2017 Golden Boot Awards: Vote Now for Songwriter of the Year

Welcome to the fourth annual Golden Boot Awards! The Boot’s fan-voted digital awards, the Golden Boot Awards will, in 2017, feature 10 categories of staff-selected nominees who made waves in the country music world between May 2016 and April 2017. Readers can vote for their preferred winner in each category as often as once per hour through 11:59PM ET on June 4. We’ll announce the winners on the site the following Monday (June 5).

A new category in the Golden Boot Awards in 2017, Songwriter of the Year features six of country music's heavy hitters. Leading the pack is Michael Busbee (known professionally as busbee), who has helped generate hits such as Keith Urban and Carrie Underwood's "The Fighter" and "H.O.L.Y." by Florida Georgia Line within the past 12 months. Brandy Clark, too, has been cranking out hits, specifically for her own sophomore album, Big Day in a Small Town. Ross Copperman, the writer behind LoCash's "I Know Somebody," Kenny Chesney and Pink's "Setting the World on Fire" and a number of songs from Jake Owen's American Love album, is also nominated in this category.

The final three 2017 Golden Boot Awards Songwriter of the Year nominees are Hillary Lindsey, Shane McAnally and Lori McKenna. Lindsey is behind Urban's "Blue Ain't Your Color" and a couple of tracks for Lady Gaga's newest album, Joanne (the two shared the stage in Nashville last fall), while McAnally has penned too many hits to list (Thomas Rhett's "T-Shirt" is one of them!), and McKenna is 2017's ACM Awards Songwriter of the Year.

Vote for the songwriter you think should nab the 2017 Golden Boot Awards’ Songwriter of the Year honor in the poll below. Only one will emerge the winner … Who will it be?

Please note: Cheating will not be tolerated, and any voter found to be cheating will have their votes disqualified. A captcha has been put in place to prevent cheating. If you cannot read the captcha, press the top blue button next to it to refresh to a new one, or press the middle blue button to have the polling system read the captcha to you.