Marcus Hummon

Songwriter

Marcus Hummon

Washington, D.C.-born Marcus Hummon, “Nashville’s Renaissance Man,” has enjoyed a successful career as a songwriter, recording artist, producer, studio musician, playwright, and author. A diplomat’s son, Marcus spent his youth in Africa and Italy. After several years playing in various bands, he found his way to Nashville. Since then, he has recorded songs in many genres, including Pop, R&B, and gospel, but most notably in country music. He is a Grammy winner and 2019 Nashville Songwriter’s Hall of Fame inductee.

Hummon’s best known hits include “Bless The Broken Road” (Rascal Flatts), “Cowboy Take Me Away” and “Ready To Run” (The Chicks), “Born To Fly” (Sara Evans), “One Of These Days” (Tim McGraw), and “Only Love” (Wynonna Judd). Several of his songs have been nominated for Grammys, ACMs and CMAs, and Dove Awards. “Bless The Broken Road” won the Grammy for Best Country Song in 2005 and the NSAI’s Best Country Song in 2005 and 2007. Along the way, he has garnered numerous BMI awards, including five #1 awards.

As a recording artist and instrumentalist, Marcus released a critically-acclaimed country record for Columbia Records in 1995, “All In Good Time.” In 1998, Marcus and Scottish Big Country rock band front-man, Stuart Adamson, released their duo album “Supernatural” as “The Raphaels” with Track Records out of London. He has also released several independent records, including “The Passion,” on CTM Records.

Turning to theatre, Hummon has written the scores for 6 musicals and 2 operas. Three of his musicals, “Warrior: An American Tragedy,” “The Piper,” and the musical-dance-hybrid “Tut” (a collaboration with Abdel Salaam and the Force Of Nature Dance Company) were featured Off-Broadway as part of the New York New Musical Festivals in 2005, 2006, and 2011, respectively. “Warrior” and “American Duet”received invitations to be work-shopped at the prestigious Eugene O'Neill Summer Conference in 2005 and 2006. “Warrior,” a musical about the life of Jim Thorpe, earned Hummon an Award for Creative Excellence from the Native American Association of Tennessee. His musical, “Atlanta,” enjoyed a 3-month run at The Geffen Playhouse in Los Angelos in 2007. “The Prophet,” a musical about Frederick Douglas, was commissioned and premiered by Christ Church Cathedral in Nashville in 2015, invited to be performed at the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis in 2016, and will have its full production premiere as “American Prophet: Frederick Douglas in His Own Words” in July/August 2022 at Arena Stage in Washington, D.C.

Hummon’s first opera, “Surrender Road,” was supported by Opera America and staged by the Nashville Opera Company in 2005. In January 2022, after delays due to Covid, Nashville Opera Company presented his second opera, “Favorite Son,” inspired by Hummon’s song of the same name.

Film scores include multiple-award winner “Lost Boy Home” in 2013, the true story of a Sudanese ‘lost boy’ returning home to discover if his mother and father survived the genocide 24 years earlier. “The Last Songwriter,” a documentary film scored and co-produced by Hummon in 2017, received the Audience Award at the 2017 Nashville Film Festival and explores through commentaries by Hummon, Jason Isbell, and Matraca Berg, among others, the culture of Nashville’s songwriting community and recent attrition due to streaming and illegal downloading.

In literature, Hummon's children's book, Anytime, Anywhere, was published by Athenium Press, a division of Simon and Schuster, in 2009. The Passion, a book co-written with his wife, Rev. Becca Stevens, was published in 2017 by National Publishing and reflects Hummon’s cantata of the same name, commissioned by Christ Church Cathedral in Nashville in 2016, commemorating The Passion of Christ.

Marcus and his wife Becca live in Nashville, TN, with their sons, Levi, Caney, and Moses.