50 Fun Facts About 70s Country Music

Which 1973 Dolly Parton hit was inspired by a flame-haired bank clerk who flirted with her husband?

Jolene got its name and looks from a young girl who came on stage for Parton's autograph. It became her second solo country number one in early 1974.

Which 1978 Kenny Rogers story song, written by Don Schlitz, later inspired a series of five TV movies?

The Gambler was hawked around Nashville for two years before anyone cut it. Schlitz wrote it at 23, and Bobby Bare recorded it before Rogers did.

Which 1970 Loretta Lynn hit later gave its title to her autobiography and a 1980 film starring Sissy Spacek?

Coal Miner's Daughter recalls Lynn's childhood in Butcher Hollow, Kentucky. Producer Owen Bradley thought her first draft too long, so she cut several verses before recording it.

Which singer, nicknamed the Silver Fox, set fire to the winner's envelope while presenting a 1975 CMA award?

Charlie Rich had been named Entertainer of the Year himself in 1974. Presenting the same award a year later, he took out a cigarette lighter and lit the paper.

Which US president played piano on stage at the opening night of the new Grand Ole Opry House in 1974?

Richard Nixon also took a yo-yo lesson from Roy Acuff on stage that night. He resigned the presidency less than five months later.

Which former San Quentin inmate, famous for Okie from Muskogee, was pardoned by Governor Ronald Reagan in 1972?

Merle Haggard was moved to San Quentin in 1958 after an escape attempt. Released in 1960, he dug ditches for his brother's electrical firm before music paid.

Which instrument does Johnny play to win the contest in the Charlie Daniels Band's The Devil Went Down to Georgia?

Fiddle duels decide the 1979 song: the Devil stakes a golden instrument against Johnny's soul and loses. It reached number three on the Billboard Hot 100.

Which 1975 trucking anthem by C. W. McCall rode the CB radio fad to number one and inspired a 1978 film?

Convoy was sung by a character invented to sell bread: ad man Bill Fries created C. W. McCall for a series of commercials. It led the country chart for six weeks.

Which singer was only 13 when her recording of Delta Dawn became a top-ten country hit in 1972?

Tanya Tucker picked the song herself over The Happiest Girl in the Whole USA, which her producer had planned as her debut single. It reached number six on the country chart.

Which singer took Rhinestone Cowboy to number one on both the country and pop charts in 1975?

Glen Campbell's hit was written and first recorded by Larry Weiss a year earlier. It was one of six songs to top both charts in 1975, a crossover peak for country.

Which singer of Take Me Home, Country Roads topped the charts with a live Thank God I'm a Country Boy?

John Denver recorded the hit version live at the Universal Amphitheatre in Los Angeles in 1974. A member of his backup band, John Sommers, wrote it on a drive from Aspen.

Which country star was Dolly Parton leaving when she wrote I Will Always Love You as a farewell in 1973?

Porter Wagoner had been her mentor and business partner for seven years. Parton wrote the song to soften the blow of going solo.

Which Hello Darlin' singer won four straight CMA duo awards with Loretta Lynn from 1972 to 1975?

Conway Twitty began as a rock and roll singer whose It's Only Make Believe topped the pop chart. His first hit duet with Lynn, After the Fire Is Gone, came in 1971.

Which singer with floor-length hair had her biggest hit in 1977 with Don't It Make My Brown Eyes Blue?

Crystal Gayle is a younger sister of Loretta Lynn, who was a star before she began. At 16 she stood in for her sick sister on the Grand Ole Opry.

Which singer married George Jones in 1969 and topped the country chart with him again after their 1975 divorce?

Tammy Wynette and Jones released Golden Ring 14 months after their divorce and took it to number one. The song traces the life of a wedding band bought in a pawn shop.

Which sparse 1975 Willie Nelson concept album did Columbia executives at first mistake for a demo?

Red Headed Stranger was recorded at low cost in Garland, Texas, and follows a fugitive who has killed his wife and her lover. Its hit single was Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain.

Which tiny Texas town gave Waylon Jennings the title of a number-one country hit in 1977?

Luckenbach had been bought in 1970 by three friends who answered an advert offering a town with a population of three. The song held number one for over a month.

Which 1976 RCA compilation led by Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson became country music's first platinum album?

Wanted! The Outlaws reached a million sales in November 1976, the year the RIAA introduced its platinum award. Its cover styled the singers as a bullet-riddled wanted poster.

Which singer explained his dark stage clothes in a 1971 protest song and later hit with One Piece at a Time?

Johnny Cash's One Piece at a Time, about a Cadillac smuggled out of the factory part by part, was his last solo number one on the country chart, in 1976.

Which former baseball pitcher was named CMA Entertainer of the Year in 1971, the year of Kiss an Angel Good Mornin'?

Charley Pride pitched for the Memphis Red Sox of the Negro American League during the 1950s. In Montana he was later paid to sing for 15 minutes before his semi-pro team's games.

Which singer topped the pop and country charts in 1975 with Before the Next Teardrop Falls, half of it in Spanish?

Freddy Fender sang the first half in English, then repeated it in Spanish, and said the session took only a few minutes. The song had already been recorded more than two dozen times.

Which singer scored a number-one hit with David Allan Coe's 1977 workplace anthem Take This Job and Shove It?

Johnny Paycheck never had another number one. The song, about a man embittered by years of unrewarded work, went on to inspire a 1981 film of the same name.

Which Rhodes scholar turned Columbia Records janitor wrote Help Me Make It Through the Night?

Kris Kristofferson also flew helicopters to oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico, writing songs between flights. This one won him the Grammy for country song of the year.

Which pop newcomer's 1974 win as CMA Female Vocalist of the Year drove angry Nashville stars to form a protest group?

Olivia Newton-John beat nominees including Loretta Lynn and Dolly Parton. The protest group, the Association of Country Entertainers, proved short-lived.

Which 1977 Burt Reynolds film cast Jerry Reed as trucker Snowman and featured his hit East Bound and Down?

Smokey and the Bandit was the second-highest-grossing film of 1977 in the United States, behind only Star Wars. Reed co-wrote the song, which peaked at number two on the country chart.

Which Brooklyn-born songwriter of Kentucky Rain sang the title song of the 1978 film Every Which Way but Loose?

Eddie Rabbitt was born to Irish immigrants and raised in East Orange, New Jersey. The theme to the Clint Eastwood comedy was his first crossover single and topped the country chart.

Which director followed 24 main characters around Music City in the 1975 ensemble film Nashville?

Robert Altman's film earned five Oscar nominations and won one, Best Original Song, for cast member Keith Carradine's I'm Easy. It also packs in an hour of musical numbers.

Which downtown Nashville venue, home of the Grand Ole Opry since 1943, did the radio show leave in March 1974?

Ryman Auditorium's farewell Opry show was covered for The New Yorker by Garrison Keillor, who said it inspired him to create A Prairie Home Companion. The building then stood mostly vacant for nearly 20 years.

Which Nashville theme park opened in 1972 and was demolished after 1997 to make way for a shopping mall?

Opryland USA was built by the company behind radio station WSM to sit beside a new home for the Grand Ole Opry. The mall that replaced the rides opened in 2000.

Which 1970 Lynn Anderson crossover smash did her producer husband at first refuse to record as unfit for a woman?

Rose Garden was written by Joe South, and Anderson had to talk Glenn Sutton into letting her record it. It won her a Grammy and reached number one in several countries.

Which former high school English teacher wrote and sang the 1972 crossover hit The Happiest Girl in the Whole USA?

Donna Fargo had risen to lead the English department at a California high school before her hit. Her follow-up, Funny Face, did even better on the pop chart.

Which singer, discovered by Gram Parsons, broke through in 1975 with the album Pieces of the Sky?

Emmylou Harris got the job after her child's babysitter overheard a nightclub conversation about her and passed on her details. Parsons got in touch the next day.

Which pianist, almost completely blind from birth, crossed over to pop with It Was Almost Like a Song?

Ronnie Milsap was raised by his grandparents in the Smoky Mountains and sent to a state school for the blind at five. From 1976 to 1978 he was one of country's biggest stars.

Which singer, known for a stutter that never touched his singing, was the CMA's Entertainer of the Year in 1976?

Mel Tillis developed the stutter after a childhood bout of malaria. He also wrote Ruby, Don't Take Your Love to Town, a worldwide hit for Kenny Rogers.

Which hit 1970s country quartet from Staunton, Virginia, took its name from a box of facial tissues in a hotel?

The Statler Brothers contained only two actual brothers, Don and Harold Reid. Novelist Kurt Vonnegut called the group America's Poets.

Which comic singer spent three weeks atop the pop chart in 1974 with the novelty record The Streak?

Ray Stevens got the idea from a news magazine he read on an aeroplane. By his count, 15 other songs about the naked-running craze were already out when his was released.

Dottie West's 1973 hit Country Sunshine began life as a television jingle for which soft drink?

Coca-Cola's commercial proved so popular that RCA Victor released the song as a single. It reached the top ten of the country charts in the United States and Canada.

Which singer survived a near-fatal 1975 fall on Montana's Ajax Peak and afterwards wore a beard, hat and sunglasses?

Hank Williams Jr. fell almost 500 feet when the snow collapsed beneath him, fracturing his skull and face. His new look was adopted to hide the scars.

Which El Paso singer moonlighted as a NASCAR driver, scoring a top-ten finish in the 1973 Firecracker 400?

Marty Robbins entered 35 races in NASCAR's top series and finished in the top ten six times. He favoured Dodges, racing Chargers and later a 1978 Magnum.

Which Texas city's Armadillo World Headquarters became the cradle of 1970s progressive country?

Austin's venue was an old National Guard armory, and its founders chose an armored animal as a mascot to match. Its country-rock blend was also dubbed Redneck Rock and Cosmic Cowboy.

Which cousin of Jerry Lee Lewis lent his name in 1971 to a vast Pasadena, Texas honky-tonk he co-owned?

Mickey Gilley's club inspired a 1978 Esquire cover story that became the film Urban Cowboy, with its interiors shot on location there.

Which Harper Valley PTA writer, nicknamed the Storyteller, sang his own 1972 hit about old dogs and watermelon wine?

Tom T. Hall was also a short-story author and wrote 12 number-one songs. In 1998 the watermelon wine song came second in a BBC poll of Britain's favourite easy-listening records.

Which smooth 1970s country style, known for lush orchestral strings and choirs, was aimed squarely at the pop charts?

Countrypolitan grew out of the Nashville sound and sold well into the mid-1970s. Listeners after something grittier turned to the rival Bakersfield sound.

Which gospel quartet, named after wartime shows at a Tennessee laboratory, switched to country in the mid-1970s?

The Oak Ridge Boys' forerunners sang so often for staff restricted to the wartime laboratory that they took its name. Their 1977 album Y'all Come Back Saloon made them country stars.

Which 1975 Loretta Lynn single stalled at number five after many country radio stations refused to play it?

The Pill is a comic-tinged song about the freedom birth control gives a woman. Lynn recorded it in 1972, but her label held it back for three years.

Which country-rock group recruited Roy Acuff and Maybelle Carter for the 1972 album Will the Circle Be Unbroken?

The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band struck Acuff as a bunch of long-haired West Coast boys, and he was contemptuous of the three-record project before agreeing to take part.

Which Nashville producer co-wrote Stand by Your Man and then oversaw George Jones's records for 19 years from 1971?

Billy Sherrill knew so little country music when Epic hired him that he built his sweeping productions on pop ideas, borrowing from Phil Spector.

Which Nashville festival, launched in 1972 so that country listeners could meet the stars, later became CMA Fest?

Fan Fair was created by WSM radio and the CMA to keep the public away from an industry-only convention. The first drew 5,000 people, and attendance doubled a year later.

Which singer's only major hit, I Can Help, reached number one on both the pop and country charts in 1974?

Billy Swan wrote the song in about 20 minutes in a music room his wife had made from a closet. He played its keyboard part on a borrowed portable organ.

Which 1972 film turned the bluegrass instrumental Dueling Banjos into a number-two pop hit the following year?

Deliverance used the tune without the permission of Arthur Smith, who had composed it in 1954 and went on to win a lawsuit. The single also took a country Grammy.