Only A Country Music Buff Can Ace This Quiz. Can You?

Porter Wayne Wagoner was a country music singer known for his flashy Nudie and Manuel suits and blond pompadour.In 1967, he introduced singer Dolly Parton on his television show, and they were a well-known vocal duo throughout the late 1960s and early 1970s. Known as Mr. Grand Ole Opry, Wagoner charted 81 singles from 1954–1983. He was elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2002.

Patsy Cline was an American country music singer and part of the Nashville sound during the late 1950s and early 1960s. She successfully “crossed over” to pop music and was one of the most influential, successful, and acclaimed vocalists of the 20th century. She died at age 30 in the crash of a private airplane.

Ernest Jennings Ford, known professionally as Tennessee Ernie Ford, was a recording artist and television host who enjoyed success in the country and Western, pop, and gospel musical genres. Noted for his rich bass- baritone voice and down-home humor, he is remembered for his hit recordings of “The Shotgun Boogie” and “Sixteen Tons”.

Shania Twain is a Canadian singer and songwriter. She has sold over 100 million records, making her the best-selling female artist in country music history and among the best-selling music artists of all time. Her success garnered her several honorific titles including the “Queen of Country Pop”.

Chris Stapleton has amassed credits writing and co-writing over 170 songs as of 2018. He has co-written six number-one country songs including Kenny Chesney’s five-week number-one “Never Wanted Nothing More”, George Strait’s “Love’s Gonna Make It Alright”, and Luke Bryan’s “Drink a Beer”.

Roy Rogers was a singer and actor. He was one of the most popular Western stars of his era. Known as the “King of the Cowboys”, he appeared in over 100 films and numerous radio and television episodes of The Roy Rogers Show. In many of his films and television episodes, he appeared with his wife, Dale Evans; his golden palomino, Trigger; and his German shepherd dog, Bullet.

Brenda Gail Gatzimos, known professionally as Crystal Gayle, is a singer that is best known for her 1977 country-pop crossover song, “Don’t It Make My Brown Eyes Blue”, she had twenty #1 country songs during the 1970s and 1980s (18 on Billboard and 2 on Cashbox) with six albums certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America.

Martina McBride signed to RCA Records in 1991, and made her debut the following year as a neo-traditionalist country singer with the single, “The Time Has Come”. Eight of her studio albums and two of her compilations have received an RIAA Gold certification or higher. In the U.S., she has sold over 14 million albums.

Dwight Yoakam’s popularity starting in the mid-1980s. Yoakam has recorded more than twenty albums and compilations charted more than thirty singles on the Billboard Hot Country Songs charts and sold more than 25 million records. He has recorded five Billboard #1 albums, twelve gold albums, and nine platinum albums, including the triple-platinum This Time.

Ray Price’s wide-ranging baritone is regarded as among the best male voices of country music, and his innovations, such as propelling the country beat from 2/4 to 4/4, known as the “Ray Price beat”, helped make country music more popular. Some of his well-known recordings include “Release Me”, “Crazy Arms”, “Heartaches by the Number”, “For the Good Times”, “Night Life”, and “You’re the Best Thing That Ever Happened to Me”.

John Anderson has a successful career that has lasted more than 30 years. Starting in 1977 with the release of his first single, “I’ve Got a Feelin’ (Somebody’s Been Stealin’)”, Anderson has charted more than 40 singles on the Billboard country music charts, including five number ones. He has also recorded 22 studio albums on several labels.

Vince Gill has achieved commercial success and fame both as frontman to the country rock band Pure Prairie League in the 1970s and as a solo artist beginning in 1983. He has recorded more than 20 studio albums, charted over 40 singles on the U.S. Billboard charts as Hot Country Songs, and has sold more than 26 million albums.

Randy Travis is an American country music and Christian country music singer, songwriter, guitarist, and actor. Active since 1978, he has recorded 20 studio albums and charted more than 50 singles on the Billboard Hot Country Songs charts, including sixteen that reached the No. 1 position.

Hank Williams Jr. is an American singer-songwriter and musician. His musical style is often considered a blend of Southern rock, blues, and traditional country. He is the son of country music singer Hank Williams and the father of Hank Williams III and Holly Williams.

James William Anderson III, known as Whisperin’ Bill Anderson, is an country music singer, songwriter and television personality. He has been a member in long standing of the weekly Grand Ole Opry radio program and stage performance in Nashville, Tennessee, since 1961. He has released more than 40 studio albums and has reached No. 1 on the country charts seven times.

Lefty Frizzell was an American country music singer-songwriter and honky-tonk singer. He set the style of singing “the country way” for the generations that followed. He gained prominence in 1950 after two major hits. Frizzell influenced a number of other country singers, including George Jones, Willie Nelson, Roy Orbison, The Everly Brothers, Keith Whitley, Merle Haggard, and John Fogerty.

Loretta Lynn is famous for hits such as “You Ain’t Woman Enough (To Take My Man)”, “Don’t Come Home A’ Drinkin’ (With Lovin’ on Your Mind)”, “One’s on the Way”, “Fist City”, and “Coal Miner’s Daughter”. She is the most awarded female country recording artist and the only female ACM Artist of the Decade (the 1970s). Lynn has sold more than 45 million albums worldwide.

Patty Loveless has been one of the most popular female singers of neotraditional country. She has also recorded albums in the country pop and bluegrass genres. She rose to stardom thanks to her blend of honky tonk and country-rock and a plaintive, emotional ballad style. Loveless has charted more than 40 cuts on the Billboard Hot Country Songs charts.

Michael Webb Pierce was a honky tonk vocalist, songwriter and guitarist of the 1950s, one of the most popular of the genre, charting more number one hits than any other country artist during the decade. His biggest hit was “In the Jailhouse Now,” which charted for 37 weeks in 1955, 21 of them at number one.

Ernest Dale Tubb, nicknamed the Texas Troubadour, was a singer and songwriter and one of the pioneers of country music. His biggest career hit song, “Walking the Floor Over You” (1941), marked the rise of the honky tonk style of music. In 1948, he was the first singer to record a hit version of Billy Hayes and Jay W. Johnson’s “Blue Christmas”, a song more commonly associated with Elvis Presley and his late-1950s version.

Miranda Lambert’s debut album Kerosene (2005) was certified Platinum in the United States, and produced the singles “Me and Charlie Talking”, “Bring Me Down”, “Kerosene”, and “New Strings”. All four singles reached the top 40 on the Billboard Hot Country Songs.

Dolly Parton made her album debut in 1967, with her album Hello, I’m Dolly. Parton is the most honored female country performer of all time. She has 41 career top-10 country albums, a record for any artist, and she has 110 career charted singles over the past 40 years. She has composed over 3,000 songs, notably “I Will Always Love You” (a two-time U.S. country chart-topper for Parton, as well as an international pop hit for Whitney Houston), “Jolene”, “Coat of Many Colors”, and “9 to 5”.

Anne Murray is a Canadian singer in pop, country, and adult contemporary music whose albums have sold over 55 million copies worldwide. Murray was the first Canadian female solo singer to reach No. 1 on the U.S. charts, and also the first to earn a Gold record for one of her signature songs, “Snowbird” (1970).

Brad Paisley has released ten studio albums and a Christmas compilation on the Arista Nashville label, with all of his albums certified Gold or higher by the RIAA. He has scored 32 top 10 singles on the US Billboard Country Airplay chart, 19 of which have reached number 1. He set a new record in 2009 for most consecutive singles (ten) reaching the top spot on that chart.

Chris LeDoux recorded 36 albums (many self-released) which have sold more than six million units in the United States as of January 2007. He was awarded two gold and one platinum album certifications from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), was nominated for a Grammy Award, and was honored with the Academy of Country Music Music Cliffie Stone Pioneer Award.

Clint Black signed to RCA Records in 1989. Black’s debut album Killin’ Time produced four straight number one singles on the US Billboard Hot Country Singles & Tracks charts. He has had more than 30 singles on the US Billboard country charts, twenty-two of which have reached number one, in addition to having released twelve studio albums and several compilation albums.

Charley Pride’s greatest musical success came in the early to mid-1970s, when he became the best-selling performer for RCA Records since Elvis Presley. During the peak years of his recording career (1966‚Äì87), he garnered 52 top-10 hits on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart, 40 of which made it to Number One.

Conway Twitty was an American country music singer. He also had success in the rock and roll, rock, R&B, and pop genres. From 1971 to 1976, Twitty received a string of Country Music Association awards for duets with Loretta Lynn. Although never a member of the Grand Ole Opry, he was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame and the Rockabilly Hall of Fame.

James Charles Rodgers professionally known as Jimmie Rodgers, was a country, blues and folk singer, songwriter and musician in the early 20th century, known most widely for his rhythmic yodeling. Rodgers, along with his contemporaries the Carter Family, was among the first country music stars, cited as an inspiration by many artists and an inductee into numerous halls of fame.

Don Williams was 2010 inductee to the Country Music Hall of Fame. He began his solo career in 1971, singing popular ballads and amassing 17 number one country hits. His straightforward yet smooth bass-baritone voice, soft tones, and an imposing build earned him the nickname: “Gentle Giant” of country music.

George Strait is known as the “King of Country”. He is known for his neotraditionalist country style, cowboy look, and being one of the first and main country artists to bring country music back to its roots and away from the pop country era in the 1980s. By 2009, he broke Conway Twitty’s previous record for the most number-one hits on Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart when his 44 number one singles surpassed Twitty’s 40.

Glen Campbell was best known for hosting a music and comedy variety show called The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour on CBS television, from January 1969 through June 1972. He released over 70 albums in a career that spanned five decades, accumulating over 45 million record sales worldwide, including 12 gold albums, four platinum albums, and one double-platinum album.

Reba McEntire has released 29 studio albums, acquired 42 number one singles, 16 number one albums, and 28 albums have been certified gold, platinum or multi-platinum in sales by the Recording Industry Association of America. She is referred to as “The Queen of Country” and has sold more than 95 million records worldwide.

Roger Miller was widely known for his honky-tonk-influenced novelty songs and his chart-topping country and pop hits “King of the Road”, “Dang Me”, and “England Swings”, all from the mid-1960s Nashville sound era. He began a recording career and reached the peak of his fame in the mid-1960s, continuing to record and tour into the 1990s, charting his final top 20 country hit “Old Friends” with Willie Nelson in 1982.

Charlie Daniels is perhaps best known for his number-one country hit “The Devil Went Down to Georgia”. Daniels has been active as a singer and musician since the 1950s. He was inducted into the Grand Ole Opry in 2008, the Musicians Hall of Fame and Museum in 2009, and the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2016.

Kitty Wells was an American pioneering female country music singer. She broke down a female barrier in country music with her 1952 hit recording, “It Wasn’t God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels” which also made her the first female country singer to top the U.S. country charts, and turned her into the first female country superstar.

Johnny Horton is best known for his international hits beginning with the song “The Battle of New Orleans”, which was awarded the 1960 Grammy Award for Best Country & Western Recording. The song was awarded the Grammy Hall of Fame Award and in 2001 ranked No. 333 of the Recording Industry Association of America’s “Songs of the Century”. His first number 1 country song was in 1959, “When It’s Springtime in Alaska (It’s Forty Below)”.

Kenny Chesney has recorded 20 albums, 14 of which have been certified Gold or higher by the RIAA. He has sold over 30 million albums worldwide. He has received six Academy of Country Music awards (including four consecutive Entertainer of the Year awards from 2005 to 2008), as well as six awards from the Country Music Association.

Willie Nelson is an American musician, singer, songwriter, author, poet, actor, and activist. The critical success of the album Shotgun Willie (1973), combined with the critical and commercial success of Red Headed Stranger (1975) and Stardust (1978), made Nelson one of the most recognized artists in country music. He was one of the main figures of outlaw country, a subgenre of country music that developed in the late 1960s as a reaction to the conservative restrictions of the Nashville sound.

Clyde Julian Foley, known professionally as Red Foley, was a singer, musician, and radio and TV personality who made a major contribution to the growth of country music after World War II.For more than two decades, Foley was one of the biggest stars of the genre, selling more than 25 million records.

Orvon Grover “Gene” Autry was a singer, songwriter, actor, musician and rodeo performer who gained fame as a singing cowboy in a crooning style on radio, in films, and on television for more than three decades beginning in the early 1930s. Autry was the owner of a television station, several radio stations in Southern California, and the Los Angeles/California/Anaheim Angels Major League Baseball team from 1961 to 1997.

Lee Greenwood has released more than 20 major-label albums and has charted more than 35 singles on the Billboard country music charts. Greenwood is known for his patriotic signature song “God Bless the USA”, which was originally released and successful in 1984, and became popular again during the Gulf War in 1991 and after the September 11, 2001 attacks (becoming his highest charting pop hit, reaching number 16 on the Billboard Hot 100).

Vernon Gosdin was a country music singer. Known as “The Voice” he had 19 top-10 solo hits on the country music charts from 1977 through 1990. Three of these hits went to Number One: “I Can Tell By the Way You Dance (You’re Gonna Love Me Tonight)”, “Set ‘Em Up Joe”, and “I’m Still Crazy”.

Roy Acuff was an American country music singer, fiddler, and promoter, freemason. Known as the “King of Country Music,” Acuff is often credited with moving the genre from its early string band and “hoedown” format to the singer-based format that helped make it internationally successful.

Robert Joseph Bare Sr. is a country music singer and songwriter, best known for the songs “Detroit City” and “500 Miles Away from Home”. He is the father of Bobby Bare Jr., also a musician. In the 1950s, Bare repeatedly tried and failed to sell his songs. He finally got a record deal, with Capitol Records, and recorded a few unsuccessful rock and roll singles.

Hank Williams recorded 35 singles (five released posthumously) that reached the Top 10 of the Billboard Country & Western Best Sellers chart, including 11 that ranked number one (three posthumously). He influenced Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Bob Dylan, George Jones, and The Rolling Stones, among others.

Jim Reeves was an American country and popular music singer-songwriter. With records charting from the 1950s to the 1980s, he became well known as a practitioner of the Nashville sound (a mixture of older country-style music with elements of popular music). Known as “Gentleman Jim”, his songs continued to chart for years after his death.

Merle Haggard, along with Buck Owens and his band the Strangers helped create the Bakersfield sound, which is characterized by the twang of Fender Telecaster and the unique mix with the traditional country steel guitar sound, new vocal harmony styles in which the words are minimal, and a rough edge not heard on the more polished Nashville sound recordings of the same era.

Waylon Jennings began playing guitar at eight and began performing at 14 on KVOW radio. In 1958, Buddy Holly arranged Jennings’s first recording session, of “Jole Blon” and “When Sin Stops (Love Begins)”. Holly hired him to play bass. In Clear Lake, Iowa, the story is told that Jennings gave up his seat on the ill-fated flight that crashed and killed Holly, J. P. Richardson, Ritchie Valens, and pilot Roger Peterson.

Alan Jackson is known for blending traditional honky tonk and mainstream country sounds and penning many of his own songs. Jackson has sold over 80 million records, with 66 titles on the Billboard Hot Country Singles & Tracks chart. Of the 66 titles and six featured singles, 38 have reached the top five and 35 have claimed the number one spot.

Mark Chesnutt had his greatest chart success recording for Universal Music Group Nashville’s MCA and Decca branches between 1990 and 2002, with a total of eight albums between those two labels. During this timespan, Chesnutt also charted twenty Top 10 hits on the Billboard Hot Country Songs charts, of which eight reached No. 1.

James Robert Wills was a swing musician, songwriter, and bandleader. Considered by music authorities as the co-founder of Western swing, he was widely known as the King of Western Swing (although Spade Cooley self- promoted the moniker “King Of Western Swing” from 1942 to 1969). Wills formed several bands and played radio stations around the South and West until he formed the Texas Playboys in 1934.

Tracy Lawrence signed to Atlantic Records in 1991. Lawrence debuted that year with the album Sticks and Stones, which produced his first chart single and first Number One hit in its title track. Lawrence has released nine studio albums, three compilations, a live album, and a Christmas album. His studio albums have accounted for more than forty singles on the Billboard country music charts.

Charlie Rich is perhaps best remembered for a pair of 1973 hits, “Behind Closed Doors” and “The Most Beautiful Girl”. “The Most Beautiful Girl” topped the U.S. country singles charts, as well as the Billboard Hot 100 pop singles charts and earned him two Grammy Awards.

Elvis Presley was an American singer and actor. Regarded as one of the most significant cultural icons of the 20th century, he is often referred to as the “King of Rock and Roll” or simply the “King”. Presley’s first RCA single, “Heartbreak Hotel”, was released in January 1956 and became a number one hit in the United States. With a series of successful network television appearances and chart-topping records, he became the leading figure of the newly popular sound of rock and roll.

Jerry Reed’s signature songs included “Guitar Man”, “U.S. Male”, “A Thing Called Love”, “Alabama Wild Man”, “Amos Moses”, “When You’re Hot, You’re Hot” (which garnered a Grammy Award for Best Country Vocal Performance, Male), “Ko-Ko Joe”, “Lord, Mr. Ford”, “East Bound and Down” (the theme song for the 1977 blockbuster Smokey and the Bandit, in which Reed co-starred), “The Bird”, and “She Got the Goldmine (I Got the Shaft)”.

Travis Tritt signed to Warner Bros. Records in 1989, releasing seven studio albums. Tritt has also charted more than 40 times on the Hot Country Songs charts, including five number ones ‚”Help Me Hold On,” “Anymore,” “Can I Trust You with My Heart,” “Foolish Pride”, and “Best of Intentions” ‚Äî and 15 additional top ten singles.

Toby Keith released his first four studio albums‚Äî1993’s Toby Keith, 1994’s Boomtown, 1996’s Blue Moon and 1997’s Dream Walkin’, plus a Greatest Hits package for various divisions of Mercury Records before leaving Mercury in 1998. These albums all earned Gold or higher certification and produced several Top Ten singles, including his debut “Should’ve Been a Cowboy”, which topped the country charts and was the most-played country song of the 1990s.

The Carter Family is a traditional American folk music group that recorded between 1927 and 1956. Their music had a profound impact on bluegrass, country, Southern Gospel, pop and rock musicians as well as on the U.S. folk revival of the 1960s. They were the first vocal group to become country music stars. Their recordings of songs such as “Wabash Cannonball”, “Can the Circle Be Unbroken”, “Wildwood Flower”, “Keep On the Sunny Side” and “I’m Thinking Tonight of My Blue Eyes” made these songs country standards.

June Carter Cash was an American singer, songwriter, actress, dancer, comedian, and author who was a member of the Carter Family and the second wife of singer Johnny Cash. She played guitar, banjo, harmonica, and autoharp, and acted in several films and television shows. Carter Cash won five Grammy Awards and was inducted into the Christian Music Hall of Fame in 2009.

Alison Krauss has released fourteen albums, appeared on numerous soundtracks, and helped renew interest in bluegrass music in the United States. Her soundtrack performances have led to further popularity, including the O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack, an album also credited with raising American interest in bluegrass, and the Cold Mountain soundtrack, which led to her performance at the 2004 Academy Awards.

Dottie West is considered one of the genre’s most influential and groundbreaking female artists. Dottie West’s career started in the 1960s, with her Top 10 hit, “Here Comes My Baby Back Again”. In the early 1970s, West wrote a popular commercial for the Coca-Cola company, titled “Country Sunshine”, which reached No. 2 on Billboard’s Hot Country Singles in 1973.

Tim McGraw has released fifteen studio albums (eleven for Curb Records, three for Big Machine Records and one for Arista Nashville). 10 of those albums have reached number 1 on the Top Country Albums charts, with his 1994 breakthrough album Not a Moment Too Soon being the top country album of 1994.

Chet Atkins, known as “Mr. Guitar” and “The Country Gentleman”, was an American musician, occasional vocalist, songwriter, and record producer, who along with Owen Bradley and Bob Ferguson, among others, created the country music style that came to be known as the Nashville sound, which expanded country music’s appeal to adult pop music fans.

Gary Gene Watson is a country singer who is most famous for his 1975 hit “Love in the Hot Afternoon,” his 1981 #1 hit “Fourteen Carat Mind,” and his signature 1979 song “Farewell Party.” Watson’s long career has notched five number ones, 23 top tens and over 76 charted singles.

Trisha Yearwood is a member of the Grand Ole Opry and was inducted into the Georgia Music Hall of Fame in 2000. Yearwood rose to fame in 1991 with her debut single “She’s in Love with the Boy”, which became her first No. 1 single. In 1997, Yearwood recorded the song “How Do I Live” for the soundtrack of the movie Con Air. It became her signature song, achieving high positions and sales worldwide, and won her a Grammy Award.

Tammy Wynette was called the “First Lady of Country Music”, and her best-known song, “Stand by Your Man”, is one of the best-selling hit singles by a woman in the history of country music. Many of her hits dealt with classic themes of loneliness, divorce, and the difficulties of life and relationships.

Jimmy Dean was an American country music singer, television host, actor, and businessman, best known today as the creator of the Jimmy Dean sausage brand as well as its TV commercials’ drawling spokesman. He became a national television personality starting on CBS in 1957. He rose to fame for his 1961 country music crossover hit into rock and roll with “Big Bad John” and his 1963 television series The Jimmy Dean Show, which gave puppeteer Jim Henson his first national media exposure.

Martin David Robinson, known professionally as Marty Robbins, was a singer, songwriter, actor, multi- instrumentalist, and racing driver. One of the most popular and successful country and western singers of all time for most of his near four-decade career, Robbins often topped the country music charts, and several of his songs also had crossover success as pop hits.

Darius Rucker first gained fame as the lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist of the rock band Hootie & the Blowfish, which he founded in 1986 at the University of South Carolina along with Mark Bryan, Jim “Soni” Sonefeld, and Dean Felber. The band released five studio albums with him as a member and charted six top 40 hits on the Billboard Hot 100.

Luke Bryan began his music career writing songs for Travis Tritt and Billy Currington, before signing with Capitol Records Nashville with his cousin, Chad Christopher Boyd in 2007. In 2013, Bryan received the Academy of Country Music Awards, the Country Music Association Awards “Entertainer of the Year” award ‚Äì and has sold over seven million albums and 27 million singles worldwide.

Barbara Ann Mandrell is an country music singer, musician, and actress. She is known for a series of top-10 hits and TV shows in the 1970s and 1980s that helped her become one of country’s most successful female vocalists of that period. She was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2009 and is a member of the Grand Ole Opry.

Eddie Rabbitt’s career began as a songwriter in the late 1960s, springboarding to a recording career after composing hits such as “Kentucky Rain” for Elvis Presley in 1970 and “Pure Love” for Ronnie Milsap in 1974. Later in the 1970s, Rabbitt helped to develop the crossover-influenced sound of country music prevalent in the 1980s with such hits as “Suspicions” and “Every Which Way but Loose”

George Thomas Morgan was a mid-20th-century country music singer. He is a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame and a former member of the Grand Ole Opry. Morgan was a member of the Grand Ole Opry since 1948, and is best remembered for the Columbia Records song “Candy Kisses”, which was a No. 1 hit on the Billboard country music chart for three weeks in 1949.

Henry William Thompson was a country music entertainer whose career spanned seven decades. Thompson’s musical style, characterized as honky tonk Western swing, was a mixture of fiddles, electric guitar and steel guitar that featured his distinctive, smooth baritone vocals. His backing band, The Brazos Valley Boys, was voted the top Country Western Band for 14 years in a row by Billboard.

William Smith Monroe was a mandolinist, singer, and songwriter, who helped to create the style of music known as bluegrass. Because of this, he is commonly referred to as the “Father of Bluegrass”. The genre takes its name from his band, the Blue Grass Boys, named for Monroe’s home state of Kentucky. Monroe’s performing career spanned 69 years as a singer, instrumentalist, composer and bandleader.

John Denver was one of the most popular acoustic artists of the decade and one of its best-selling artists. By 1974, he was firmly established as one of America’s best-selling performers. Denver recorded and released approximately 300 songs, about 200 of which he composed, with total sales of over 33 million records worldwide.

Donald Eugene Gibson was a songwriter and country musician. A Country Music Hall of Fame inductee, Gibson wrote such country standards as “Sweet Dreams” and “I Can’t Stop Loving You”, and enjoyed a string of country hits (“Oh Lonesome Me”) from 1957 into the mid-1970s.

Garth Brooks has had great success on the country single and album charts, with multi-platinum recordings and record-breaking live performances, while also crossing over into the mainstream pop arena. According to the RIAA, he is the best-selling solo albums artist in the United States with 148 million domestic units sold, ahead of Elvis Presley, and is second only to The Beatles in total album sales overall. He sold more than 170 million records.

Clarence Eugene “Hank” Snow was a country music artist. In a career that spanned more than 50 years, he recorded 140 albums and charted more than 85 singles on the Billboard country charts from 1950 until 1980. His number-one hits include the self-penned songs “I’m Moving On”, “The Golden Rocket” and The Rhumba Boogie.

Tanya Tucker had her first hit, “Delta Dawn”, in 1972 at the age of 13. Over the succeeding decades, Tucker became one of the few child performers to mature into adulthood without losing her audience, and during the course of her career, she notched a streak of top-10 and top-40 hits.

Sara Evans has released eight studio albums. Of her albums, Born to Fly is her best-selling, with a double-platinum certification from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for shipments of two million copies. Evans has also won one award each from Billboard, the Academy of Country Music, Country Music Association, Broadcast Music Incorporated (BMI), and a Dove Award.

Blake Shelton made his debut with the single “Austin” in 2001. The lead-off single from his self-titled debut album, “Austin” spent five weeks at number one on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart. The now Platinum-certified debut album also produced two more top 20 entries (“All Over Me” and “Ol’ Red”). His second and third albums, 2003’s The Dreamer and 2004’s Blake Shelton’s Barn & Grill, are gold and platinum, respectively.

Buck Owens was an American musician, singer, songwriter and band leader who had 21 No. 1 hits on the Billboard country music charts with his band the Buckaroos. They pioneered what came to be called the Bakersfield sound, named after Bakersfield, California, the city Owens called home and from which he drew inspiration for what he preferred to call American music.

Faron Young was a country music singer and songwriter from the early 1950s into the mid-1980s and one of its most successful and colorful stars. Hits including “If You Ain’t Lovin’ (You Ain’t Livin’)” and “Live Fast, Love Hard, Die Young” marked him as a honky-tonk singer in sound and personal style; and his chart-topping singles “Hello Walls” and “It’s Four in the Morning” showed his versatility as a vocalist.

Roy Clark is best known for hosting Hee Haw, a nationally televised country variety show, from 1969 to 1997. Roy Clark has been an important and influential figure in country music, both as a performer and helping to popularize the genre. During the 1970s, Clark frequently guest-hosted for Johnny Carson on The Tonight Show and enjoyed a 30-million viewership for Hee Haw.

Kenneth Ray Rogers is a singer, songwriter, actor, record producer, and entrepreneur. He is a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame. Though he has been most successful with country audiences, Rogers has charted more than 120 hit singles across various music genres, topped the country and pop album charts for more than 200 individual weeks in the United States alone, and has sold over 100 million records worldwide, making him one of the best-selling music artists of all time.

David Allan Coe’s biggest hits were “Mona Lisa Lost Her Smile”, “The Ride”, “You Never Even Called Me by My Name”, “She Used to Love Me a Lot”, and “Longhaired Redneck”. His most popular songs are the number-one hits “Would You Lay With Me (In a Field of Stone)” and “Take This Job and Shove It”.

Faith Hill has sold more than 40 million albums worldwide. Hill is married to American singer Tim McGraw, with whom she has recorded several duets. She then achieved mainstream and crossover success with her next two albums, Faith (1998) and Breathe (1999). Faith spawned her first international hit in early 1998, “This Kiss”, while Breathe became one of the best-selling country albums of all time.

Keith Urban released a self-titled debut album in 1991 and charted four singles in Australia before moving to the United States the following year. He made his solo American debut in 1999 with a second eponymous album. Certified platinum in the US by the RIAA, it produced his first number one on the Hot Country Songs chart with “But for the Grace of God”.

Ronnie Milsap was one of country music’s most popular and influential performers of the 1970s and 1980s. He became one of the most successful and versatile country “crossover” singers of his time. His biggest crossover hits include “It Was Almost Like a Song”, “Smoky Mountain Rain”, “(There’s) No Gettin’ Over Me”, “I Wouldn’t Have Missed It for the World”, “Any Day Now”, and “Stranger in My House”.

Eric Church has released six studio albums through Capitol Nashville since 2005, later signing to Snakefarm Records. His debut album, 2006’s Sinners Like Me, produced three singles on the Billboard country charts including the top 20 hits “How ‘Bout You”, “Two Pink Lines”, and “Guys Like Me”.

Jimmie Hugh Loden, known professionally as Sonny James, was a country music singer and songwriter best known for his 1957 hit, “Young Love”. Dubbed the “Southern Gentleman” for his congenial manner, his greatest success came from ballads about the trials of love. James had 72 country and pop charted releases from 1953 to 1983, including an unprecedented five-year streak of 16 straight Billboard #1 singles among his 26 #1 hits.

Ferlin Husky was an early American country music singer who was equally adept at the genres of traditional honky-tonk, ballads, spoken recitations, and rockabilly pop tunes. He had two dozen top-20 hits in the Billboard country charts between 1953 and 1975; his versatility and matinee-idol looks propelled a seven-decade entertainment career. In the 1950s and 1960s, Husky’s hits included “Gone” and “Wings of a Dove”, each reached number one on the country charts.

Tom T. Hall has written 12 No. 1 hit songs, with 26 more that reached the Top 10, including the No. 1 international pop crossover smash “Harper Valley PTA” and the hit “I Love”, which reached No. 12 on the Billboard Hot 100. He became known to fans as “The Storyteller,” thanks to his storytelling skills in his songwriting.