Songwriters Hall of Fame

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The Songwriters Hall of Fame is an arm of the National Academy of Popular Music. It was founded in 1969 by songwriter Johnny Mercer and music publishers Abe Olman and Howie Richmond. The goal is to create a museum but as of April, 2008, the means do not yet exist and so instead it is an online virtual museum, striving toward that goal.^[1] Ultimately it intends to offer a museum but at present it exists only as a virtual museum on the Web. It has an office in New York City, United States, and holds workshops, showcases, and provides scholarships to promising artists to help develop new songwriting talent.

New inductees are voted on annually. At each annual event, gifted and promising songwriters are awarded a scholarship called the Abe Olman Publisher's Award for Excellence in Songwriting, named for one of the founding members.

Alongside the induction of new songwriters are a variety of awards. Currently, the awards are the "Hal David Starlight Award" (for young artists who have already made an impression on the music industry), the "Johnny Mercer Award" (for artists who are already on the Songwriters Hall of Fame and have a number of outstanding works), the "Sammy Cahn Lifetime Achievement Award" (an award given to songwriters who have done a lot to increase the success of songs), "Abe Olman Publisher Award" (awarded to publishers who have had a lot of "famous" pieces) and the "Towering Song/Towering Performance" Awards.

To date there have been 345 individuals inducted into the SHOF, with the British rock band Queen being the only band (rather than an individual) to ever be inducted into the hall of fame.