Paul Overstreet

Induction Year: 2003

Birth Name: Paul Lester Overstreet

Birth Date: 03-17-1955

Place of Birth: Newton, Mississippi

Paul Overstreet created modern country classics in "Forever and Ever, Amen," "When You Say Nothing at All" and "On the Other Hand", and emerged as BMI's top country songwriter each year from 1987 until 1991. A gifted singer, he also recorded 11 Top 40 country hits, writing and singing singles such as "Daddy's Come Around" and "I Won't Take Less Than Your Love."

Overstreet moved to Nashville from Mississippi at 18, with 10 songs and one guitar to his name. He spent nine years scuffling in Music City before notching his first hit in 1982, when George Jones took "Same Old Me" to #5 on Billboard's country chart. He soon began writing with Don Schlitz, Thom Schuyler, Paul Davis and other talents. He penned his first country #1, "I Fell in Love Again Last Night" (1985), with Schuyler. Then, beginning in 1986, he embarked on a remarkable run with Schlitz. The two wrote the smash hits "On the Other Hand" and "Forever and Ever, Amen" for Randy Travis, as well as "When You Say Nothing At All" (a hit for Keith Whitley, and later for Alison Krauss), "You Again" (Forester Sisters), "I Won't Take Less Than Your Love" (which Tanya Tucker recorded with Overstreet and Davis), and Overstreet's first #1 song as a solo recording artist, "Daddy's Come Around."

Overstreet was the Nashville Songwriters Association International's Songwriter of the Year in 1986, as "On the Other Hand" won top honors from the NSAI, the Country Music Association and the Academy of Country Music. The following year, Overstreet and Schlitz's "Forever and Ever Amen" won each of the prizes given to "On the Other Hand" and was awarded a Best Country Song Grammy. Overstreet would earn another Best Country Song Grammy in 1992, for "Love Can Build a Bridge," written with John Barlow Jarvis and Naomi Judd.

Overstreet's successes as a recording artist began in the mid-1980s, with the songwriting trio SKO (Schuyler, Knobloch and Overstreet) and as a solo act. His song subjects often involved family life and spirituality, and he crossed over from the country market into the Christian music world, winning a 1991 Dove Award for "Seein' My Father in Me" and another in 1994 for #1 gospel hit "There But for the Grace of God Go I."

A 2003 Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame inductee, Overstreet was honored in 2011 with a marker on the Mississippi Country Music Trail.

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Song Catalog

 

"A Long Line of Love"

(written with Thom Schuyler)

Michael Martin Murphey1987 #1 country
 

"All the Fun"

(written with Taylor Dunn)

Paul Overstreet1989 #5 country
 

"Ball and Chain"

(written with Don Schlitz)

Paul Overstreet1991 #5 country
 

"Battle Hymn of Love"

(written with Don Schlitz)

Kathy Mattea & Tim O'Brien1990 #9 country

"Daddy's Come Around"

(written with Don Schlitz)

Paul Overstreet1990 #1 country
Daddy's Come Around  
 

"Deeper Than the Holler"

(written with Don Schlitz)

Randy Travis1988 #1 country
 

"Diggin' Up Bones"

(written with Al Gore, Nat Stuckey)

Randy Travis1986 #1 country

"Forever and Ever, Amen"

(written with Don Schlitz)

NSAI, ACM & CMA Song of the Year, Grammy for Best Country Song

Randy Travis1987 #1 country
 

"Heroes"

(written with Claire Cloninger)

Paul Overstreet1991 #4 country
 

"Houston Solution"

(written with Don Schlitz)

Ronnie Milsap1989 #4 country
 

"I Fell in Love Again Last Night"

(written with Thom Schuyler)

Forester Sisters1985 #1 country
 

"I Won't Take Less Than Your Love"

(written with Don Schlitz)

Tanya Tucker with Paul Davis & Paul Overstreet1988 #1 country

"Love Can Build a Bridge"

(written with John Barlow Jarvis, Naomi Judd)

Grammy for Best Country Song

The Judds1990 #5 country
 

"Love Helps Those"

Paul Overstreet1988 #3 country
 

"My Arms Stay Open All Night"

(written with Don Schlitz)

Tanya Tucker1989 #2 country
 

"No Place Like Home"

Randy Travis1986 #2 country

"On the Other Hand"

(written with Don Schlitz)

NSAI, ACM & CMA Song of the Year

Keith Whitley1985 
Randy Travis1986 #1 country
 

"One Love at a Time"

(written with Paul Davis)

Tanya Tucker1986 #3 country
 

"One of Those Things"

(written with Pam Tillis)

Pam Tillis1991 #6 country
 

"Richest Man on Earth"

(written with Don Schlitz)

Paul Overstreet1990 #1 country
 

"Same Ole Me"

George Jones & the Oak Ridge Boys1982 #5 country
 

"Seein' My Father in Me"

(written with Taylor Dunn)

Paul Overstreet1990 #2 country
 

"She Thinks My Tractor's Sexy"

(written with Jim Collins)

Kenny Chesney1999 #11 country, #74 pop
 

"Some Beach"

(written with Rory Lee Feek)

Blake Shelton2004 #1 country
 

"Somebody's Doin' Me Right"

Keith Whitley1992 #15 country
 

"Sowin' Love"

(written with Don Schlitz)

Paul Overstreet1989 #9 country

"When You Say Nothing at All"

(written with Don Schlitz)

Keith Whitley1988 #1 country
Alison Krauss1995 #3 country, #53 pop
Ronan Keating1999 
 

"You Again"

(written with Don Schlitz)

Forester Sisters1987 #1 country
 

"You Can't Stop Love"

(written with Thom Schuyler)

SKO1986 #9 country
 

"You're Still New to Me"

(written with Paul Davis)

Marie Osmond & Paul Davis1986 #1 country

Other Media

Paul Overstreet

Induction Year: 2003