Songwriter Andrew Dorff Dies At Aged 40

Dorff's brother is the Hollywood actor Stephen Dorff who played the tragic ex-Beatles member Stuart Sutcliffe in the 1994 film ‘Backbeat’.
Andrew also penned hit songs for major Nashville stars such as Kenny Chesney and Hunter Hayes.
“Our songwriting community is small and close and this loss will hurt us all deeply. Andrew was a good man and a good friend. He was an elite songwriter at the peak of his life and career,” the President of the Nashville Songwriters Association International, Lee Thomas Miller wrote in a Facebook post on Tuesday.
While Blake Shelton took to Twitter to express his sadness of the news. “Sad to be finding out about Andrew Dorff passing away… Terrible tragedy. Prayers to his family.”
Andrew Dorff had followed in the footsteps of his father, the songwriter-composer Steve Dorff. He made a name for himself when he moved to Nashville from his hometown of California back in 2003 and singed a publishing deal with Universal Music Publishing Group Nashville.
He went on to write songs for the likes of Blake Shelton, Kenny Chesney, Hunter Hayes, Ronnie Dunn and William Michael Morgan, among many others big names in the Nashville music scene.
Speaking back in October, Andrew Dorff told Music Row: “I want to keep writing songs that matter. There's not quite a greater feeling than having a song of yours come on the radio. You can't help it, you just turn it up a little louder.
"Having people tell you they heard your song on the radio and it affected them in some way, whether it's laughing, crying, dancing – that's why I do what I do."
Here’s the video for Blake Sheton’s ‘Neon Light':