Dan Wilson

Daniel Dodd Wilson (born May 20, 1961) is an American musician, singer, songwriter, visual artist, and record producer. He gained recognition in the late 1990’s with his band, Semisonic, and their single, "Closing Time." Wilson is a 7x Grammy nominee and 4x Grammy winner for his work as a co-writer and record producer. He received nominations for Best Rock Song, Album of the Year, and Song of the Year with Semisonic's "Closing Time" (1999), Taylor Swift's Red (2014), and Jon Batiste's "Butterfly" (2024) respectively. Wilson won Grammy awards for Song Of The Year with The Chicks' "Not Ready to Make Nice" (2007), Album Of The Year with Adele's "21" (2012), Best Country Song with Chris Stapleton's "White Horse" (2024), and Best Song Written For Visual Media with Jon Batiste's "It Never Went Away" (2025).

Referred to as the "songwriter's songwriter," Wilson has written with a broad range of songwriters across genres. His other collaborators include Laufey, Weezer, Suki Waterhouse, Noah Kahan, Keith Urban, Pink, Mitski, Leon Bridges, Nas, Panic! at the Disco, My Morning Jacket, John Legend, Brandy Clark, Preservation Hall Jazz Band, and many others.

In addition to his Grammy nominations and awards, Wilson has received accolades from across the industry. In 2024, Wilson won the CMA Award for Song of the Year with Chris Stapleton's “White Horse.” Later that year, “It Never Went Away,” which he co-wrote with Batiste for the documentary American Symphony, received an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Song. He also received nominations from the Academy of Country Music for Song of the Year for Dierks Bentley's "Home" (2012) and Album of the Year for Taylor Swift's "Red" (2012). In 2021, Wilson produced the re-recorded version of Taylor Swift's "Treacherous” for the album, Red (Taylor's Version).

Besides fronting Semisonic, co-writing, and producing records, Wilson has released several solo recordings, including Re-Covered (2017), a cover album of some of his previously co-written songs. He was also a member of the Minneapolis based, psychedelic pop-rock band Trip Shakespeare.