Jason Aldean Pays Tribute To Late Songwriter Brett James With “The Truth” During Nebraska Show

One of his 27 chart toppers.

Grammy winning country songwriter Brett James, whose credits include 27 #1s and tons of other hits, was killed yesterday afternoon in a plane crash in North Carolina. According to authorities in Macon County, NC,  the Cirrus SR22T with tail number N218VB took off from John C. Tune Airport in Nashville shortly after noon on Thursday before crashing near Iotla Valley Elementary School in Franklin, North Carolina.

Luckily, all students and staff at the elementary school were safe, but all three passengers on the plane were killed in the crash. The plane was registered to James, whose full name was Brett James Cornelius.

James got his start in country music as an artist himself, dropping out of medical school at the University of Oklahoma and releasing his self-titled debut album in 1995. He charted two singles, including “Chasing Amy” and “After All” after signing to Arista Nashville in the early 2000s, but never released another album and actually ended up going back to medical school after his music career failed to take off.

But James had signed with a new songwriting company before going back to school, and continued writing songs while attending medical school to fulfill his contract. And he found himself having success at his side gig, scoring 33 songs recorded by major artists – so he decided to focus on songwriting once and for all.

It turned out to be the right decision, because James ultimately wrote 27 #1 hits including songs like “Jesus, Take The Wheel” for Carrie Underwood, “When The Sun Goes Down” and “Out Last Night” by Kenny Chesney, “The Truth” by Jason Aldean, “The Man I Want To Be” by Chris Young, and “Somethin’ Bad” by Miranda Lambert. And that’s just scratching the surface: He’s also written songs for artists from Tim McGraw, Wynonna, Billy Ray Cyrus, Dierks Bentley and Lorrie Morgan to Bon Jovi and the Backstreet Boys.

James was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2020, and after his death the Hall of Fame paid tribute to the songwriter on social media:

“We mourn the untimely loss of Hall of Fame member Brett James (“Jesus Take The Wheel” / “When The Sun Goes Down”), a 2020 inductee who was killed in a small-engine airplane crash on Sept. 18. He was 57.”

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After his death was announced, several artists took to social media to pay tribute to the legendary songwriter. And Jason Aldean also took the opportunity to honor James during his show last night at Pinnacle Bank Arena in Lincoln, Nebraska:

“This next song is a song that was one of the songs that was early on in my career that I think was a really big song for my career and for kind of letting people know who we were and what we were about, you know what I mean?

And we got a little bit of some sad news tonight right before we came on stage. A long time friend of ours, the guy that wrote this song, actually found out today died in a plane crash in North Carolina. And this guy written a lot of stuff for us over the years.

If anybody’s familiar with the albums, we had a song called Tonight Town that this guy wrote. Had a song, I think the second album called Grown Woman that we did with Miranda Lambert this guy wrote.

And he also wrote this next song, which ended up being one of the biggest songs of my career. So tonight we want to send this out to our friend that we lost tonight, our boy Mr. Brett James.

This one’s called The Truth.”

@jasonaldeanmusic

Heartbroken to hear of the loss of my friend Brett James tonight. I had nothing but love and respect for that guy and he helped change my life. Honored to have met him and worked with him. Thoughts and prayers going out to his family.

♬ original sound – Jason Aldean

The song was written by James along with Ashley Monroe, and was originally recorded by Trent Willmon for his 2008 album Broken In before being released by Aldean on his 2009 album Wide Open. It became Aldean’s fourth #1 song in February 2010, spending two weeks at the top of the charts and finishing the year as the #32 country song of 2010.

More recently, the song has found new life on TikTok, which really speaks to just how dang good it was.

@the.lukekelley

#countrymusic #northcarolina #texas #jasonaldean #tennessee

♬ The Truth – Jason Aldean

Such a good one…and just one of many incredible songs written by Brett James. Just a massive loss for the country music community.The post Jason Aldean Pays Tribute To Late Songwriter Brett James With “The Truth” During Nebraska Show first appeared on Whiskey Riff.