The Songwriters Hall of Fame (SHOF) will celebrate this year’s Oscar nominees for best original song with a virtual roundtable. The annual discussion, which is in its eighth year, is viewable for free at songhall.org from Thursday Feb. 8 at 9 a.m. PT through March 10.
The event is co-hosted by SHOF inductees Nile Rodgers and Paul Williams. Rodgers currently serves as SHOF chairman. Williams has been nominated three times in this category – for “Nice to Be Around” from Cinderella Liberty (1973), “Evergreen (Love Theme From A Star Is Born)” from A Star Is Born (1976) and “The Rainbow Connection” from The Muppet Movie (1979). Williams won the Oscar for “Evergreen,” which he co-wrote with Barbra Streisand.
This year’s panel features Jon Batiste, co-writer (with Dan Wilson) of “It Never Went Away” from American Symphony; Billie Eilish and Finneas, co-writers of “What Was I Made For?” from Barbie; Scott George, writer of “Wahzhazhe (A Song for My People)” from Killers of the Flower Moon; Mark Ronson and Andrew Wyatt, co-writers of “I’m Just Ken” from Barbie; and Diane Warren, writer of “The Fire Inside” from Flamin’ Hot. The nominees discuss how they got involved with the films, their influences, writing process and more.
This is the seventh consecutive year that Warren has been nominated for best original song, the longest streak of nominations in the category since Sammy Cahn was nominated eight years in a row from 1954 to 1961. Thus, she has participated in seven of the SHOF’s eight roundtables. Warren was inducted into the SHOF in 2001.
