Overview

• The country star said half the songs in his live shows were written by James or co-written with him, recalling they penned “Out Last Night” and “Reality” during the same day in the Virgin Islands.
• James, 57, died on Sept. 18 in Franklin, North Carolina, along with his wife, Melody Carole, and his stepdaughter, Meryl Maxwell Wilson, when a Cirrus SR22T registered in his legal name crashed.
• The FAA and NTSB are investigating the accident, with a preliminary NTSB report expected within 30 days.
• A Grammy winner for co-writing Carrie Underwood’s “Jesus, Take the Wheel,” James was a Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame inductee and founder of publishing company Cornman Music.
• James’s final interview, recorded about a week before the crash and released Sept. 24, reflected on his decades-long friendship and songwriting run with Chesney.