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The Frances Williams Preston Mentor Award

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The Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame began in 1970 as an enterprise of the fledgling Nashville Songwriters Association. A credentials committee unanimously selected a charter class of 21 writers, who were inducted on Monday, October 12, during the first Hall of Fame Banquet and Ceremony held at the Holiday Inn-Vanderbilt. With about 50 guests in attendance, radio personality Biff Collie emceed as Gene Autry, Johnny Bond, Albert E. Brumley, A.P. Carter, Ted Daffan, Vernon Dalhart, Rex Griffin, Stuart Hamblen, Pee Wee King, Vic McAlpin, Bob Miller, Leon Payne, Jimmie Rodgers, Fred Rose, Redd Stewart, Floyd Tillman, Merle Travis, Ernest Tubb, Cindy Walker, Hank Williams and Bob Wills were inducted as the hall’s initial members.

Sixteen years later, the Hall of Fame split from the songwriters association to form its own entity. The International Songwriters Foundation (ISF) was chartered on April 11, 1986, as a new organization to oversee the Hall of Fame. Chair Joe Talbot and the ISF’s founding Board of Directors were elected at its inaugural meeting. On March 2, 1992, the ISF changed its name to the Nashville Songwriters Foundation (NSF), then on Dec. 5, 2006, to the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame Foundation (NaSHOF).

Throughout its 40-plus years of existence, the Hall of Fame remained a virtual entity with no permanent location to call home until May 19, 2013, when NaSHOF realized a decades-long dream with the opening of its Hall of Fame Gallery inside the newly constructed Music City Center (MCC), Nashville’s 1.2 million-square-foot convention center. Located in downtown Nashville (directly across the street from the Country Music Hall of Fame and Bridgestone Arena) the gallery features displays of songwriting memorabilia, as well as interactive touch screens that allow visitors to access audio, video and other digital information about the history of Nashville songwriting and members of the Hall of Fame. Outside, at the corner of Fifth Avenue and Demonbreun Street, classic song titles and legendary names surround the landmark Songwriters Square that strikingly illustrates Nashville’s reputation as a songwriter’s town. After more than four decades, the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame became the first of its kind to emerge from a virtual existence to a physical location.