80s Country Music Trivia
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70 free 80s Country Music trivia questions with answers — music quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
The 1980s were the decade country music tried on rhinestones and then took them back off. It opened with Urban Cowboy, mechanical bulls and pop crossovers from Kenny Rogers, Dolly Parton and Eddie Rabbitt, and it closed with the neotraditional revival of George Strait, Randy Travis, Reba McEntire and the so-called Class of '89. In between came Alabama's run of 21 straight number ones, the Judds, the Highwaymen, Farm Aid, and the first country video ever aired on MTV. This quiz covers all of it: the hits, the songwriters behind them, the awards, the movies and the TV themes that put country in every living room. Questions range from easy chart facts to deep cuts about who wrote what and where a video was shot, so it works for a casual round with friends or a serious test for anyone who lived through the decade. Every answer has been checked against a primary reference and each question links to its source, so if a fact surprises you, you can read where it came from.
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Q 01Both the 1980 film 9 to 5 and Dolly Parton's title song took their name from what?
A working women's organization
A working women's organization called 9to5, founded by Boston office workers in 1973, gave both their name; Jane Fonda built the film around stories its members told her about their jobs.
Q 02Songwriter Dallas Frazier named "Elvira," the Oak Ridge Boys' huge 1981 hit, after what?
A street in East Nashville
A street in East Nashville, Elvira Street, gave Frazier the name when he noticed its sign; his own 1966 single was only a minor hit, but the Oak Ridge Boys' 1981 cover topped the country chart and went top ten in pop.
Q 03Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton's 1983 duet "Islands in the Stream" was written by which group?
The Bee Gees
The Bee Gees wrote it, and Rogers first recorded it alone; after days of struggling with his vocal he was ready to give up when Barry Gibb decided it should be a duet with Dolly Parton.
Q 04Emmylou Harris's 1985 concept album about a fictional singer was titled what?
The Ballad of Sally Rose
The Ballad of Sally Rose, co-written with Paul Kennerley, was loosely based on Harris's own years singing with Gram Parsons, the country-rock pioneer who hired her as his harmony singer and died in 1973.
Q 05Kenny Rogers's 1980 chart-topper "Lady" was written and produced by which Motown star?
Lionel Richie
Lionel Richie was still fronting the Commodores, and "Lady" was the first record he produced for an outside act; its six weeks atop the pop chart pointed the way to his solo career.
Q 06Randy Travis's 1987 hit "Forever and Ever, Amen" was written by which songwriting pair?
Paul Overstreet and Don Schlitz
Paul Overstreet and Don Schlitz, who had already written "On the Other Hand" for Travis, took the title from a little boy who ended his goodnights that way; it won the 1988 Grammy for Best Country Song.
Q 07Which 1986 Randy Travis debut album went triple platinum and helped launch country's neotraditional boom?
Storms of Life
Storms of Life overcame a slow start: its single "On the Other Hand" stalled at number 67 in 1985, then went to number one when Warner Bros. re-released it the next year.
Q 08Which 1987 George Strait album was the first to debut at number one on the Top Country Albums chart?
Ocean Front Property
Ocean Front Property entered the Top Country Albums chart at number one, the first album to do so; in the title track a man swears he won't miss her, then offers ocean-front land in Arizona if she buys it.
Q 09The band Alabama was formed by three cousins in which Alabama town?
Fort Payne
Fort Payne is the cousins' home turf; from 1982 to 1997 the band staged its June Jam festival there, drawing as many as 60,000 fans and raising millions of dollars for local charities.
Q 10Which 1980 single, Alabama's first on RCA, began the band's streak of 21 consecutive country number ones?
Tennessee River
"Tennessee River" followed a 1980 Nashville showcase for new acts that won Alabama its RCA deal, and it began 21 straight number ones, a run that ended when "Tar Top" stalled at number seven in 1987.
Q 11Before RCA signed them in 1980, Alabama spent years playing for tips at The Bowery, a bar in which beach resort?
Myrtle Beach
Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, was the band's base from 1973; they played The Bowery six nights a week for tips, and named their 2013 reunion tour Back to the Bowery.
Q 12Which member of Alabama wrote the band's 1982 anthem "Mountain Music"?
Randy Owen
Randy Owen, the band's lead singer, has said the song took him three years to write; on record he trades lines with bandmates Teddy Gentry and Jeff Cook, and it became Alabama's sixth number one.
Q 13Naomi Judd, one half of the Judds, was born in which Kentucky city?
Ashland
Q 21George Jones's 1980 comeback "He Stopped Loving Her Today" was written by which duo?
Bobby Braddock and Curly Putman
Bobby Braddock and Curly Putman wrote it; Jones, deep in a personal tailspin, feared the song was too sad to sell, yet it hit number one in July 1980 and won CMA Song of the Year two years running.
Q 22Loretta Lynn picked Sissy Spacek to play her in Coal Miner's Daughter (1980) based on what?
A photograph of the actress
A photograph of the actress was all Lynn had seen, never one of her films; Spacek asked to do her own singing hoping to scare the studio off, then sang every song and won the Best Actress Oscar.
Q 23Which bluegrass-rooted singer and mandolin prodigy joined the Grand Ole Opry in 1982?
Ashland was Naomi's hometown; she was working as a hospital nurse when she slipped a tape to a patient, the daughter of producer Brent Maher, which led to an RCA audition in 1983.
Q 14The Judds' 1986 hit "Grandpa (Tell Me 'Bout the Good Old Days)" was written by whom?
Jamie O'Hara
Jamie O'Hara won the Grammy for Best Country Song for it, and in 1986 the Nashville songwriter stepped out front himself, forming the O'Kanes with fellow writer Kieran Kane and topping the country chart a year later.
Q 15Gilley's Club, the giant honky-tonk at the heart of Urban Cowboy (1980), stood in which Houston suburb?
Pasadena
Pasadena, home to many petrochemical plant workers, housed Gilley's; with room for 6,000 it was listed by Guinness as the world's largest honky-tonk, and the film made it one of Houston's main tourist draws.
Q 16Who played Sissy, the wife of John Travolta's Bud, in Urban Cowboy?
Debra Winger
Debra Winger played Sissy opposite John Travolta's Bud, a breakthrough that preceded her Oscar-nominated roles in An Officer and a Gentleman and Terms of Endearment.
Q 17Which Texas songwriter wrote "Pancho and Lefty", a 1983 number one for Nelson and Haggard?
Townes Van Zandt
Townes Van Zandt's 1972 original went largely unnoticed; Nelson first heard the song when his daughter Lana played it for him, cut it that night, and had to wake Haggard on his bus to sing his part.
Q 18The supergroup the Highwaymen took their name from a 1985 hit written by which songwriter?
Jimmy Webb
Jimmy Webb, of "Wichita Lineman" fame, wrote "Highwayman" in London after a vivid dream; he recorded it in 1977 and Glen Campbell put it on a 1979 album before the Highwaymen's version won him a Grammy.
Q 19In the Highwaymen's recording of "Highwayman," Johnny Cash sings the final verse as what?
A starship captain
A starship captain is the last of the song's four lives, after a highwayman, a sailor and a dam builder; Glen Campbell played the tune for Cash in 1984, and its four verses gave each Highwayman one.
Q 20A decade before Willie Nelson's 1982 hit, "Always on My Mind" was a UK top-ten single for which singer?
Elvis Presley
Elvis Presley's 1972 single reached the British top ten; a decade later one of its writers played the song for Nelson and Merle Haggard, Haggard passed, and Nelson's solo version earned three Grammys.
Ricky Skaggs
Ricky Skaggs joined the Opry in May 1982; Bill Monroe had pulled him onstage to sing when he was a small boy with a mandolin, and at seven he played on Flatt and Scruggs's TV show.
Q 24Which big-city mayor made a cameo as a cabdriver in the 1985 country video "Country Boy"?
Ed Koch
Ed Koch, New York's mayor at the time, drives the cab in a video shot around Manhattan, where the singer sets out to show Uncle Pen, played by bluegrass patriarch Bill Monroe, that he is still country.
Q 25Dwight Yoakam's 1986 debut 'Honky Tonk Man' was a cover of a 1956 hit by whom?
Johnny Horton
Johnny Horton cut the 1956 original; Yoakam, who had made little headway in a pop-minded Nashville, built his following in Los Angeles rock and punk clubs, and his cover reached number three.
Q 26What was the title of Steve Earle's 1986 debut album?
Guitar Town
Guitar Town topped the country album chart twelve years after Earle arrived in Nashville at 19, working blue-collar jobs by day and playing music at night; its title song earned two Grammy nominations.
Q 27Which Nashville legend produced k.d. lang's 1988 album Shadowland?
Owen Bradley
Owen Bradley, producer of Patsy Cline's classic records, was a natural choice: lang had named her band the Reclines in Cline's honor, and the album also teamed her with Kitty Wells, Loretta Lynn and Brenda Lee.
Q 28Which 1981 single, written by Rosanne Cash herself, was the title track of her breakthrough album?
Seven Year Ache
"Seven Year Ache" began as a long poem Cash wrote after a fight with her husband at a Los Angeles restaurant; it topped the country chart in 1981 and crossed over to the pop top 40.
Q 29Who first won CMA Entertainer of the Year in back-to-back years, 1980 and 1981?
Barbara Mandrell
Barbara Mandrell won in 1980 and 1981, the first artist to repeat, while hosting NBC's Barbara Mandrell and the Mandrell Sisters; the workload strained her voice so badly that she ended the show in 1982.
Q 30In Ronnie Milsap's "Smoky Mountain Rain", the narrator has left Los Angeles for which Tennessee city?
Knoxville
The narrator thumbs his way from LA back to Knoxville, then flags down a trucker bound for Gatlinburg; in 2010 the Tennessee legislature made "Smoky Mountain Rain" an official state song.