Little Big Town on The ‘Indelible Mark’ Ben Vaughn Left on the Band

Under president/CEO Ben Vaughn, Warner Chappell Nashville consistently dominated country music publishing. In 2024 alone, WCN was crowned publisher of the year at the SESAC Nashville Music Awards and at the BMI Country Music Awards (for the fifth time).

But all those accolades aside, Vaughn, who died Jan. 30, stood out due to his respect for and belief in songwriters. With an unwavering confidence in those he worked with at WCN, Vaughn guided them to where they needed to go creatively and professionally.

To honor his memory and his love of songwriters, Billboard has created the Ben Vaughn Song Champion Award, presented to an artist who uplifts songwriters just as Vaughn did.

The first recipient is Little Big Town, whose relationship with Vaughn, Billboard’s 2020 Country Power Players Executive of the Year, goes back more than 25 years to when it was just a nascent band and Vaughn a Belmont University student running Scott Hendricks’ Big Tractor publishing company. “We all were kids,” LBT’s Karen Fairchild recalls. But even then, Vaughn had a way of connecting with songwriters. “He just was always so vibrant, and his personality just always so encouraging.”

Years later, shortly after Vaughn moved to WCN in 2012 following a long stint at EMI, LBT’s publishing deal at WCN was set to expire — and the band was determined to leave. “Ben was like, ‘What would it take? Let me take you to dinner and let’s discuss,’ ” Fairchild remembers. “Ben and [then-Warner Chappell Music chairman/CEO] Jon Platt reworked our deal, but Ben was definitely the catalyst. He was our champion. He had our catalog there and he believed in all those songs. People can sign you and be vacant, and Ben was never that guy.”

“He listened to our hearts and to our music and said, ‘I’m going to give this band what they deserve,’ ” LBT’s Kimberly Schlapman recalls. “He made us feel so good because he gave us value at Warner Chappell, not only as an artist but as songwriters. We felt like he wholeheartedly had given us his endorsement, his adoration and respect. We never thought again about going anywhere else.”

Vaughn took a hands-on approach in helping the group find outside songs for its fifth album, 2012’s Tornado, which included “Pontoon,” LBT’s first platinum single. It marked the first time the quartet, which also includes Phillip Sweet and Jimi Westbrook, worked with noted songwriters Natalie Hemby, Luke Laird and Barry Dean. “He was always sending songs and [suggesting] collaborations and asking who we wanted to write with,” Fairchild says. “Just an encourager creatively, giving us renewed hope, and that’s very, very important when you’re diving back in and making a record.”

Vaughn frequently sent the band members songs from writers they hadn’t previously worked with, including “Next to You,” which opens LBT’s 2020 Grammy Award-nominated album, Nightfall. “ ‘Next to You’ was a total Ben moment,” Fairchild says. “Ben sent it to me first and said, ‘Listen to this song. You’re gonna die.’ It was some L.A. writers that we wouldn’t have known, but he just heard all the harmonies and he’s like, ‘This is going to be so epic.’ It was the cornerstone of Nightfall.”

Vaughn also suggested that Fairchild and Schlapman write with the Love Junkies (Hemby, Liz Rose and Lori McKenna), who penned some of the group’s biggest hits, including “Sober” and “Girl Crush.” “He always encouraged us to write with them because he loved what those three ladies and Karen and me were doing together,” Schlapman says. “He has a huge hand in that relationship.”

At Billboard’s Country Power Players cocktail event on June 4, the group will perform “Rich Man” in tribute to Vaughn. “Ben was rich in so many ways,” Schlapman says, “and he gave away his richness to others through his kindness and his encouragement and his love.”

Accepting the award is bittersweet for the band members, but they’re honored to pay their respects to Vaughn’s legacy. “I hope his family knows what an indelible mark he has left on all of us,” Fairchild says. “Just what a good publisher, friend and human he was.”

Vaughn “elevated the entire town,” Schlapman says. “He made the songwriters shine, and especially in this day when they don’t get nearly the credit and the money and the accolades that they deserve, he made them feel like superstars. He made everybody believe in themselves because he believed in them and the power of their music.”

This story appears in the May 31, 2025, issue of Billboard.