1974 in country music

See also: 1973 in country music, 1974 in music, other events of 1974, 1975 in country music, and the List of years in Country Music

Contents

Events

  • March 16 – The Grand Ole Opry moves from the Ryman Auditorium, its home of the past 41 years, to the newly constructed 4,400 Grand Ole Opry House, on the Opryland complex. President Richard Nixon is a guest at the Ryman's last show. The Ryman would essentially sit vacant for the next two decades before being renovated in the early 1990s as a historical landmark and concert hall.
  • July 17 – Don Rich, a key member of Buck Owens' backing band, The Buckaroos, is killed in a motorcycle crash on State Route 99 north of Bakersfield, California; he was 32. Owens is deeply saddened by Rich's death, and it will gravely affect his career for many years.[1]

No dates

  • Country purists - long troubled by a growing trend of pop music-influenced country - have an ACE up their sleeves, when they form the Association of Country Entertainers. The group forms as a result of an outcry over the 1974 Country Music Association awards program, where pop diva Olivia Newton-John won Female Vocalist of the Year, and Danny Davis & the Nashville Brass was awarded another Instrumental Group of the Year.
  • The proliferation of No. 1 hits, as certified by Billboard magazine, extends into 1974, when 40 songs reach the top of the Hot Country Singles chart. In fact, just nine songs - 10, if one counts Merle Haggard's "If We Make it Through December," which spent two of its four weeks at No. 1 in January - remain at the top spot for more than one week.

Top hits of the year

No. 1 hits

(As certified by Billboard magazine)

Other major hits

Top new album releases

Other top albums

Births

Deaths

Country Music Hall of Fame Inductees

Major Awards

Grammy awards

  • Best Country Vocal Performance, Female -- "Love Song" - Anne Murray
  • Best Country Vocal Performance, Male -- "Please Don't Tell Me How The Story Ends" - Ronnie Milsap
  • Best Country Vocal Performance By A Duo Or Group -- "Fairytale" - The Pointer Sisters (Anita Pointer, Ruth Pointer, June Pointer Whitmore)
  • Best Country Instrumental Performance -- "The Atkins-Travis Traveling Show" - Chet Atkins and Merle Travis
  • Best Country Song -- "A Very Special Love Song" - Billy Sherrill and Norris Wilson, songwriters

Academy of Country Music

Country Music Association

Further reading

  • Kingsbury, Paul, "The Grand Ole Opry: History of Country Music. 70 Years of the Songs, the Stars and the Stories," Villard Books, Random House; Opryland USA, 1995
  • Kingsbury, Paul, "Vinyl Hayride: Country Music Album Covers 1947-1989," Country Music Foundation, 2003 (ISBN 0-8118-3572-3)
  • Millard, Bob, "Country Music: 70 Years of America's Favorite Music," HarperCollins, New York, 1993 (ISBN 0-06-273244-7)
  • Whitburn, Joel, "Top Country Songs 1944-2005 - 6th Edition." 2005.

Other links

External links

Wikipedia content modification information:

  • This page was last modified on 30 December 2008, at 12:39.

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