Some songs are written. Others are lived first, and written after. “Don’t Give Up On Me” belongs to the second kind — and now the song that carries its writer’s whole heart in its title has carried him all the way to Nashville. Paulino has been officially nominated for Song of the Year – Rock Artist at the 12th Annual Josie Music Awards, taking place September 20, 2026 at the legendary Grand Ole Opry House in Nashville, Tennessee.
The Josie Music Awards stand as the largest independent music awards show in the world — a red-carpet evening on one of the most hallowed stages in American music, where the finest independent artists across every genre are honored for excellence in artistry, songwriting, and performance. A nomination here is not handed out; it is earned, judged on originality, composition, lyric, and the elusive quality that separates a good song from an unforgettable one. To be named among the year’s finest rock songs is a distinction that places Paulino in rare and accomplished company.
There is a quiet poetry in this moment. Audiences know Paulino as the soaring voice at the front of Paulino & The Great Escape, the celebrated Journey experience that brought the timeless anthems of arena rock to Nashville’s storied stages this year. Night after night, he has sung the words “don’t stop believin’” to rooms full of strangers who leave as friends. Now, with a song of his own — one that pleads, tenderly and defiantly, “don’t give up on me” — the message has come full circle. The man who spent years honoring someone else’s legacy is being honored for his own voice, his own words, his own truth.
That truth is what makes “Don’t Give Up On Me” resonate. It is a song about holding on — to love, to faith, to the belief that the people who matter will stay when everything else falls away. Delivered with the powerhouse vocals and emotional honesty that have become Paulino’s signature, it doesn’t perform vulnerability; it inhabits it. Every artist who has ever driven home from an empty room, wondering if anyone was listening, will hear themselves in it. That is what the Josie Music Awards were built to recognize: the independent artist whose perseverance becomes the very music itself.
The nomination crowns a remarkable season for Paulino, whose momentum has been undeniable — including the release of his gripping single “Gravity” earlier this year, a track that pulled listeners in on first listen and refused to let go. With each release, he has revealed more of the songwriter behind the showman: a craftsman of melody with a storyteller’s instinct and a romantic’s heart.
On September 20, the lights of the Grand Ole Opry House — the stage that has welcomed a century of legends — will shine on a new generation of artists who chose the harder road and walked it anyway. Whatever the envelope holds that night, one thing is already certain: nobody gave up on Paulino, least of all Paulino himself.
He asked the world not to give up on him. The world just answered.
The 12th Annual Josie Music Awards take place September 20, 2026 at the Grand Ole Opry House, Nashville, Tennessee. For more information visit www.josiemusicawards.com
