These are the best country songs and country artists in one music lover's opinion. Please feel free to make nominations in the comments. Who did I leave out or rank too low?
Great list, right up my honky tonk alley — this is my favourite music.😊 Gillian Welch co wrote I'll Fly Away with Alison Krauss, I am currently trying to learn that on the banjo 🪕, and Roseanne Cash is not June Carter's daughter, and June wrote Ring Of Fire 🎶, another song I am currently learning on the banjo. 🖤. Emmylou Harris, Patsy Cline, Dwight Yoakam, Merle Haggard, Towns ... so many memories here. Also room for Gram Parsons and Blaze Foley ... and John Prine ❤️. Thanks for making this list, I know what I am listening to on the way t work today.
Although Johnny Cash is well represented on your list, Mike, I don't think he is represented enough because he is, in my humble opinion, the greatest country singer of all time, and quite a brilliant writer of songs. So, I being Irish, am nominating "Forty Shades of Green" to be included on your list, with an audio if possible, and I'll include the lyrics below. It's nothing less than a masterpiece, and he wrote in a plane while looking down at my beloved country in 1959, while it was preparing to land.
Love this list and the massive range it encompasses. Particularly delighted to see Shania Twain listed among these icons - I would nominate her older music like What Made You Say That, God Aint Gonna Get You For That, and Dance With the One That Brought You as some of her best country work. I'm also partial to more John Prine and Waylon representation. Thanks for making this!
Some good picks but....Emmy Lou at #63, seriously? & only 1 TvZ song, no Nanci Griffith ('Trouble in the Fields' for certain), Kathy Mattea (check out her work on 'Atlantic Sessions') Hmmm
Here are a few of my favorites:
Will the Circle Be Unbroken, Mother Maybelle Caryer and The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band
Wildwood Flower, Mother Maybelle Carter
You Never Even Call Me By My Name, David Allen Coe
Seven Spanish Angels, Willie Nelson and Raay Charles
You'll Never Leave Harlan Alive, Patty Loveless
Aura Lea, Tom Rush
Love Me Tender, Elvis Presley
I have some of these, but I'll add the ones I don't have, thanks.
Great list, right up my honky tonk alley — this is my favourite music.😊 Gillian Welch co wrote I'll Fly Away with Alison Krauss, I am currently trying to learn that on the banjo 🪕, and Roseanne Cash is not June Carter's daughter, and June wrote Ring Of Fire 🎶, another song I am currently learning on the banjo. 🖤. Emmylou Harris, Patsy Cline, Dwight Yoakam, Merle Haggard, Towns ... so many memories here. Also room for Gram Parsons and Blaze Foley ... and John Prine ❤️. Thanks for making this list, I know what I am listening to on the way t work today.
Although Johnny Cash is well represented on your list, Mike, I don't think he is represented enough because he is, in my humble opinion, the greatest country singer of all time, and quite a brilliant writer of songs. So, I being Irish, am nominating "Forty Shades of Green" to be included on your list, with an audio if possible, and I'll include the lyrics below. It's nothing less than a masterpiece, and he wrote in a plane while looking down at my beloved country in 1959, while it was preparing to land.
Green, green, forty shades of green
I close my eyes and picture
The emerald of the sea
From the fishing boats at Dingle
To the shores of Donaghadee
I miss the river Shannon
And the folks at Skibbereen
The moorlands and the meddle
With their forty shades of green
But most of all I miss a girl
In Tipperary town
And most of all I miss her lips
As soft as eiderdown
Again I want to see and do
The things we've done and seen
Where the breeze is sweet as Shalimar
And there's forty shades of green
(Green, green, forty shades of green)
I wish that I could spend an hour
At Dublin's churching surf
I'd love to watch the farmers
Drain the bogs and spade the turf
To see again the thatching
Of the straw the women glean
I'd walk from Cork to Larne to see
The forty shades of green
But most of all I miss a girl
In Tipperary town
And most of all I miss her lips
As soft as eiderdown
Again I want to see and do
The things we've done and seen
Where the breeze is sweet as Shalimar
And there's forty shades of green.
Love this list and the massive range it encompasses. Particularly delighted to see Shania Twain listed among these icons - I would nominate her older music like What Made You Say That, God Aint Gonna Get You For That, and Dance With the One That Brought You as some of her best country work. I'm also partial to more John Prine and Waylon representation. Thanks for making this!
I nominate James McMurtry and “Choctaw Bingo” for inclusion in the list.
🔥🔥
Some good picks but....Emmy Lou at #63, seriously? & only 1 TvZ song, no Nanci Griffith ('Trouble in the Fields' for certain), Kathy Mattea (check out her work on 'Atlantic Sessions') Hmmm