Randy Owen, Will Jennings, Jeffrey Steele, Layng Martine Jr. named ...

The Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame will add four new members in October, and it’s a group that the hall’s chairman Pat Alger feels is inarguable: Randy Owen of Country Music Hall of Fame group Alabama, Will Jennings, Jeffrey Steele and Layng Martine Jr.

“I can’t imagine anyone quibbling with the qualifications of any of them,” says Alger, himself a Hall of Fame songwriter.

Alger says that the mention of Owen’s name conjures the thought “hit songwriter and artist.” Steele’s catalog of work spans 80 Top 10 songs and he’s claimed more than 50 songwriting awards. Alger says Jennings was already a “blossoming legend” in the early ’80s, and that Martine’s “broad spectrum of work is what makes great songwriters.”

Randy Owen (Photo: submitted)

Owen, inducted in the songwriter/artist category: Owen formed Alabama with his cousin, bass player Teddy Gentry and guitarist Jeff Cook in 1969; since then, the band has collected more than 40 No. 1 songs, many of which Owen — as the band’s primary songwriter — had a hand in writing. Owen’s songwriting credits include the band’s breakthrough hit “My Home’s In Alabama,” which he wrote with Gentry. Owen penned by himself “Tennessee River,” “Mountain Music,” “Lady Down on Love,” “Feels So Right,” “Face to Face,” “Tar Top” and scores of the band’s other hits.

Owen emotionally calls his induction into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame “a really big deal” and says it’s a “really special, special moment in my life.” He says his induction probably would not have happened if it weren’t for Alabama and explains that his family also deserves some of the recognition.

“I think more than anything at all, it’s important for my dogs and for my family because they’ve heard me write these songs,” Owen says. “Seriously, it’s like my dogs will all gather around. I’ll sing it to (wife) Kelly and my kids, when they were little, I’d sing the songs to them. They’d even suggest stuff and a lot of times they were right. It’s a family affair, very much a family thing, and I know very, very deeply appreciated by my family.”

Steele, inducted in the songwriter category: It took just eight years for Music City mainstay Steele to have more than 500 of his songs cut — and more than a few of the tunes he’s written have turned into certified smashes, including Rascal Flatts’ “What Hurts the Most,” Tim McGraw’s “The Cowboy in Me” and Zac Brown Band’s “Knee Deep.” Steele says he’s followed the advice his father gave him: “Don’t look up (from your work) unless you’re thanking God.”

Jeffrey Steele (Photo: submitted)

That approach has made the Hall of Fame news a big surprise for Steele.

“I’m turning 52 this year, and it’s like, ‘Wait a minute! Where’d the time go?’ ” he says with a laugh. “I’ve always just had my head down working and don’t think too much about those kinds of the things, and it’s just not on my radar, so it just blew me out of the water.”

Jennings, inducted in the songwriter category: Jennings hasn’t maintained a substantial presence in Nashville since he left Music City and moved to California in 1974. But Jennings, who won an Oscar for writing Celine Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On,” always left his publishing in Nashville. In addition to the Dion hit, he also had a hand in writing another Oscar-winning song, “Up Where We Belong” by Joe Cocker and Jennifer Warnes. He also wrote “Feelins’,” performed by Conway Twitty and Loretta Lynn; Eric Clapton’s “Tears in Heaven”; and “Didn’t We Almost Have it All,” sung by Whitney Houston.

Will Jennings (Photo: submitted)

“When my wife, Carole, and I decided to give it a try in the music business in the ’70s, Nashville was where we went to and where we found so many kind people who helped us on our way,” Jennings says. “It made all the difference, and I’m so very touched (by the induction.)”

Martine, inducted in the veteran songwriter category: Martine told The Tennessean that joining the Hall of Fame made him feel “as though I’ve been allowed into the coolest clubhouse in the universe,” but he’s long been associated with musical legends.

A couple of years after penning his first No. 1, “Rub It In,” for Billy “Crash” Craddock, Martine wrote Reba McEntire’s first single, “I Don’t Want to Be a One Night Stand,” as well as the last single Elvis Presley released during his lifetime, “Way Down,” which topped the charts after the rock great’s death.

Layng Martine Jr (Photo: submitted)

Right alongside the thrill of the honor, he says he’s “thinking of all of the people that made it happen along the way: my wife, Linda, and Ray Stevens, and the brilliant co-writers like Richard Leigh, the people who voted for me and the people who sang my songs. … Something like this is a collision of an immense amount of effort from so many people.”

- Cindy Watts and Dave Paulson, The Tennessean

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http://blogs.tennessean.com/tunein/2013/08/15/randy-owen-will-jennings-jeffrey-steele-layng-martine-jr-named-to-songwriters-hall-of-fame/

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