Being born in Mississippi, Mickey grew up close by to his cousin Jerry Lee Lewis. Jerry taught Mickey his piano technique, but Mickey didn’t really have an interest in going into the music business until he saw Jerry become a huge star. So he recorded songs on various small labels in his new home of Texas, and became a popular regional star in that area. He even became popular enough that an entrepreneur approached him in the early 1970’s about opening a club together, which they did and named the new club Gilley’s. Up until this point, he hadn’t achieved national success but that changed in 1974 when a local DJ began playing one of his records a fair amount, leading to a bigger label (Playboy Records) picking it up and playing it across the country. Mickey got signed to this new label and the song became a huge success. This one hit ended up becoming multiple hits throughout the rest of the 1970’s. By the end of the decade, Mickey’s star was fading. But that turned around in 1980, when a new John Travolta movie came along called “Urban Cowboy”. The film (which was filmed at Gilley’s) became massive and changed the course of the entire country genre throughout the rest of the 80’s, with the term ‘urban cowboy’ being used to describe the soft-spoken pop-tinged songs coming from artists like Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton at that point in time. Seeing one of his songs become a crossover hit from the “Urban Cowboy” soundtrack, Mickey changed his honky tonk sound to be more pop friendly for the 1980’s. This decision allowed him to continue getting hits for another 10 years. Not even mentioning his awards throughout his career, Mickey had over 15 years of hits, was one of the biggest names in the genre at the time, had the world’s biggest country music bar, and encapsulated the sound of the era very well. This all says that he is very deserving of a Hall Of Fame plaque.

Even though he was older than the average country star by the time he got his first hit, Vern was able to get a string of barroom hits and became known by the nickname “The Voice”. Born in Alabama, he was a big fan of country music growing up, and in his mid 20’s he made the decision to move to California and join the West Coast country music scene. After performing for a little while, he got together with his brother Rex to form the duo the Gosdin Brothers. They tried to make it work for a number of years, but it just didn’t come together for them. Vern retired and moved to Georgia to run a shop. But he still had his toe in music and played small clubs around his area. He reconnected up with his friend whom he met in his California days, Emmylou Harris (2008 Hall Of Fame inductee). They cut a demo song together, which got Vern a new recording contract. This new contract would become 15 years worth of honky tonk hits and barroom weepers. His career was also rewarded with 2 Grammy nominations and 1 Country Music Association award for Song Of The Year in 1989. Although not as well remembered by modern country audiences, Vern has been an influence for many country singers in the last 30 years for his quality songs and for being “The Voice”.

And here we have someone who is on both the Rock Hall Of Fame and the Country Hall Of Fame predictions list. Even with such a short life and career, he was able to build up enough of an impact to influence both the rock and country worlds. After falling in love with country music in university, Gram joined up with rock band The Byrds. Gram convinced them to jump even farther into the country world that they were toying with, releasing the album “Sweetheart Of The Rodeo”. Though the album failed commercially at the time of release, it has gone on to be a landmark album of the Los Angeles country-rock movement. After leaving the Byrds, Gram connected up with Keith Richards and helped to influence some of the Rolling Stones songs with country touches like “Honky Tonk Woman”. Gram’s next move would be to help create the band The Flying Burrito Brothers. The first album they released also didn’t sell well initially, but went on to be a country-rock landmark and incredibly influential on the neo-traditional country movement that came around in the 80’s and 90’s. Unfortunately, Gram was too much into partying with alcohol and drugs, and this eventually lead to him being let go from the Flying Burrito Brothers after their second album. The next step in Gram’s career was connecting up with Emmylou Harris, who was just an unknown singer who was in a small club in Washington D.C. Their bond got close enough that when Gram got the opportunity to record solo albums, he had Emmylou come along to do the background vocals. He was only alive long enough to record two solo albums before passing away from a drug overdose. Both of those albums would also fail commercially, but go on to be highly respected and legendary albums that helped to push the country-rock sound forward and bring the country genre to other audiences. Although emotionally struck by his untimely death, Gram’s protégé Emmylou would then go on to start her own solo country music career and become a legend herself (along with getting her own induction into the Country Music Hall Of Fame in 2008). So although his career path was very unorthodox, Gram did have a hand in lots of ways of moving country music forward and is deserving of a plaque in the Hall Of Fame.

Lynn got the bug for performing at a young age, and her musical interests were helped by her parents who were aspiring songwriters themselves. Lynn’s other passion was horse riding, which she soon became a champion of. Once she was an adult, she would spend a lot of her time riding in equestrian competitions. And then when she would watch her daughter ride, Lynn would also spend that time writing songs. One of her songs made it to Merle Haggard, who recorded it in 1964. This convinced her to travel to Nashville, where she would be offered a recording contract of her own. She got her first big hit in 1967, and became one of country music’s biggest performers throughout the 1970’s. In 1970, Lynn recorded what would be her signature hit, entitled “Rose Garden”. It was a huge country-pop crossover song, even becoming a hit in almost 20 countries. The song itself went platinum, became a country music standard, and began the 70’s trend of having big country-pop crossover songs. It is now thought of as one of country music’s greatest songs ever. It also helped the album it was on become the biggest selling female country album for 27 years. After that, Lynn would continue a streak of hits for the rest of the 70’s and into the early 1980’s. Once radio moved onto other artists, Lynn was one of country music’s biggest female artist successes ever. She had 5 Grammy nominations, 7 ACM award nominations, 7 CMA award nominations, and certainly deserves a spot in the Country Music Hall Of Fame soon.