Country Veteran (32)

The Country Music Hall Of Fame began simply as a way to record and remember the history of country music, but has grown into one of the world’s most extensive musical collections for one of America’s oldest recorded music genres. The first country music recording was in 1922. Country music is a distinctly Southern American sound; a genre that combined blues, ranchera, Cajun, Appalachian, African-American music, folk, Celtic and many other styles into an important musical tradition. But what country music sounds like has changed throughout it’s over 100 year history. From the cowboy westerns of the 1930’s, to the rockabilly of the 1950’s, to the countrypolitan of the 1960’s into the outlaw movement of the 1970’s, even to the bro-country of the 2010’s, with various other sounds, styles and subgenres in between. It can get very difficult to pinpoint exactly what country music is (though the common expression “three chords and the truth” is what most people seem to lean on). The Hall Of Fame came along in the 1960’s to make sure every bit of that sprawling genre history is marked and preserved.

So with that large history, it can be extremely tough trying to determine who is going to be picked each year, since Country’s Hall Of Fame is notoriously one of the hardest to get inducted into. And unlike the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame, the country genre is a lot more focused on being a part of the Nashville machine to judge achievements (like radio career length, charting hit singles, awards from the industry, etc.). For the most part they only induct 3 people per year: one in the “Modern” category, one in the “Veteran” category, and one in a rotating group (either “Musician”, “Songwriter”, or “Non-Performer”, which rotate every year). A performer is eligible for the “Modern” category 20-40 years after they achieved ‘national prominence’ and a performer is eligible for the “Veteran” category 40 years after they achieve ‘national prominence’. For this list of predictions I am putting together, I will only be focused on the “Modern” and “Veteran” categories. One additional rule: nobody can be inducted for a stretch of 12 months after they die.

On that note, let’s get started with the predictions. Here are 25 predictions for the “Modern” category:

Sincerely,

The Not in Hall of Fame Rock and Roll Committee.