Best Local Songwriter 
           1. Marcus Hummon
           2. Phil Vassar    
           3. John Hiatt    

  Best Songwriter With Aspirations Beyond a Hit Country Single: 
           Marcus Hummon    

           If you were a Nashville songwriter, and you'd written "Ready to Run" and "Cowboy, Take Me Away" for the Dixie Chicks, what would you do?  Soak up the sun in Barbados? Hang out at Effliglio's drinkin' beer and lookin' at babes, waiting for that next inspiration?  Find a piece-of-cake co-write gig?  Maybe. Or, like Marcus Hummon, you might widen your parameters and work on that Broadway musical.  Actors Bridge Ensemble has produced two Hummon theatrical pieces in the last couple of years, and the most recent, Francis of Guernica, will be remounted in a  full-scale production by Tennessee Repertory Theatre early in 2002.  The guy also writes poetry. And he's written for PBS. So much for murder on Music Row.    

           --M.B.