The Secret Sisters. Photo by Alysse Gafkjen.

Middle Tennessee State University alumni and former students are once again well represented at the annual Grammy Awards. The Grammys have recognized MTSU-trained artists and recording professionals in multiple genres and categories. The Grammy Awards (originally set for Jan. 31) have been rescheduled to Sunday, March 14. The new slate of nominees, for work ranging from performance to songwriting to engineering in country, contemporary Christian, gospel, folk and roots music released between September 2019 and Aug. 31, 2020, includes:

• 2000 Department of Recording Industry alumnus Jason A. Hall and 2014 audio production grad Jimmy Mansfield, who are looking at their third consecutive year of Grammy nominations together, this time for both their teamwork and independent efforts on four of the five Best Country Album candidates.

Hall and Mansfield, who’ve worked together on multiple artists’ award-winning projects, have been Grammy-nominated for their work on country albums released in 2018, 2019 and now 2020, including work by Eric Church, Little Big Town, the Brothers Osborne and Brandy Clark. Hall won a 2005 Best Rock Gospel Album Grammy for his work with Audio Adrenaline.

For the 2020 nominations, the two are credited for their work on a pair of country albums: Ashley McBryde’s Never Will and Miranda Lambert’s Wildcard. Hall also is nominated as engineer for Little Big Town’s Nightfall and Mansfield for mixing Clark’s Your Life Is a Record.

• 2012 audio production alumnus Jeff Braun whose mixing work on the remaining country album project by Ingrid Andress, Lady Like, earned him a Grammy nomination. Braun has previously mixed releases for Jason Aldean, Kane Brown, Hunter Hayes and fellow MTSU alumnus Mitchell Tenpenny. He’s played a role in four No. 1 hits so far and has been nominated for seven previous Grammys.

• 2000 School of Music alumnus Wayne Haun, a producer and songwriter whose work on three of the five Best Roots Gospel album nominees has him competing with himself again, just as he did at the 2018 awards ceremony. Haun has been nominated for seven previous Grammys and has won more than 30 Gospel Music Association/Dove Awards and three BMI Music Awards.

He’s nominated in the 63rd annual Grammys for producing his longtime collaborators Ernie Haase & Signature Sound’s Something Beautiful album and The Erwins’ What Christmas Really Means. Haun also provided orchestral arrangements for The Crabb Family’s 20/20 album in this category, though he didn’t produce it.

• Former student and multi-Grammy winner Lecrae Moore, who’s back in the golden circle for two new efforts: Best Contemporary Christian Music Performance, “Sunday Morning,” with gospel icon Kirk Franklin and a Best Gospel Performance/Song co-writing nod for “Come Together” for Rodney Jerkins Presents: The Good News.

Moore won the Grammy for Best Gospel Album at the 2013 awards for his 2012 release Gravity, then won again for his 2014 contemporary Christian song, “Messengers,” featuring For God & Country. He co-wrote that winning song with Grammy-winning 2003 music business graduate Torrance “Street Symphony” Esmond.

A rapper, songwriter, record producer and actor, Moore has so far released nine solo studio albums, including 2014’s Anomaly, which was the first to top both Billboard‘s Top 200 and gospel listings.

• 2009 music business alumna Laura Rogers and her sibling, Lydia Slagle, who perform as The Secret Sisters and are nominated for two new Grammys: Best Folk Album for Saturn Return, their fourth release; and for writing a Best American Roots song nominee on it, “Cabin.” The Rogers sisters’ 2017 album, You Don’t Own Me Anymore, was a crowdfunded project that garnered the duo’s first Grammy nomination, also in the Best Folk Album Category. Americana superstar Brandi Carlile and her longtime collaborators and bandmates Tim and Phil Hanseroth returned to produce Saturn Return.

• Former student Hillary Scott and her bandmates in Lady A, multi-Grammy winners who are nominated for Best Country Duo/Group Performance for their song “Ocean.” Hillary Scott, Dave Haywood and Charles Kelley won the first of their five Grammys in 2009 for “I Run to You,” and then commenced a two-year dance through the Country Album, Performance and Record of the Year categories that also earned 1980 recording industry alumnus L. Clarke Schleicher three engineering Grammys.

Additionally, F. Reid Shippen, a 1994 recording industry graduate, produced the Best Country Solo Performance nominee Mickey Guyton’s debut album, Bridges.

Aaron Raitiere / photo by Becky Fluke

2009 Master of Fine Arts alumnus Aaron Raitiere has two co-written cuts on McBryde’s Best Country Album nominee: “Voodoo Doll” and “Sparrow.”

2006 music business grad Sean McConnell co-wrote “The Daughters,” “Wine, Beer, Whiskey” and “Problem Child” on Best Country Album nominee Little Big Town’s Nightfall, and 2001 music business grad Luke Laird co-wrote “The Past Is the Past” with Clark on her nominated album.

Songwriters aren’t listed in album nominations—but of course, they still get the boost in royalties from Grammy-fueled purchases, streams and airplay.

For more information about the Department of Recording Industry in MTSU’s College of Media and Entertainment, visit mtsu.edu/recording-industry. For more on its School of Music, visit mtsu.edu/music.

More details about the upcoming Grammy Awards ceremony are available at grammy.com.