{"id":41,"date":"2012-03-12T13:50:33","date_gmt":"2012-03-12T13:50:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/sites\/gsm_spr12\/?p=41"},"modified":"2016-02-02T12:26:41","modified_gmt":"2016-02-02T17:26:41","slug":"ascap-songwriter-of-the-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/2012\/03\/12\/ascap-songwriter-of-the-year\/","title":{"rendered":"ASCAP Songwriter of the Year"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ben Hayslip<\/h3>\n

Although Ben Hayslip (\u201994) has never played in a band, the former Georgia Southern baseball player has scored his biggest successes in the country music industry.
\n\"ASCAPHayslip\"<\/a>
\nIn college, Hayslip viewed songwriting as a sideline, and sports came first. The Evans, Ga., native was a member of the Eagles\u2019 team that went to the 1990 College World Series in Omaha, but athletics was not his calling.<\/p>\n

He\u2019d always had the same dream since the age of 14. \u201cI\u2019ve always said, \u2018I\u2019m going to Nashville,\u2019\u201d Hayslip recalled.<\/p>\n

After graduation, Hayslip followed his teenage dream to Nashville, signing his first publishing deal one year later. Early in his career, a number of artists recorded his songs, including Trace Adkins. Hayslip acknowledged that he\u2019s seen his share of ebbs and flows in songwriting.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis industry is sort of like golf. You keep having little successes at a time, and it was enough for me to keep hanging around Nashville. As a songwriter, you go through stages of asking yourself, \u2018Am I doing the right thing? and \u2018Am I ever going to make it?\u2019 I was on the verge of moving back home to Georgia in 2005, and then Jeff Bates recorded my song \u2018Long, Slow Kisses,\u2019 which went to number 10,\u201d said Hayslip.<\/p>\n

Since that memorable event, Hayslip\u2019s career has catapulted to the top of the charts; in 2009 alone, 26 of his songs were recorded by various artists. For several years, he has been a member of the songwriting trio known as the Peach Pickers with fellow Georgia natives Rhett Akins and Dallas Davidson. Together, the group has co-written the number one songs \u201cGimmie That Girl,\u201d by Joe Nichols; \u201cAll About Tonight\u201d and \u201cHoney Bee\u201d by Blake Shelton; \u201cAll Over Me,\u201d by Josh Turner; and \u201cI Don\u2019t Want This Night to End\u201d by Luke Bryan.<\/p>\n

The Peach Pickers also picked up several awards in Nashville last year \u2013 Hayslip was named ASCAP Songwriter of the Year, Davidson and Akins were named co-BMI Songwriters of the Year and the group was named to Billboard\u2019s Top 5 Country Songwriters.<\/p>\n

Receiving these awards comes as a result of Hayslip\u2019s dedication to his craft. He joins his fellow songwriters every morning on Music Row to collaborate on lyrics. \u201cWhen you do this for a living every day, it is so boring to sit in a room by yourself. There\u2019s a lot of camaraderie with our songwriting \u2013 we throw around ideas for melodies. Some of our best songs have taken 45 minutes to an hour to write, while other days I am brain dead when I get home,\u201d he admitted about the intensity of the songwriting process. \u201cThere are only 250 to 300 people who get paid in this town to write songs, and this can\u2019t be a hobby \u2013 it\u2019s a full-time job.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ASCAP Songwriter of the Year<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1507,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[37],"class_list":["post-41","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alumni","tag-spring-2012"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1507"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}