Grammys 2020: How two musicians fell in love and wrote H.E.R.'s ‘Song of the Year’

7 a.m. might be early for some musicians, but not Sam Ashworth and Ruby Amanfu.

On many weekday mornings, the married Nashville songwriters are up, cooking breakfast, packing lunch and getting ready to take their youngest daughter to school.

That’s how it was on November 20 of last year. But in the background, both had their phones tuned into the Grammy nominations, which were being announced live from New York.

A few minutes later, she was cleaning up the kitchen, and he was about to pull out of the driveway. Then they heard their names, said together, as nominees for Song of the Year.

"I look out the window, and the car's still in the driveway,” Amanfu recalls. “I swing open the screen door, run outside and jump into his arms.”

In retrospect, there was no better place to hear the news than at their home in Bellevue. That’s where they wrote the nominated song, H.E.R.’s “Hard Place,” with the acclaimed R&B prodigy H.E.R. (Gabriella Wilson) and D. Arcelious Harris.

Ashworth is also a part of H.E.R.’s Album of the Year nomination for “I Used to Know Her,” having co-written nine songs for the project.

Still, it’s hard not to focus on the nomination that’s shared by these two: A pair of lifelong Nashvillians with decades of ups and downs in the business – and who only recently realized they wanted to take the rest of their journey together.

‘OK. This is it.'

Amanfu was born in Ghana, and just before she turned 3, her family flew across the Atlantic to start a new life in Nashville. In her early 20s, she had a major-label deal and a pop hit in the U.K. (2003’S “Sugah.”) While that first chapter was short-lived, it set the stage for a multifaceted career that’s kept her on her toes.

In 2012, she was back in the spotlight as Jack White’s duet partner on “Love Interruption.” She toured the globe in his band, and later did the same with Hozier, Norah Jones and others. Through White, she also provided background vocals for a standout track on Beyonce’s “Lemonade” album.

Ashworth, the son of Grammy-winning producer Charlie Peacock, moved to Nashville from Sacramento when he was 9.

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At 16, he’d scored a cut on Sixpence None The Richer’s platinum-selling 1997 album. By 23, he’d co-produced a Michael W. Smith album, earning his first Grammy nod. Over the last decade, his songwriting career has gone all over the map, literally, from a song for “Hamilton” star Leslie Odom, Jr. and a Top 40 dance hit in The Netherlands.

Back in 2006 – in a smaller Music City – Amanfu and Ashworth’s paths inevitably crossed.

They spent the next decade firmly as friends, and eventually, bandmates, backing up Ashworth’s father on a tour. For years, Amanfu says, they called each other “brother and sister.”

That all changed in 2016. She had moved back to Nashville after a stint in Los Angeles, and he was now a single father, raising three kids.

“We intended to just catch up, and now it's become our first date,” Ashworth says.

“We just saw each other in this radically different way that night. It was like, ‘OK. This is it. This is what we've been seeking all these years.’”

Within two months, Amanfu says, "I'd already called my parents and told them I was with the man I was gonna marry."

Bound for the Grammys

Since marrying in 2017, the couple has started to share more and more songwriting credits. H.E.R. is one of several rising stars who’ve come to their house for several days of songwriting.

“We have like an unintentional Mom and Dad thing, a nurturing thing,” Amanfu says.

There were no plans to write on the night “Hard Place” was born. Wilson and Harris had just landed in Nashville for a week of writing. Amanfu cooked dinner for everyone. Afterwards, Wilson found her way to Ashworth’s guitar and told them about an idea she had.

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Over the next two hours – and just three chords – they crafted a heartbreaking ballad, a song about feeling torn in a relationship of highs and lows.

“I'd rather fight than lose sleep at night,” Wilson croons on the finished product.

“At least you're all mine/ And if I have to choose my heart or you, I'm gonna lose/ What if nothing ever will change? I’m caught between your love and a hard place.”

“She's always been very open, and writes about personal things,” Ashworth says.

“You always want to write what's real, you know? I think we were all just inspired by that concept, and felt that we all could relate to it.”

The couple was very happy with “Hard Place,” but at the time, it simply seemed like a good omen for the week of work ahead of them. Little by little, it became a bigger deal.

The song made it on the album. H.E.R. performed it at last year’s Grammys – where she was named Best New Artist. And after the response to that performance, it became a single, peaking at No. 39 on the Top 40 chart.

For much of the last year, Ashworth says, the song was being licensed for use on TV or film at least once a month. It’s currently heard in the trailer for the anticipated romantic drama “The Photograph,” starring Issa Rae.

“It’s so badass right now to see what has happened,” Amanfu says. “That song never died.”

In the meantime, the couple’s careers have thrived. As a team, they’re contributing to two substantial projects that, for now, have to go unnamed – while balancing out their duties at home.

For one weekend at least, it’ll all come together. The whole family’s heading to Los Angeles for the Grammys, where Ashworth and Amanfu plan to celebrate, no matter how the night turns out.

“This is one of those things,” Ashworth says, “Where I go, ‘Win or lose, this is still as high as I've ever gotten in this industry, and well, what's next? Well, I’ll just keep doing more of the same…Trying to get to the heart of something, tell a story, and make it beautiful. Sometimes it doesn't work, and sometimes it does.”

“I don't set out to write a song that's going to be a classic,” Amanfu adds. “But isn't that the dream?”

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This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Grammys 2020: The married couple who wrote H.E.R.'s 'Hard Place'