Rolling Stone’s 100 Greatest Country Artists Of All Time – Do You Agree?

Greatest artist compilation lists had, have and will always have people complaining about artists being either included, missing or ranked completely wrong. Music publication Rolling Stone asked 14 journalists to come up with the ultimate artist list, that defines country music. Well they weren’t just compiling artists from last year, the last decade, but went to the origins. 90 years ago, the so called “Bristol Sessions” where Victor Talking Machines recorded the first batch of what is now considered the beginning of country music.

In 90 years the music has changed, adopted new instruments and sounds and some how always reflected or at least trying to reflect what American country music is at a certain given point in time. Several style which are part of country music have come and gone, some are now merely a niche portion of what’s actually still played on the radio.

So the compilers had to go through a rich, 90 year old history of what defines the genres 100 Greatest Artists of All Time. Yes with every list there are some omissions, some welcome surprises and definitely some arguable points on how they were ranked.

I don’t want to put any spoilers into this article, neither do I want to list too much of my opinion. So go and check the list, tell me how according to you is missing and who shouldn’t be in the list. We can also argue about some of the rankings. But before you start loudly commenting that Bobby Lee or Bobbie Lou are too high, too low, missing or don’t belong here – remember that the compilation covers 90 years of music.

Here’s a spoiler video depicting the Top Ten of the genre.

So now I’m looking forward to your comments. What would you have done differently?