Names of Country music artists

May 14, 2026
Country Music Artists

Merle Haggard

(Credit: AP/ Owen Sweeney)

Merle Haggard died of pneumonia Wednesday, April 6, 2016, on his 79th birthday, his manager said. The celebrated country giant, whose career spanned 40 years, had postponed and canceled concert dates in the months leading up to his death, citing a previous case of pneumonia in both lungs.

Slim Whitman

(Credit: AP)

This undated file photo shows country singer Slim Whitman. Whitman died on June 19, 2013 of heart failure in Florida. He was 90.

Joey Martin Feek

(Credit: AP)

Joey Martin Feek, left, and husband Rory Lee Feek, of "Joey + Rory, " arrive at the Academy of Country Music Awards in Las Vegas in 2011. Joey died Friday, March 4, 2016, her manager said. Feek, who had been diagnosed with cancer two years ago, died at home in Indiana, Aaron Carnahan said.

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Roy Rogers

(Credit: AP/ Nick Ut)

Roy Rogers is shown in a Feb. 24, 1984 photo. Rogers, the singing ``King of the Cowboys'' whose straight-shooting exploits in movies and television made him a hero to generations of young fans and No. 1 at the box office, died Monday, July 6, 1998. He was 86.

Roger Miller

(Credit: AP/ Lennox McLendon)

Country singer and songwriter Roger Miller, seen here at the American Music Awards in Los Angeles. on Jan. 26, 1987, died on Oct. 25, 1992 of cancer at the age of 56.

Hank Thompson

(Credit: AP/ Mark Humphrey)

Singer Hank Thompson, a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame, died of lung cancer on Nov. 6, 2007.

Hank Snow

(Credit: AP)

This undated file photo shows country singer Country music star Hank Snow sings at a benefit concert for the Melisha Gibson Memorial Fund, named for the 4-year-old beaten to death here two months ago in Cleveland, Tennessee, Dec. 10, 1976. Snow told the audience he would spearhead a drive to help abused children because he still carries the scars of his own beatings. Snow died on Dec. 20, 1999, at the age of 85.

Freddy Fender

(Credit: AP/Ric Vasquez)

Freddy Fender performs at the Hildago BorderFest, in Hildago, Texas, on March 5, 2005. Fender, the "Bebop Kid" of the Texas-Mexico border who later turned his twangy tenor into the smash country ballad "Before the Next Teardrop Falls, " died of lung cancer on Oct. 14, 2006 at the age of 69.

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Charlie Rich

(Credit: AP)

Charlie Rich, the soulful, silver-haired balladeer who topped the country music charts with the songs ``Behind Closed Doors'' and ``The Most Beautiful Girl'' in 1973, died on July 25, 1995 at the age of 62. His heyday was the mid-1970s, when he was voted the Country Music Association's entertainer of the year in 1974 and male vocalist of the year in 1973.

Tennessee Ernie Ford

(Credit: AP/ Charles Tasnadi)

Singer Tennessee Ernie Ford entertaining at the White House June, 1975. Ford died of liver failure on Oct. 17, 1991 at the age of 72.

Sonny James

(Credit: AP/Mark Humphrey)

In this May 6, 2007 file photo, inductee Sonny James is presented his medallion at the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville, Tenn. James, who recorded romantic ballads like "Young Love" and turned pop songs into country hits, died Monday, Feb. 22, 2016, in a Nashville hospice facility at age 87, according to a family friend, Gary Robble, who was also the lead singer of James' backing band, the Southern Gentlemen.

Craig Strickland

(Credit: AP)

This undated image shows Craig Strickland, lead singer of Arkansas-based country-rock band Backroad Anthem. The Oklahoma Highway Patrol said Strickland, 29, of Springdale, Ark., died at Kaw Lake, near the Kansas-Oklahoma state line after he and Chase Moreland disappeared on a hunting trip. Strickland's body was recovered on Monday, Jan. 4, 2016. The body of Morland, 22, of Van Buren, Ark., was recovered Dec. 28.

Jimmy Dean

(Credit: AP File, 1964)

Jimmy Dean smiles while he gets ready for a taping of his show "The Jimmy Dean Show" in the New York studio on April 2, 1964. The country music legend known for his smash hit about a workingman hero, "Big Bad John, " and an entrepreneur known for his sausage brand, died, June 13, 2010. He was 81.

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Lynn Anderson

(Credit: AP/Evan Agostini)

Lynn Anderson arrives at the 47th annual CMA Awards in Nashville, Tenn. in this November 6, 2013 file photo. Anderson, whose strong, husky voice carried her to the top of the country and pop charts with "(I Never Promised You a) Rose Garden, " died Thursday, July 30, 2015 at Vanderbilt Medical Center in Nashville, Tenn. She was 67.

Little Jimmy Dickens

(Credit: AP / Chitose Suzuk)

Grand Ole Opry star Little Jimmy Dickens died Friday, Jan. 2, 2015, at a Nashville-area hospital of cardiac arrest after suffering a stroke on Christmas Day. He was 95.

George Jones and Tammy Wynette

(Credit: AP)

Tammy Wynette appears with duet partner and former husband George Jones in Nashville, Tenn. in 1995. Wynette died at her home on April 6, 1998, at the age of 55. Jones died on April 26, 2013, at the age of 81.

Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash

(Credit: AP)

Johnny Cash sings with his wife, June Carter Cash, at Radio City Music Hall in Manhattan on Feb. 18, 1985. The singers - whose oft-tortured romance was portrayed on the silver screen in "Walk the Line" - both died in 2003, with Johnny Cash dying just months after his wife was laid to rest.

Waylon Jennings

(Credit: AP)

Waylon Jennings, who defined the outlaw movement in country music and whose voice served as the Balladeer on "The Dukes of Hazzard, " died Feb. 13, 2002, at 64.

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Dottie West

(Credit: AP)

Dottie West, with Kenny Rogers at the CMA Awards in 1978, had a successful solo career and teamed with Rogers to win Best Duo of the Year at the CMAs in '78 and '79. She died on Sept. 4, 1991, at age 58, from injuries suffered days earlier in a car accident.

Gene Autry

(Credit: Getty Images)

Hollywood actor and "Singing Cowboy" Gene Autry, who belted out tunes like "Back in the Saddle Again" and once owned the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, died on Oct. 2, 1998, at the age of 91.

Buck Owens

(Credit: AP)

Buck Owens, left, with "Hee Haw" co-host Roy Clark, is one of the artists credited with starting "Bakersfield Sound, " a more honky-tonk-driven presentation that sparred with Nashville's smoother "Countrypolitan" sound for country music supremacy in the 1960s. Owens was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1996 and died on March 25, 2006, at the age of 76.

Porter Wagoner

(Credit: AP / Fred Jewell)

Porter Wagoner, third from left, stands with other inductees of the Museum of Broadcast Communication Hall of Fame on Nov. 15, 1992. Wagoner, a Grand Ole Opry fixture and 2002 Country Music Hall of Fame inductee, died Oct. 28, 2007, at the age of 80.

Dan Seals

(Credit: AP)

Dan Seals had hits as part of the duo England Dan and John Ford Coley, and he won CMA Duo of the Year with Marie Osmond in 1986 for "Meet Me in Montana." He also found success as a solo singer before dying on March 25, 2009, at age 61 from cancer complications.

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Chris LeDoux

(Credit: AP)

Chris LeDoux, right, performs with Garth Brooks, left, and Charlie Daniels, center at the 32nd Academy of Country Music Awards on April 23, 1997, in Universal City, Calif. He was a world champion bareback rodeo rider in 1976 before embarking on a singer career cut short when he died of cancer on March 9, 2005, at age 56.

Kitty Wells

(Credit: AP)

This 1976 photo shows Country Music Hall of Fame inductee Kitty Wells during the CMA Awards in Nashville, Tenn. Wells, the first female superstar of country music, died at the age of 92 on July 16, 2012. Her recording of "It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels" in 1952 was the first No. 1 hit by a woman soloist on the country music charts. Other hits included "Making Believe" and a version of "I Can't Stop Loving You."