Brett James Cornelius (born June 5, 1968) is an American
country music
Country (also called country and western) is a popular music, music genre originating in the southern regions of the United States, both the American South and American southwest, the Southwest. First produced in the 1920s, country music is p ...
singer, songwriter, and record producer based in
Nashville
Nashville, often known as Music City, is the capital and List of municipalities in Tennessee, most populous city in the U.S. state of Tennessee. It is the county seat, seat of Davidson County, Tennessee, Davidson County in Middle Tennessee, locat ...
. James' compositions have been credited on 494 recordings by a wide variety of artists.
Signed to Career Records (a division of
Arista Nashville
Arista Nashville was an American record label that served as a wholly owned division of Sony Music, operated under the Sony Music Nashville division. Founded in 1989, the label specialized in country music artists, including Alan Jackson, Brooks ...
) as a solo artist in 1995, James charted three
singles and released a self-titled debut album that year. He returned to Arista as a recording artist in 2002, releasing two more singles.
Since the early 2000s, James has become known primarily as a songwriter for other country and pop music artists. Among his compositions is
Carrie Underwood
Carrie Marie Underwood (born March 10, 1983) is an American singer and songwriter. She rose to prominence after winning the fourth season of ''American Idol'' in 2005, returning as a judge beginning with the twenty-third season. Underwood's f ...
's 2006 number-one hit "
Jesus, Take the Wheel", which received
Grammy Award
The Grammy Awards, stylized as GRAMMY, and often referred to as The Grammys, are awards presented by The Recording Academy of the United States to recognize outstanding achievements in music. They are regarded by many as the most prestigious ...
s for
Best Country Song and Best Female Country Vocal Performance. His writers' credits also include number-one hits for
Jessica Andrews,
Martina McBride
Martina Mariea McBride (née Schiff, July 29, 1966) is an American country music singer and songwriter. She is known for her soprano singing range and her country pop material.
McBride was born in Sharon, Kansas, and relocated to Nashville, T ...
,
Kenny Chesney
Kenneth Arnold Chesney (born March 26, 1968) is an American country singer. With 30 million albums sold worldwide, he released his debut, '' In My Wildest Dreams'', in 1994, and has since released 19 follow-ups. His albums spawned 27 singles tha ...
,
Rodney Atkins
Rodney Allan Atkins (born March 28, 1969) is an American country music singer and songwriter. Signed to Curb Records in 1996, he charted his first single on the ''Billboard'' country chart in 1997, but did not release an album until 2003's '' ...
, and
Jason Aldean
Jason Aldine Williams (born February 28, 1977), known professionally as Jason Aldean, is an American country music singer. Since 2005, he has been signed to BBR Music Group, Broken Bow Records, a record label for which he has released eleven alb ...
.
Singing career
James was born in
Columbia, Missouri
Columbia is a city in Missouri, United States. It was founded in 1821 as the county seat of Boone County, Missouri, Boone County and had a population of 126,254 as recorded in the 2020 United States census, making it the List of cities in Misso ...
; his father was a physician, Dr. Sam Cornelius and his mother was Carolyn. James graduated from
Christian Heritage Academy high-school in
Del City, Oklahoma in 1986. He attended
Baylor University
Baylor University is a Private university, private Baptist research university in Waco, Texas, United States. It was chartered in 1845 by the last Congress of the Republic of Texas. Baylor is the oldest continuously operating university in Te ...
, pledged
Sigma Chi
Sigma Chi () International Fraternity is one of the largest North American social Fraternities and sororities, fraternities. The fraternity has 244 active undergraduate chapters and 152 alumni chapters across the United States and Canada and has ...
fraternity, and graduated in 1991 with a Bachelor of Science Degree. He attended medical school for a time in the early 1990s, but dropped out to pursue a musical career as a recording artist on Career Records, a subsidiary of
Arista Nashville
Arista Nashville was an American record label that served as a wholly owned division of Sony Music, operated under the Sony Music Nashville division. Founded in 1989, the label specialized in country music artists, including Alan Jackson, Brooks ...
, in 1995. That year, he released his self-titled debut album, which included the charting
singles "Female Bonding," "If I Could See Love" and "Worth the Fall."
Also included on this album was "Wake Up and Smell the Whiskey", which was co-written and later released as a single by
Dean Miller
Roger Dean Miller Jr. (born October 15, 1965) is an American country singer, songwriter and music producer known professionally as Dean Miller. He is the son of Roger Miller, a country pop artist who had several hit singles from the 1960s thro ...
in 1997.
In addition, he appeared on two compilation albums issued by Arista Nashville. The first of these was 1996's ''Star of Wonder: A Country Christmas'', on which he sang "
What Child Is This?", and the other was a country-
gospel
Gospel originally meant the Christianity, Christian message ("the gospel"), but in the second century Anno domino, AD the term (, from which the English word originated as a calque) came to be used also for the books in which the message w ...
album entitled ''Peace in the Valley'', to which he contributed a recording of "
What a Friend We Have in Jesus
"What a Friend We Have in Jesus" is a Christian hymn originally written by preacher Joseph M. Scriven as a poem in 1855 to comfort his mother, who was living in Ireland while he was in Canada. Scriven originally published the poem anonymously, a ...
." This latter album was also promoted via a special on
The Nashville Network
The Nashville Network, usually referred to as TNN, was an American country music-oriented cable television network. Programming included music videos, taped concerts, movies, game shows, syndicated programs, and numerous talk shows. On September ...
(TNN), now
Spike. In 1998, James and
Tammy Graham were both dropped from Career Records when it merged with Arista Nashville.
James returned to his singing career in the early 2000s. After declining to join the band
Sixwire, he re-signed with
Arista Nashville
Arista Nashville was an American record label that served as a wholly owned division of Sony Music, operated under the Sony Music Nashville division. Founded in 1989, the label specialized in country music artists, including Alan Jackson, Brooks ...
and began working with producer
Dann Huff. Although he twice charted in the top 40 of the
Hot Country Songs
Hot Country Songs is a chart published weekly by ''Billboard'' magazine in the United States.
This 50-position chart lists the most popular country music songs, calculated weekly by collecting airplay data along with digital sales and streaming. ...
charts with "Chasing Amy" and "After All", he never released a full album.
Songwriting career
In 1998, James was at a low point: he had left medical school at the University of Oklahoma after one year to go to Nashville to make a career, but after nine months of waiting tables and attending many open mic nights, he had not had much success, and he was dropped from his recording and publishing deals. James thought he was in the wrong business, according to entertainment writer David Ross.
James met with producer
Mark Bright
Mark Abraham Bright (born 6 June 1962) is an English sports correspondent and former Association football, footballer.
Born to a The Gambia, Gambian father and English mother, he was adopted into a foster family in Stoke-on-Trent at an early a ...
who agreed to sign him for very little money to Bright's new publishing company, "Teracel Music", as its first and only writer.
SIx weeks into the agreement, James was re-accepted to medical school and decided to go back. Bright asked him if he would continue to write songs anyway, to satisfy the one-year agreement, and James promised to write every third day. He kept his promise, later saying, "It was a big creative shift—letting go of the dream of being a big star and just trying to write some cool music."
He wrote many songs including "Jesus, Take the Wheel" and "Cowboy Casanova" for Teracel, and his songs were recorded by artists such as
Faith Hill
Audrey Faith McGraw (; born September 21, 1967), known professionally as Faith Hill, is an American Country music, country singer. She is one of the most successful country music artists of all time, having sold almost 50 million albums worldwide ...
,
Kenny Chesney
Kenneth Arnold Chesney (born March 26, 1968) is an American country singer. With 30 million albums sold worldwide, he released his debut, '' In My Wildest Dreams'', in 1994, and has since released 19 follow-ups. His albums spawned 27 singles tha ...
,
Tim McGraw
Samuel Timothy McGraw (born May 1, 1967) is an American country singer and actor. He has released 17 studio albums (11 for Curb Records, five for Big Machine Records and one for Arista Nashville). 10 of those albums have reached number one on ...
,
Jason Aldean
Jason Aldine Williams (born February 28, 1977), known professionally as Jason Aldean, is an American country music singer. Since 2005, he has been signed to BBR Music Group, Broken Bow Records, a record label for which he has released eleven alb ...
,
Jessica Andrews,
Martina McBride
Martina Mariea McBride (née Schiff, July 29, 1966) is an American country music singer and songwriter. She is known for her soprano singing range and her country pop material.
McBride was born in Sharon, Kansas, and relocated to Nashville, T ...
and later
Carrie Underwood
Carrie Marie Underwood (born March 10, 1983) is an American singer and songwriter. She rose to prominence after winning the fourth season of ''American Idol'' in 2005, returning as a judge beginning with the twenty-third season. Underwood's f ...
. Within the year's contract with Teracel, James had a hot streak of 33 songs to be recorded by major artists. In 2000, James quit school for a final time.
The dean of the medical school agreed with James that his success as a songwriter was undeniable and wished him well, saying, "You have to go and do this ... but you can't ever come back".
His singles for other artists in the early 2000s included the number-one hits "
Who I Am" by
Jessica Andrews and "
Blessed" by
Martina McBride
Martina Mariea McBride (née Schiff, July 29, 1966) is an American country music singer and songwriter. She is known for her soprano singing range and her country pop material.
McBride was born in Sharon, Kansas, and relocated to Nashville, T ...
.
He continued to write for other artists, with two more of his songs topping the charts: "
When the Sun Goes Down" by
Kenny Chesney
Kenneth Arnold Chesney (born March 26, 1968) is an American country singer. With 30 million albums sold worldwide, he released his debut, '' In My Wildest Dreams'', in 1994, and has since released 19 follow-ups. His albums spawned 27 singles tha ...
and
Uncle Kracker
Matthew Shafer (born June 6, 1974), also known by his stage name Uncle Kracker, is an American singer and musician. He was previously a turntablist for Kid Rock's backing group Twisted Brown Trucker; since 1999, he has recorded as a solo artis ...
, and "
Jesus, Take the Wheel" by
Carrie Underwood
Carrie Marie Underwood (born March 10, 1983) is an American singer and songwriter. She rose to prominence after winning the fourth season of ''American Idol'' in 2005, returning as a judge beginning with the twenty-third season. Underwood's f ...
, in 2004 and 2006 respectively. "Jesus, Take the Wheel" also won a
Grammy Award
The Grammy Awards, stylized as GRAMMY, and often referred to as The Grammys, are awards presented by The Recording Academy of the United States to recognize outstanding achievements in music. They are regarded by many as the most prestigious ...
for Best Female Country Vocal Performance and Best Country Song, the latter of which was awarded to James and the song's other two songwriters.
Rodney Atkins
Rodney Allan Atkins (born March 28, 1969) is an American country music singer and songwriter. Signed to Curb Records in 1996, he charted his first single on the ''Billboard'' country chart in 1997, but did not release an album until 2003's '' ...
' "
It's America", Chesney's "
Out Last Night" and Carrie Underwood's "
Cowboy Casanova", all co-written by James, also topped the country charts in 2009. In 2010, James charted number one with
Jason Aldean
Jason Aldine Williams (born February 28, 1977), known professionally as Jason Aldean, is an American country music singer. Since 2005, he has been signed to BBR Music Group, Broken Bow Records, a record label for which he has released eleven alb ...
's "
The Truth
The Truth may refer to:
Film
* ''The Truth'' (1920 film) starring Madge Kennedy
* ''The Truth'' (1960 film) or ''La Vérité'', a French film by Henri-Georges Clouzot starring Brigitte Bardot
* ''The Truth'' (1988 film), a Hong Kong trial cri ...
" and
Chris Young's "
The Man I Want to Be". ASCAP named James their country songwriter of the year in 2006 and again in 2010. Non-country artists who have recorded his works include
Kelly Clarkson
Kelly Brianne (born Kelly Brianne Clarkson, April 24, 1982), known professionally as Kelly Clarkson, is an American singer, songwriter, and television personality. Rising to fame after winning the American Idol season 1, first season of ''Ameri ...
,
Backstreet Boys
Backstreet Boys (often abbreviated as BSB) are an American vocal group consisting of Nick Carter, Howie Dorough, AJ McLean, and cousins Brian Littrell and Kevin Richardson (musician), Kevin Richardson. The band formed in 1993 in Orlando, Flori ...
,
Bon Jovi
Bon Jovi is an American Rock music, rock band formed in Sayreville, New Jersey in 1983. The band consists of singer Jon Bon Jovi, keyboardist David Bryan, drummer Tico Torres, guitarists John Shanks and Phil X, percussionist Everett Bradley ...
and
Paulina Rubio
Paulina Susana Rubio Dosamantes (; born 17 June 1971) is a Mexican singer, songwriter and television personality. Referred to as "Honorific nicknames in popular music, The Golden Girl", she first achieved recognition as a member of the successf ...
. James also co-wrote ''
American Idol
''American Idol'' is an American Music competition, singing competition television series created by Simon Fuller, produced by Fremantle (company), Fremantle North America and 19 Entertainment, and distributed by Fremantle North America. It a ...
'' season 10 winner
Scotty McCreery
Scott Cooke McCreery (born October 9, 1993) is an American country singer. He rose to fame after winning the tenth season of ''American Idol'' in May 2011.
His debut studio album, '' Clear as Day'', was released in October 2011 and was certifi ...
's debut single "
I Love You This Big".
In 2008, James also began working as a record producer, with his production credits including Gracin's ''
We Weren't Crazy'',
Kristy Lee Cook's ''
Why Wait'', a re-release of
Taylor Swift
Taylor Alison Swift (born December 13, 1989) is an American singer-songwriter. Known for her autobiographical songwriting, artistic versatility, and Cultural impact of Taylor Swift, cultural impact, Swift is one of the Best selling artists, w ...
's self-titled
debut album,
Jessica Simpson
Jessica Ann Johnson (née Simpson; born July 10, 1980) is an American singer, actress, and fashion designer. After performing in church choirs as a child, Simpson signed with Columbia Records in 1997, aged seventeen. Her debut studio album, '' ...
's ''
Do You Know'' and
Kip Moore
Kip Christian Moore (born April 1, 1980) is an American country music singer and songwriter signed to Virgin Music Group. Moore previously recorded for Universal Music Group Nashville, MCA Nashville, where he released five studio albums for th ...
's ''
Up All Night''.
Songs written by Brett James
James' songwriting credits include twenty six Number One hits. Besides these, he has co-written several other Top 10 country hits, including cuts by
Rascal Flatts
Rascal Flatts is an American Country music, country music band formed in 1999 in Nashville, Tennessee. The band consists of Gary LeVox (lead vocals), Jay DeMarcus (bass guitar, background vocals), and Joe Don Rooney (lead guitar, background voc ...
,
Josh Gracin
Joshua Mario Gracin (; born October 18, 1980) is an American country music singer. While serving in the US Marine Corps, he first gained public attention as the fourth-place finalist on the second season of ''American Idol''.
After his elimina ...
,
Sara Evans
Sara Lynn Evans (; born February 5, 1971) is an American country music singer and songwriter. She is also credited as a record producer, actress, and author. She had five songs reach the number one spot on the ''Billboard (magazine), Billboar ...
,
Tim McGraw
Samuel Timothy McGraw (born May 1, 1967) is an American country singer and actor. He has released 17 studio albums (11 for Curb Records, five for Big Machine Records and one for Arista Nashville). 10 of those albums have reached number one on ...
, and others.
Discography
Albums
Singles
;Notes
*A
^ "Female Bonding" also peaked at number 89 on the ''
RPM
Revolutions per minute (abbreviated rpm, RPM, rev/min, r/min, or r⋅min−1) is a unit of rotational speed (or rotational frequency) for rotating machines.
One revolution per minute is equivalent to hertz.
Standards
ISO 80000-3:2019 def ...
'' Country Tracks chart in Canada.
Music videos
References
External links
{{DEFAULTSORT:James, Brett
1968 births
American country singer-songwriters
American country record producers
Arista Nashville artists
Grammy Award winners
Living people
Musicians from Columbia, Missouri
Place of birth missing (living people)
University of Oklahoma alumni
Country musicians from Missouri
Businesspeople from Columbia, Missouri
Singer-songwriters from Missouri