It all begins with a song. That’s the time-honored country music mantra, an acknowledgment that all hit tunes start with words and music steeped in the blood, sweat and tears of songwriters. And it was ringing out loud and clear at the Country Music Association’s Triple Play Awards Wednesday night at Saint Elle in Nashville.
The Triple Play Awards recognize songwriters who’ve notched three No. 1 hits in a 12-month period based on Billboard and Country Aircheck charts tracking radio play, streaming services and album sales.
Sixteen winners were announced at this year’s ceremony, for a total of 17 awards, since the famously prolific Ashley Gorley got two Triple Plays for his six No. 1 songs for the year. Additionally, song publisher and former BMI Nashville chief Jody Williams was feted with the CMA’s 2023 Songwriter Advocate Award for his four decades as a Nashville publishing executive whose dedication to music made him a mentor and a friend to hundreds of aspiring writers and artists. (See below for a full list of winners and songs.)
Backstage at the event, two of the award recipients talked to Variety about songs and songwriting, the muse of inspiration — and what made them unique in the evening’s lineup.
Rhett Akins and his son, singer-songwriter Thomas Rhett, were each separate 2023 Triple Play honorees. They’re also musical collaborators who’ve been writing songs together for nearly 20 years, and hitting the musical highway together for even longer.
“I know I’ve been up on stage with you a bunch,” says Rhett, 32, with a grin, about getting out of school early to travel with his dad to gigs when he was just a lad. “I remember going out on the bus with you and waking up for soundcheck, getting up and playing drums with you and your band when you covered ‘Sweet Home Alabama’ or something. That had to be 20 or 25 years ago.”
“He’s been going out on the road with me since he was 5 years old,” says Akins, 53. “And now I go out on the road with him, write songs, and sometimes even play the whole show with him.”
Akins had his own recording career in the 1990s as an artist signed to Decca Records, and later became one of Nashville’s top tunesmiths, writing more than 30 No. 1 hits for Luke Bryan, Dustin Lynch, Blake Shelton, Jason Aldean, Joe Nichols and others, including his son. This year’s Triple Play marked his eighth time receiving the honor.
Thomas Rhett, whose full name is Thomas Rhett Akins, has released six studio albums and seen almost 20 of his singles rise to No. 1. “I can’t believe I’ve been doing it for 10 years,” he says. “It kind of feels like yesterday.”
“The first time he ever said, ‘I’m going to write a song,’ he was about 6 or 7,” says Akins. “He had this idea about a guitar, [for a song] called ‘A Piece of Wood,’ about how it starts out as a piece of wood and then you add some guitar strings and then you write songs.”
Guitar strings and songs have been good to both the father and son, leading to careers and livelihoods — and a multi-generational musical bond shared by very few other hitmakers. “It’s just a miracle,” says Akins. “God has blessed us, to be able, first of all, for me to do this for this long, to still be around 30 years later — and to get to do it with your kid is just an extra blessing.”
Akins says one of the main things he’s passed along to Rhett is “always have your antenna up, always be listening and looking” for inspiration. “It could be a billboard sign or something someone says.” Or it could be a glance at your filthy boots, which inspired “Dirt on My Boots,” a song he cowrote that became a 2021 top 10 hit for Jon Pardi.
Both father and son agree that creating a piece of music, writing a song, is the most rewarding thing they can do.
“If I had to pick one love,” says Rhett, “it would be writing songs. That’s my favorite thing in the