Brett James, the Grammy-winning country music songwriter behind hits like ‘Jesus, Take the Wheel’ and ‘I Hold On,’ died at the age of 57 in a plane crash in Franklin, North Carolina.
The single-engine Cirrus SR22T he was traveling in crashed near an elementary school after departing from Nashville, Tennessee. All three people aboard were killed. The Federal Aviation Administration, FAA, and the National Transportation Safety Board, NTSB, have begun an investigation.
Unfortunately, plane crashes are much more common than we like to admit. And there have been many fatal flights that took the lives of some of the world’s most famous celebrities and public figures.
Brett James Cornelius was an American country music singer, songwriter, and record producer based in Nashville. James’ compositions have been credited on 494 recordings by a wide variety of artists. Signed to Career Records, a division of Arista Nashville, as a solo artist in 1995, James charted three singles and released a self-titled debut album that year. He returned to Arista as a recording artist in 2002, releasing two more singles.
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Since the early 2000s, James became known primarily as a songwriter for other country and pop music artists. Among his compositions was Carrie Underwood’s 2006 number one hit “Jesus, Take the Wheel“, which received Grammy Awards for Best Country Song and Best Female Country Vocal Performance. His writer’s credits also included number-one hits for Jessica Andrews, Martina McBride, Kenny Chesney, Rodney Atkins, and Jason Aldean.
James was born in Columbia, Missouri; his father was a physician, Dr. Sam Cornelius and his mother was Carolyn. James graduated from Christian Heritage Academy high school in Del City, Oklahoma in 1986.
He attended Baylor University, pledged Sigma Chi fraternity, and graduated in 1991 with a Bachelor of Science Degree. He attended medical school for a time in the early 1990s but dropped out to pursue a musical career as a recording artist on Career Records, a subsidiary of Arista Nashville, in 1995.
That year, he released his self-titled debut album, which included the charting singles “Female Bonding,” “If I Could See Love” and “Worth the Fall.” Also included on this album was “Wake Up and Smell the Whiskey”, which was co-written and later released as a single by Dean Miller in 1997.
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