He was tapped for the job after Frances Williams Preston, the iconic Nashville-born businesswoman, announced her retirement this summer.

"You don't replace Frances, you succeed her," Bryant said.

Bryant is unlikely to radically change the course of the company that Preston has served for 46 years, including 18 as president and chief executive officer. That's because Bryant helped chart the same course through his 32-year career at BMI — a career that has taken him through every aspect of songwriting and publishing and managing copyrighted works.

BMI is one of three performing rights organizations in the United States that register songs and license their commercial use on behalf of songwriters, composers and music publishers. BMI represents more than 300,000 members in all genres of music who have registered about 4.5 million songs or compositions to its repertoire.

Bryant was practically born to the job. His parents, Felice and Boudleaux Bryant, wrote "Rocky Top," many Everly Brothers hits and numerous other pop standards. They're considered the first people who moved to Nashville to be professional songwriters. They are credited with writing 800 tunes that sold more than half a billion records and are in the Country Music Hall of Fame, as is Preston.

Bryant takes it in stride. After all, his dinner table stories range from going to Everly Brothers and Chet Atkins sessions as a child in Nashville to rubbing elbows with Snoop Dogg and Gloria Estefan.

"It's great to have someone representing the music, collecting money for songwriters, who's as passionate about it as he is. It's definitely his calling in life," said Mark Wright, a longtime friend of Bryant's and a songwriter who is now executive vice president at Sony Music Nashville.

"Del's always been a quietly bright guy," said Tim Wipperman, chief creative officer at Equity Music Group and a publisher who has known Bryant for more than 30 years. "He goes about his business in a low-key way, but he's very focused on what he wants to accomplish. It's his job to make the stars, not to be the star."

Bryant had his own hit song in 1978, "I Cheated On a Good Woman's Love," recorded by Billy "Crash" Craddock. He describes it as almost an accidental hit. But he felt it gave him a little extra credibility, with songwriters and himself, to know he had the creative gift.

Preston will hold the title of president emeritus through the end of the year and continue as a consultant to the company, but the New York-based Bryant will now be the face of BMI.

That's a lot of work: testifying before legislatures, where decisions affecting songwriters and publishing are increasingly made; doing more to promote membership in BMI; keeping up on technology to better monitor where and when members' songs are played; and continuing efforts to get higher royalty payments from radio broadcasters to pay more to songwriters.

Under the most recent negotiations, BMI gets a percentage of the broadcasters' revenue to distribute to its members. Right now, he said, they pay only about 4 or 5 cents of every dollar they make for the right to play songs on the air.