Calendar Search Results: country
August 27, 1982 George Strait makes his movie debut in The Soldier, where he performs his song "Fool Hearted Memory" in a honky tonk as a brawl breaks out. The song becomes the first of Strait's 44 #1 Country hits.
July 2, 1982 Harmonica player DeFord Bailey dies at age 82. A cast member at the Grand Ole Opry throughout the 1930s, he was the first African American inducted into the institution. In 2005, he entered the Country Music Hall of Fame.
May 24, 1982 Grateful Dead, Jefferson Starship, Boz Scaggs, and Country Joe & the Fish play a benefit concert for Vietnam vets at the Moscone Center in San Francisco.
April 13, 1982 David Crosby is busted for freebasing cocaine, leading to a downward spiral that winds through the Dallas County Jail.More
March 20, 1982 The duo Buckner & Garcia appear on American Bandstand to perform their hit single "Pac-Man Fever," the first successful song about a video game.More
January 30, 1982 Country blues musician Lightnin' Hopkins dies of esophageal cancer at age 69.
December 26, 1981 The AC/DC album For Those About to Rock We Salute You goes to #1 in America for the first of three weeks. It's their first #1 album in that country (their previous album, Back In Black, was a slow build and reached just #4), and their last until Black Ice in 2008.
September 18, 1981 Genesis release their "abstract" album, Abacab, in the UK.More
August 28, 1981 Country singer Jake Owen is born Joshua Ryan Owen in Winter Haven, Florida. Arriving with him is fraternal twin brother, Jarrod.
May 13, 1981 Filmmaker James Szalapski releases his Outlaw Country documentary Heartworn Highways. The film follows numerous musicians, including David Allan Coe, Charlie Daniels, Steve Earle, Guy Clark, and Townes Van Zandt.
April 4, 1981 Styx hit #1 in the US with Paradise Theatre, a concept album based on the rise and fall of a theatre in Chicago.More
February 28, 1981 Eddie Rabbitt's country crossover "I Love A Rainy Night" makes #1 on the US Hot 100.
December 19, 1980 9 to 5, starring Dolly Parton and featuring the classic theme song by the singer (where she uses her fingernails as an instrument), opens in theaters. Parton, in her first acting role, stars alongside Lily Tomlin and Jane Fonda as disgruntled secretaries who get even with their sexist boss.More
October 13, 1980 George Jones wins Single of the Year at the Country Music Association awards for "He Stopped Loving Her Today," starting a career resurgence for the country legend.
September 23, 1980 Bob Marley plays his final concert: a 20-song set at the Stanley Theater in Pittsburgh with his group, The Wailers.More
June 6, 1980 Urban Cowboy, a Western romance film starring John Travolta and Debra Winger, opens in theaters. The mellow country soundtrack spawns hits from Kenny Rogers, Johnny Lee, and Anne Murray, and spurs a trend of pop-leaning fare in country music dubbed the "Urban Cowboy Movement."More
May 16, 1980 Alabama release their first RCA Nashville single, "Tennessee River," which becomes their first #1 hit on the Country chart.
March 7, 1980 The Loretta Lynn biopic Coal Miner's Daughter, directed by Michael Apted, debuts in theaters. Sissy Spacek, who does her own singing, wins an Oscar for her portrayal of the country singer. Beverly D'Angelo costars as Lynn's mentor Patsy Cline.More
December 21, 1979 Willie Nelson makes his acting debut in the Sydney Pollack film The Electric Horseman, starring Robert Redford and Jane Fonda. He also sings five songs for the soundtrack, including the #1 country hit "My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys."More
September 25, 1979 Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical Evita makes its debut on Broadway with Patti LuPone after a successful year on London's West End.More
August 18, 1979 Nick Lowe marries Johnny Cash's stepdaughter, country singer Carlene Carter, in Los Angeles. The wedding is reenacted in Lowe's video for "Cruel To Be Kind." The pair get divorced in 1990.
April 28, 1979 Blondie's "Heart Of Glass" hits #1 in America, the first of their four chart-toppers in that country.
March 10, 1979 James Brown appears at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, Tennessee, where he performs "You're Cheatin' Heart," "Tennessee Waltz" and the very un-Country "Papa's Got A Brand New Bag."
February 15, 1979 Saturday Night Fever and Billy Joel are big winners at The Grammys, with the soundtrack getting Album of the Year and "Just The Way You Are" taking Record of the Year and Song of the Year.More
October 5, 1978 Dolly Parton becomes the first country singer to pose for Playboy.More
September 30, 1978 Exile's "Kiss You All Over" hits #1 on the Hot 100, where it stays for four weeks. The group doesn't place another song higher than #40 ("You Thrill Me"), but returns as a country act in the '80s and score 10 Country chart-toppers.
June 12, 1978 Country singer Johnny Bond, known for the 1965 hit "10 Little Bottles," dies of a stroke at age 63.
May 16, 1978 Guitarist Zoltan Bathory is born in Szentendre, Hungary, where he grows up under communist rule. As an adult he moves to America, teaches himself English, and forms the metal band Five Finger Death Punch. "Growing up in a country that had no resources will make you resourceful," he says.
April 30, 1978 The Clash are among the acts at a "Rock Against Racism" concert, playing to over 50,000 in London's Victoria Park to combat the National Front, a neo-Nazi group in the UK whose slogan is "Keep Britain White."More
April 27, 1978 Jim James is born James Edward Olliges Jr. in Louisville, Kentucky. He plays around his hometown in a too-loud rock band called Month Of Sundays until his acoustic urges lead him to start up a folksy alt-country band named My Morning Jacket.
©2026 Songfacts®, LLC