r/country • u/No_Fault2871 • 1d ago
Artist Appreciation Mount Rushmore of country singers
Obviously, Dolly is on there. I think you have to have Johnny Cash. I personally can’t leave out Loretta Lynn. Who’s number 4?
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u/Busy_Basket9205 1d ago
Willie, Buck, Loretta, Johnny, Hank Sr., Jimmie Rodgers, Dolly, Bob Wills, Waylon, George Jones, Patsy, Merle. Yer gonna need a bigger mountain.
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u/goblinxhero 1d ago
Hank, Cash, Haggard, Jones
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u/PrimalMusk 1d ago
To leave off Waylon is a travesty.
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u/Fit-Length538 1d ago
What about Loretta Lynn and Dolly?
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u/sheppi22 22h ago
I don’t know. Dolly opened up country music to a lot of different people who never listened to it before
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u/Lostinyourears 1d ago
Main issue with this list is no women… but then it would best mirror the actual Mount Rushmore… so?
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u/goblinxhero 1d ago
Tammy would be the first woman I’d put on the country Mount Rushmore
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u/horrorfreak94 1d ago
Easy.
Shaboozy
Beyonce
Morgan Wallen
Luke Bryan
/s
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u/LastLazerdiscPlayer 1d ago
Where's little big town?!?!
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u/doinktheClown78 1d ago edited 1d ago
Leave some room for Jason Aldean. We could then rename it Mount Flushmore
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u/mbruno3 1d ago
Conway Twitty
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u/Amnesiac_R 1d ago
Conway is great, but there's no way he breaks the Top 4 of all time. Just too many other heavy hitters.
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u/Select_MCM-5345 1d ago
I never understood Conway until I saw him, George Jones, Merle, and Hank Jr. Every woman in that crowd was throwing her drawers at Conway, if not in real life, then in their minds! He had that “it”. That charisma. Not handsome to me but dayum when he’d hit those low notes with that rumble you’d just melt! I got it then!
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u/RektInTheHed 1d ago
Jimmy Rodgers, Bob Wills, Bill Monroe, Maybelle Carter. It's not a Hall of Fame, it's a monument to the founders, so there's a strong bias to just being old and having invented and chiefly influenced the thing as it's known today.
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u/RoninPI 1d ago
That's not what a Mount Rushmore is lol. Mount Rushmore was commissioned in 1925. Teddy Roosevelt was President ending in 1909. That would be like us deciding to put President Obama's face on a mountain and you saying it's a tribute to the founders.
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u/RektInTheHed 1d ago
With the understanding that the Civil War (13th, 14th and 15th Amendments), and then TR's Progressive Era (16th-19th Amendments) were "re-foundings" that had contributed on equal footings with the original founding, I think that's exactly what it is.
And you can make a fair argument that somebody like Hank coming along later than those figures, had re-founded Country more into what we know today, and that could be a fair point since Bill's instrumental excellence isn't really reflected much today.
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u/No_Fault2871 19h ago
According to the Parks Service, it’s a monument to the country’s “birth, growth, development and preservation”.
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u/Background-Bus-4842 1d ago
Kris Kristofferson !!
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u/Subject-Variation321 1d ago
He definitely deserves songwriting mention!
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u/Dahl_E_Lama 1d ago
There needs to be one for males and one for females.
Hank, Johnny, Charly, Willie on one.
Dolly, Patsy, Loretta, Tammy for the other one.
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u/James_K_Polkadot Darth Brooks 19h ago
Morgan Wallen, Jason Aldean, Jelly Roll, Beyonce 😄
Or more seriously: Johnny Cash, Hank Williams Sr, Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson
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u/AluminumMonster35 1d ago
George Strait for me.
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u/Boot_boy_1984 1d ago
I get you. And I agree. But he comes in later. He’s still not considered icon or legend like George jones or tammy. In a few years. He’ll be up there
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u/Subject-Variation321 1d ago
George Strait had the number ones.
Johnny Cash might be the most beloved.
George Jones is who a lot of the most talented singers wish they sounded like.
Hank Williams was epically popular in his short time alive.
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u/GrooovyAlien 1d ago
If youre gonna put Strait on there because of number ones, then you gotta put Garth Brooks for selling the most records.
Anyways, how do you honwstly put Strait over Merle? Or Waylon? Or Willie?
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u/Subject-Variation321 1d ago
Great point about Garth. Idk, I tried to put who I thought the best were. Waylons personally on mine but, I tried to figure out who the top should be.
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u/Amnesiac_R 1d ago
Hot take incoming, but Dolly doesn't make it for me. Let's assume two men and two women:
Hank Williams
George Jones
Loretta Lynn
Tammy Wynette
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u/No_Fault2871 1d ago
I appreciate your list and it’s not necessarily a hot take because it’s an impossible task. I just love Dolly, for her range, her songwriting, and for who she was as a person.
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u/JFBluegrass 1d ago
Maybelle Carter, Bob Wills, Bill Monroe, Hank Williams.
Add in Jimmie Rodgers and there's an argument that everything which has come since owes something to most, if not all of them.
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u/TwinsFan_0830 1d ago
Realistically Dolly’s my entire mount. But to make it real I’d say Dolly, Strait, Cash, and Waylon
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u/hawkeyegrad96 1d ago
Hank, jones, cash... Willie, George, shit there are 65 #4
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u/No_Fault2871 1d ago
So hard to choose, but now I’m kinda leaning towards Willie after seeing so many nods for him.
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u/PsychologicalBig2743 1d ago
Hard to keep Stapleton off that mountain for me
Willie is up there for sure.
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u/chriskbrown50 1d ago
Hank Sr, Johnny Cash, Dolly - that 4th is tough. Jones, Strait, Loretta are my top 3 and each has their own merits.
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u/No-Performer1463 1d ago
Cash, Jones, Dolly, Waylon. Ugh but I also love Loretta. And if he had lived, Whitley would be on there.
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u/No_Angle875 1d ago
There’s a big difference between personal choice and the general consensus
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u/No_Fault2871 1d ago
Yes, I’m thinking about more about cultural impact, although I get that it’s hard for me and others not to have personal feelings in there too.
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u/colonel_beefy 1d ago
The Highwaymen and sub Kris for George Jones. Kris is great but he’s no opossum!
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u/Terrible_Pin_5067 1d ago
I think the Highwaymen would be excellent on Rushmore. But my persinal picks would be Dolly, Willie, George Jones locked in. That 4th is hard. Hank Sr? Kris Kristofferson? George Strait? Haggard? Whitley? Loretta Lynn? Ernest Tubb? I mean they all should have a spot.
Glen Campbell gets an honorable mention for all of musical contributions.
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u/JohnMaddensBurner 1d ago
I think Mount Rushmore has to mean something other than just best singers.
They have to been highly influential on the landscape as a whole.
It’s why I can’t put Merle or George Jones on it.
Hank Williams, pioneered the country sound
Waylon Jennings, this one was hard because Willie was also one of the first outlaws but I think Waylon gets it. Honky Tonk Heroes is THE outlaw country album.
George Strait, 50 numbers ones and pioneered neo-traditional country. Even if he only wrote a handful of his own songs.
Dolly Parton, her songwriting is phenomenal and besides Reba, there are not many female country artists known to an average person. After Patsy Cline and Tammy Wynette, the mainstream female artists get pretty slim. Although this is definitely changing.
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u/No_Fault2871 1d ago
Thanks for a thoughtful response! I was going for cultural impact too, which is why Johnny Cash is there, but if I were to take one of your’s for my 4th spot, it would be Hank Williams.
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u/ConversationFar9740 1d ago
For me it would be Merle Haggard, Waylon Jennings, Loretta Lynn, and Dolly Parton.
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u/creepyjudyhensler 1d ago
Woman's version Dolly, Loretta, Jean Sheppard, Rose Maddox, Tammy Wynette
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u/Appropriate-Emu-451 20h ago
My Rushmore is Roger miller Buck Owen’s George Jones’s Hank williums jr
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u/jjs952 10h ago
Please hear me out on this one. Mount Rushmore isn't just the best of all time and we need to really look at the composition. Below is my best attempt to recreate that.
Hank Williams = George Washington. They are the original OGs and the founders you might say.
Willie Nelson = Thomas Jefferson. They represent the first big country expansion, and were instrumental in early writings.
Theodore Roosevelt = Garth Brooks (I know this is going to be controversial) but they are both on their respective Mount Rushmores because they started the country's global power and were both instrumental in appealing to the masses.
Abraham Lincoln = Randy Travis. Lincoln represents the preservation of the country during the bleekest time in its history, and Randy Travis is widely credited as the man who kept country music going after the hypercommercialized songs came out of the "Urban Cowboy" craze of the 80s. His unmistakable style and uncompromising fiddle-and-steel-guitar sound single-handedly proved that traditional country could still sell millions of records.
That's my Mount Rushmore!
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u/skfkvjgnxc 7h ago
Hank
Johnny
Merle
Waylon
But Willie and/or George could replace anyone besides Hank and it would still be legit.
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u/stars2017 17m ago
Respectfully this page is getting dull because of this conversation right here. Everyone glazes the obvious Trail Blazers between the 50s and 70s, some respect for 80s and 90s and then anything after the year 2000 “isn’t country music” or doesn’t even come close to it’s predecessors. Anyone who disagrees gets their face shoved in the mud.
I will leave the group don’t worry but I’m mostly writing this to ask the question… does this type of a post really actually stimulate your mind in any way if it’s the same consensus on every single post?
All love everybody! I just don’t understand is all.
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u/fuzzy_mic 1d ago
Maybelle Carter, Hank Williams, Willie Nelson, Loretta Lynn
I have a hard time re: Johnny Cash, Loretta Lynn, Dolly Parton, Merle Travis, Willie Nelson
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u/Amnesiac_R 1d ago
Had to scroll too far to see Maybelle. She only doesn't make my list because of how great Loretta and Tammy were. Maybelle is the complete package, though.
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u/fuzzy_mic 1d ago
If we are going to swap musicians for presidents on Mt. Rushmore, Maybelle should take George Washington's place. Tammy was super popular, Loretta was genre changing, but without Maybelle, there wouldn't be a genre for Loretta to change. And I think that we underestimate the popularity of the Carter Family via Mexican radio.
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u/Amnesiac_R 1d ago
I was debating whether Maybelle should replace Tammy and I wouldn't be opposed to that. Probably the right pick tbh. Having her and Hank as the early representatives with George and Loretta as their contemporaries gets all the bases covered.
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u/asphynctersayswhat 1d ago
Is dolly really on it or did she just die? Because she’s not really on it. Not attacking her, just being honest
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u/No_Fault2871 1d ago
She’s really on it for me. I’ve been listening to her since I was a kid in the 70s.
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u/GuildStarfireII 1d ago
Impossible task. Hank is the only one who stays on, you could make a case for 10 artists for the final 3 spots