Luke Combs, Morgan Wallen, Matraca Berg, more celebrated at 2023 BMI Country Awards

There were many reasons why Nashville native songwriter Matraca Berg deserved to be featured as the highlight performer at BMI's Country Awards ceremony, held Nov. 8 in the song publisher's Music Row offices.

Her mother was born in Harlan County, Kentucky, a town notoriously memorialized in a country anthem, and by the time she was 18, she had written a hit single with the man responsible for Tammy Wynette's classic "D-I-V-O-R-C-E."

But Berg's deeper contribution to the architecture of modern country music was best said by recent Country Music Hall of Famer Patty Loveless via a video shown at the ceremony.

"[Berg's] timeless words and chords offered insight on human nature that achieved a life of their own in the universe," Loveless said.

"[Matraca's] so dang good, she makes you say 'whoa,' because her songs were not like anything else going on," said fellow Country Music Hall of Famer Dean Dillon, reflecting on Berg's "Strawberry Wine," a ballad with which Deana Carter achieved success in 1996.

History could be as kind to songs like Morgan Wallen's "You Proof," which was the "Song of the Year" for 2023, according to the publisher. That achievement honors the song with the most performances on terrestrial radio, satellite radio and digital streaming services over the past year.

Wallen's "You Proof" was published by Big Loud Mountain, Bo Wallace Publishing, Ern Dog Music, Songs of Universal, Inc., Sony/ATV Songs LLC and Warner-Tamerlane Publishing Corp. It was written by Wallen, ERNEST and Charlie Handsome.

Also, 49 other top-played country songs (featuring 27 first-time winning songwriters) were celebrated at the event.

More information about those winners is available at https://www.bmi.com/award-shows/country-2023.

"Songwriter of the Year" was a similar but different story as Wallen and Luke Combs shared the honor. Both were in attendance and in what BMI's VP of Creative Clay Bradley noted was an unprecedented moment, Combs performed a stripped-down version of Wallen's "Thought You Should Know" while Wallen played Combs' "Going, Going, Gone."

Combs singles "Doin' This," "Going, Going, Gone," "The Kind of Love We Make" and Zac Brown Band's "Out in the Middle" keyed his award. Wallen's work co-writing Keith Urban's "Brown Eyes Baby" and Corey Kent's "Wild as Her," plus his own "Thought You Should Know" and "You Proof" spurred his success.

Wallen, appearing rested and relaxed amid a global touring schedule for most of 2023, highlighted how glad he was to receive the honor and reflected on hearing renditions of evangelist and song-leader George Bennard's "Old Rugged Cross" at the age of three in inspiring his lifelong desires as both a singer and songwriter.

Insofar as Berg, her work, including being the first female songwriter to achieve five No. 1 singles in the same year (in 1997, when she won the Country Music Association's Song of the Year for "Strawberry Wine") plus being the youngest ever inductee into the Songwriters Hall of Fame, inspired incredible performances during the evening.

Wilson performed a powerful rendition of "Strawberry Wine," infusing it with heavier, now trademark rock-edged energy. Ashley McBryde's appearance for a take on Trisha Yearwood's "Wrong Side of Memphis" continued in McBryde's recent run of moments wherein years of note-perfect cover-song training and gaining peerless confidence in her voice creates standing ovation-worthy moments.

Insofar as 2010's "You And Tequila," its vocalists Kenny Chesney and Grace Potter appeared for a duet. The song, penned by Berg and Deana Carter, retained its rootsy, Grammy-nomination-worthy flavor.

Berg's career-long work has been equally passionate and groundbreaking.

1983 Bobby Braddock co-write “Faking Love” (a No. 1 Billboard Country sales hit for T.G. Sheppard and Karen Brooks) keyed work with artists including Carter, Loveless and Yearwood, but a who's who of four decades of country's female singer-songwriter legacy including Faith Hill, Martina McBride, Reba McEntire and The Chicks. She also recorded seven albums of her own.

“I’ve been a BMI writer since right out of high school. It means so much, this honor. All I ever wanted to be was a songwriter," Berg said.

Warner-Tamerlane Publishing, a music publishing company belonging to Warner Music Group, was honored as 2023's Publishers of the Year. Songs including Kane Brown's "Like I Love Country Music," Tyler Hubbard's "5 Foot 9" and Maren Morris' "Circles Around This Town" were all handled by the company in the past year-long cycle.

The importance of Nashville's songwriting community celebrating itself, as well as the connective power of country music's currently popular and legacy-creating material, was perhaps best summarized on the event's red carpet by another Country Music Hall of Famer in attendance at the event: Brooks and Dunn's Ronnie Dunn.

Alongside spending years as a songwriter before pairing with Kix Brooks, plus staring at a forthcoming year where his Garth Brooks collaboration "Rodeo Man" could be an unexpected smash, he offered the following comprehensive thought.

"As a community, the hunger and love for what we do make us feel like we're [metaphorically like] legendary quarterbacks [perpetually able] to throw touchdowns. As long as I can wake up and write a song, I always have the potential of one more fantastic thing left [to accomplish]," he said.

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Luke Combs, Morgan Wallen, Matraca Berg, more celebrated at 2023 BMI Country Awards