With last week’s announcement from the Country Music Association of Ontario of the final nominees for this year’s Ontario Country Music Awards, here’s a look at another category. This time Songwriter of the Year.

Before getting to this year’s nominees, it’s interesting to note this category features more American nominees and winners than any other category. Keep in mind the award goes to the writers, not the artists who’ve recorded the songs. If it did, Blake Shelton would have two CMAOntario awards and Justin Moore would have one. Those hit songs with contributions from Canadian co-writers, “Mine Would Be You” and “Came Here to Forget” recorded by Blake and “Somebody Else Will” recorded by Justin, were also #1 hits in the U.S.! (BTW, neither of those American stars had a hand in writing those specific hits.) That’s a big statement as to how successful Ontario songwriters have been on the American/international country music scene!

This year’s nominees, listed alphabetically by song title, are: Tebey, Kylie Sackley and Matt Rogers for “The Good Ones” (recorded by Tebey and Marie Mai); Stuart Walker, Jenna Walker, Brad Rempel and Ben Stennis for “I Do Too” (recorded by The Reklaws); Jessica Mitchell for “Somebody Gonna Get Hurt” (recorded by Jessica and Tim Hicks); Tim Hicks, Emma-Lee and Karen Kosowski for “What a Song Should Do” (recorded by Tim); and Meghan Patrick, Jordan Rager and Michael Whitworth for “Wild as Me” (recorded by Meghan). BTW, only one trophy is presented to the songwriting team if there is more than one writer on a nominated song.

This year, every nominated song had a writer or co-writer who was also the artist who recorded the song. Jessica Mitchell is the only nominee this year to have written a nominated song without a partner.

Previous winners include: Jason Blaine and Deric Ruttan in 2013 for Jason’s “They Don’t Make ‘Em Like That Anymore;” Jessi Alexander, Connie Harrington and Deric Ruttan in 2014 for Blake Shelton’s “Mine Would Be You;” Alyssa Bonagura, Patricia Conroy, Amanda Wilkinson and Tyler Wilkinson in 2015 for Small Town Pistols’ “I Only Smoke When I Drink;” Jason and Deric again in 2016 for Jason’s “Country Side;” Deric and Craig Wiseman in 2017 for Blake’s “Came Here to Forget;” Kelly Archer, Adam Hambrick and Tebey in 2018 for Justin Moore’s “Somebody Else Will;” and Meghan Patrick, Kelly Archer and Justin Weaver for Meghan’s “Walls Come Down.”

(Meghan Patrick at last year’s award show)

While Kelly Archer was a co-write winner in two consecutive years (in 2018 for Justin Moore’s “Somebody Else Will” and Meghan Patrick’s “Walls Come Down”), Deric Ruttan won twice-in-a-row twice (2013 and 2014, and 2016 and 2017)! Deric also holds the record for the most wins in this category with four trophies. Interestingly, even though Ruttan is also a very successful recording artist, all of his Songwriter trophies have come from songs recorded by other artists.

Among the Americans who have contributed to a winning song in Ontario are Nashville writers Aylssa Bonagura and Craig Wiseman. Aylssa is the daughter of Kathie Baillie and Michael Bonagura from Baillie & The Boys. Wiseman is one of the prolific hit songwriters in Music City having written or co-written over two dozen #1 hits in the U.S. for many of country music’s biggest stars.

(Nashville hit songwriter Craig Wiseman)

Songwriter of the Year is a very fascinating category. Congratulations and good luck to this year’s nominees.