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1974 in country music
... | This article relies largely or entirely on a single source. (May 2015) |
This is a list of notable events in country music that took place in the year 1974.
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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-seat 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]
- October 17 — The pilot episode of Austin City Limits, featuring Willie Nelson, is recorded, and will air during PBS' 1975 pledge drive.
No dates
- Country purists, long troubled by a growing trend of pop music-influenced country, form the Association of Country Entertainers, as a result of the 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, extends into 1974, when 40 songs reach the top of the Hot Country Singles chart. In fact, just nine songs – 10, counting 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.
- Dolly Parton leaves Porter Wagoner's band and his weekly television show, after seven years, to embark on a solo career.
- Loretta Lynn releases "The Pill", a sexually frank song about birth control. The song is deemed too controversial and most country stations refuse to play it.
Top hits of the year
Number-one hits
United States
(as certified by Billboard)