Jake Brown’s Songs of Nashville Gives Country’s Hitmakers the Spotlight They Deserve
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — You know the songs. You’ve screamed them on backroads, cried through them in your kitchen, and probably quoted a few in a breakup text. But the names behind those lyrics? The ones who actually wrote your favorite country hits? Chances are, you don’t know them at all.
Jake Brown’s betting on changing that.
With the release of his 60th book, Songs of Nashville: The Real Stories Behind Country Music’s Greatest Hits, the award-winning music biographer turns the mic toward the writers—the unsung, unpaid-in-Spotify-royalties, heart-on-their-sleeve warriors of Music Row. And he does it with the kind of reverence most fans reserve for the artists themselves.
This isn’t your average industry tell-all. It’s a 300-page deep-dive into the messy, magical, and often misunderstood world of songwriting, straight from the mouths of more than 45 hitmakers. Brown pulls no punches and skips the gloss. From Jelly Roll and Vince Gill to Liz Rose (Taylor Swift’s OG lyric co-conspirator), Hillary Lindsey, Clint Black, and even the late Merle Haggard—Songs of Nashville captures raw, behind-the-scenes conversations about what it takes to turn pain into poetry, and lyrics into legacies.
“This is a love letter,” Brown says. “To the folks behind the curtain. The people who gave us the songs that became our soundtracks.”
And he means that literally. The book dives into “Aha!” moments, gut-wrenching sessions, and stories you won’t find on liner notes or award show speeches. Think of it as the gritty, glorious backstory to the soundtrack of your life.
Brown taps into every era—’80s legends, ’90s radio kings, modern-day streaming stars, and rising Americana icons. It’s equal parts history lesson, songwriting masterclass, and spiritual revival for anyone who’s ever found themselves in a song.
Grab the book here:
👉 https://linktr.ee/songsofnashville
