Skip to content
Curated playlist

Country pop musicians

  • Taylor SwiftEvery record label in Nashville turned Taylor Swift away when she was 11. She kept going and began writing songs.
  • Dolly PartonDolly Parton refused to give Elvis Presley half the publishing rights to "I Will Always Love You."
  • Tim McGrawTim McGraw, born Samuel Timothy McGraw, was a college student in 1989 when his hero, Keith Whitley, died. McGraw dropped out that same day and headed for Nashville. The numbers that followed are hard to take in. He has released 17 studio…
  • LeAnn RimesLeAnn Rimes is an American singer whose song "How Do I Live" spent 69 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100, a new record for the longest-running single. She had found success in country music at age 13. Billboard ranked her 17th for sales across…
  • Keith UrbanKeith Urban has charted 37 singles on the US Hot Country Songs chart, and 18 of them reached number one. That tally counts a duet with Brad Paisley and a song that was first released in 2008. The man behind those numbers was born Keith…
  • Shania TwainShania Twain has sold over 100 million records, more than any other woman in country music history. Billboard Boxscore puts the gross from her concert tours at 421.1 million dollars, the highest for any female country touring artist.…
  • Jennette McCurdyJennette McCurdy gave her memoir a title that stops people mid-sentence: I'm Glad My Mom Died. The cover is just as startling. It shows her looking upward while holding a pink urn, with confetti spilling out of the lid. It looks like a…
  • Vince GillOn the 4th of March 1976, a young bluegrass band called Mountain Smoke opened for the hard rock band Kiss. Its frontman was Vince Gill, an Oklahoma teenager who had grown up on banjo, mandolin and guitar. By his own account, the crowd…
  • Olivia Newton-JohnDame Olivia Newton-John sold more than 100 million records, a total that makes her the highest-selling female Australian recording artist of all time. She was born in Cambridge, England, in 1948 and raised in Melbourne. Her career…
  • Billy Ray CyrusBilly Ray Cyrus, an American singer, songwriter and actor, held the top of the Billboard 200 for 17 consecutive weeks with his first album. No debut artist had ever stayed there longer, and no country artist had either. That is a strange…

Queue