Shane McAnally’s Response to ‘Shucked’ Being Nominated at the Grammys

Writing the score for the new Broadway musical Shucked was an exhilarating experience for Shane McAnally, which makes its nomination for Best Musical Theater Album at the 2024 Grammy Awards even more special. McAnally co-wrote the music and lyrics alongside fellow hit country songwriter Brandy Clark for the musical centered around a town obsessed with corn that has to save their dying crops.

“Shucked being nominated for Best Musical Theater Album this year is huge,” McAnally tells American Songwriter, admitting that he didn’t realize it was a “really tight category” since it was one of the few musicals that opened in 2023. “We were very excited to get into the top five and would really want to win.” Shucked is nominated alongside Parade starring Ben Platt, the Josh Groban and Annaleigh Ashford-fronted Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, the Tony-Award-winning Kimberly Akimbo, and the 2022 musical Some Like It Hot based on the 1959 film of the same name.

The hit writer behind songs by Sam Hunt, Kacey Musgraves, Kenny Chesney, and countless others says that writing for a musical was a completely different experience than his typical job of writing songs for other artists. The live component and specific subject matter created a thrilling challenge for him and Clark.

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“Doing that record was unlike anything I’d ever done because they actually record the entire record in a day,” he explains. “They start early in the morning and they play through the show. The singers have to do it perfectly. It’s like old-school where everybody’s live. Ultimately, it’s done in one take, and that was so strange and exhilarating. I’ve never made a record at that pace and didn’t even know what was going on. I was just trying to hold on for dear life.”

Their hard work and clever minds paid off. Shucked has achieved critical acclaim and was nominated for nine Tony Awards in 2023, with one of its lead actors Alex Newell winning for Best Featured Actor in a Musical, making them the first openly non-binary person to win the category. “We feel like we created something that hadn’t been done on Broadway,” McAnally concludes. “Hopefully that will resonate with voters.”

McAnally is also nominated for Songwriter of the Year, Non-Classical. The 2024 Grammy Awards air live on February 4 on CBS at 8 p.m. ET.

Photo by Rich Fury/Getty Images for ACM