Grammy-Award Winning Songwriter Was 57

Brett James, the acclaimed songwriter who won a Grammy Award for his work on Carrie Underwood’s “Jesus, Take The Wheel,” and was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame, has died in a plane crash. He was 57.

According to WLOS, James was on board a small plane that went down in Macon County near Franklin, North Carolina, around 3 p.m. EST on Thursday, Sept. 18.

None of the three passengers on board survived, authorities say. The FAA reports that the aircraft was registered to Brett Cornelius of Brentwood, Tennessee; the artist’s full name is Brett James Cornelius.

Born on June 5, 1968, in Columbia, Missouri, James’ had planned to pursue a career in medicine, but he followed his heart and left medical school for the music industry. He signed with Arista Nashville’s imprint Career Records as a solo artist, and released a solo album in 1995.

James would become a behind-the-scenes star, writing songs with the likes of Kenny Chesney, Dierks Bentley, Dierks Bentley, Rascal Flatts, and Underwood, whose 2005 single “Jesus, Take The Wheel” hit No. 20 on the Billboard Hot 100 and captured two Grammy nominations, winning for best country song.

This story is breaking.