The Bryants: Nearly 40 Years with BMI

BMI is proud to represent the works of Felice and Boudleaux Bryant, which have accumulated almost one-half billion sales and close to 20 million performances. From 1954, when the Bryants signed with BMI, until 1987, when Boudleaux died of cancer, the couple wrote for countless singers and set a precedent by being the first professional songwriters in Music City. Before then, performers wrote their own material or got it from musicians who wrote on the side.BMI is proud to represent the works of Felice and Boudleaux Bryant, which have accumulated almost one-half billion sales and close to 20 million performances. From 1954, when the Bryants signed with BMI, until 1987, when Boudleaux died of cancer, the couple wrote for countless singers and set a precedent by being the first professional songwriters in Music City. Before then, performers wrote their own material or got it from musicians who wrote on the side.

The Bryants were both excellent performers, but concentrated on writing alone. Their catalogue is extensive. As Felice explains in an interview held in the BMI Oral History Collection, the couple put their ideas down in a set of ledgers; “there are sixteen of them and five hundred pages a piece, and they’re full.”

As all great songwriters know, the secret is to write everyday and allow accidents to work to your advantage. Take, for instance, the origin of their famous song, “Rocky Top,” first recorded by the Osborne Brothers in 1968 and now the state song of Tennessee. As Felice explains in the BMI Oral History interview, the couple was working on a project for Archie Campbell and hit a spot of writer’s block. To break the spell, Felice suggested they concentrate on creating something uptempo and cheery.

As Felice remembers, Boudleaux was angry and “he grabbed the guitar and gave it a real strong strum and said, ‘How’s this?” And then he breaks into (the) “Rocky Top” melody. I said ‘You know, that sounds pretty good.’ He said, “And what do you think we ought to call it?” I said, “Well, I don’t know.” He said, “How about “Rocky Top”?” I said, “That’s pretty.” I a little more than fifteen minutes, the song was complete, and the rest is history.”

In 1991 the Country Music Hall of Fame inducted Felice and Boudleaux, but we at BMI have long acknowledged the Bryants’ contributions to the music industry. They have received eighteen contributions to the music industry. They have received eighteen BMI country, eleven pop and two R&B awards over the years, and seven titles—“Bye Bye Love,” “Wake Up Little Susie,” “All I Have To Do Is Dream,” “Rocky Top,” “Devoted To You,” “Bird Dog,” and “Hey Joe”—have each garnered a million or more U.S. radio and television air plays. BMI has also been a family affair for the Bryants: Their son, Del, is senior vice president of performing rights.

BMI is proud of the Bryants. They are a special breed of creator whose work has exhibited longevity in the country, rock and pop fields. Phil Everly perhaps best sums up just what makes their work so special when, in a BMI Oral History project interview, he states of Boudleaux, “he had the far-reaching though process that go behind writing. It would be inner-soul searching and stuff. As silly as it sounds and as trite as it sounds, there’s still a little piece of everybody’s heart in it—some little twist, some little phrase in “All I Have To Do Is dream:…He influenced everyone he met.”