Following the flood, BMI had promised to double all donations given to their flood relief fund that year. That promise included my hard-earned $200, which was now worth $400 thanks to BMI’s match.

As my mom helped me make the donation through a friend who worked at BMI, she shared the story behind my sand bucket of cash. That story made its way to Clay Bradley, and a couple of months later, there I was, waiting inside their building for Clay to come out and invite my mom and me to meet him in his corner office.

I sat in his massive office that afternoon and played him the same songs I had performed on the beach—original songs from the mind of a 9-year-old. One was called "Getting Away," another was a worship song I had written, and my favorite at the time was "Small Town Big Dream Boy." I’ll never forget Clay’s response.

“Conner, I’ve got to tell you, these songs are better than half the people we have signed here.”

I beamed with pride and told him thank you. The truth was, it wasn’t that the songs were necessarily “good,” but at that young age, I at least understood how to write a song. The song had structure, a hook, verses, and a chorus—a bridge too. Though the songs weren’t anything to brag about now, in that meeting in 2010, Clay saw the potential in my dream. He saw in me someone who had a talent that was more than just a passing phase.

That meeting was a turning point. Clay told me he would love for me to join the BMI family. He asked me to sign with them and offered to mentor me as I grew. I couldn’t believe it. It was the coolest thing ever. Just a kid in 3rd grade, he saw something in me and wanted to help nurture the gift I had been given.

A couple of months after meeting Clay for the first time, I signed the contract and officially became part of BMI, making me the second-youngest person ever to join the company. The only person beating me out was... Michael Jackson.

Now, the truth is, anyone can sign up with BMI. It isn’t a publishing deal or a record deal that you have to earn to join. It’s just the first step when moving to Nashville for anyone who hopes to make money in music. However, as a 9-year-old kid, the belief Clay had in me made me feel like I had "made it." In my head, I was now a “professional songwriter,” and as time went on, I can’t overstate how much that moment shaped my determination. From that moment I knew no matter what, writing songs would became the job I would do for the rest of my life. With his nod of approval to a kid in 3rd grade, I felt like I was officially a Nashville songwriter.

I tell this story because last Tuesday, the night before the CMA Awards, my favorite event of the year took place in a private ballroom on the top floor of that same office building I walked into 14 years ago—the BMI Awards. This is the night when the whole town gathers to celebrate songwriters. All the industry folks in one room, with a stage in the center, and the biggest artists in the genre—Eric Church, Morgan Wallen, Luke Combs, Kenny Chesney—performing and honoring the songwriters behind the year’s biggest hits.

Every year, the top songs from the year before receive “BMI Awards.” The songwriters for the top songs of the year—based on radio play and streams—are called up to the stage, song by song, to receive a gold medal and a plaque. And this year, I received my first-ever BMI Award for "Creek Will Rise."

It’s hard to explain how special that moment was. The night became so much bigger to me than I had imagined. Sitting in the front row next to the stage, at a table with Teddy Swims and Thomas Rhett, I looked around the room at so many of my heroes: Jason Aldean, Luke Combs, Luke Bryan, Randy Owen. Every year, this event reminds me of how truly blessed I’ve been to see this dream come to life. To be in the same room with these people—and now to call most of them friends—is hard to imagine. The 9-year-old version of me would have been overwhelmed by the idea of how everything turned out.

One by one, they called the songs up to the stage, and when "Creek Will Rise" began to play over the speakers, they called my name along with the other three writers on Creek. I walked up the stairs with my biggest smile as I shook Clay Bradley’s hand, who stood on stage to hand me my award. With a gold medal around my neck and a BMI certificate in my hand, I felt a joy I can only describe as one of the happiest moments of my life—a feeling of contentment, gratitude, and amazement. I was amazed at how, a 9-year-old kid with one simple dream just to write country songs, 14 years before, walked into that BMI office with a baby Martin guitar, some songs, and my mom and now, at 24 years old, I was walking out of that same building with my beautiful wife by my side and a gold medal around my neck, after standing on that stage, surrounded by hundreds of friends in country music, celebrating with me and my co-writers, my first-ever award.

My whole life, I wanted one thing: to be seen as a true songwriter and to be part of the country music family. The joy I felt that night was a realization that God has been so faithful to that dream every step of the way. His fingerprints are so evident. That’s all I felt last Tuesday night—how good God is. My favorite moments in life are those when you can so clearly see the authorship of the Lord. As I’m writing this now, I’m looking at my BMI medal hanging over my fireplace, and it’s a beautiful reminder, one I need daily, that we can always trust the story God is telling, no matter how long it takes.