Odie Blackmon

Odie Blackmon is an Associate Professor and the Commercial Songwriting and Internship Coordinator for Middle Tennessee State University’s Department of Recording Industry. He has raised $80,000 in funding while directing the planning and building of MTSU’s new Songwriting Center. Blackmon’s songs have been recorded and performed by artists Lee Ann Womack, John Legend, and Martina McBride. He’s written #1 hit singles for Gary Allan and George Strait, resulting in over 31 million units in combined sales. He was named Billboard’s #1 Hot Country Music Songwriter in 2005 and lauded for his Grammy-nominated, Country Music Awards Single of the Year, “I May Hate Myself in the Morning.” Odie has worked as a talent consultant for American Idol and America’s Got Talent. In 2021, he was honored with MTSU’s Outstanding Teaching Award. Previously, he has received the True Blue Citation of Distinction for Achievement in Education from the MTSU Alumni Association (2020), the Distinguished Creative Activity Award from the MTSU Foundation (2017), and the Outstanding Faculty Award from MTSU’s Experiential Learning Scholars Program (2016). He received the Experiential Education Rising Leader Award from the National Society of Experiential Education in 2018. Blackmon has served on the Mechanical Licensing Collective Dispute Resolution Committee, as a board member of MEIEA and APME, and is a Leadership Music alum.