Events
- January 25 — At age 84, octogenerian comedian George Burns becomes by far the oldest performer (to that time) to have a single in the top 40 of Billboard's Hot Country Singles chart with "I Wish I Was 18 Again." The song peaks at No. 15 in March.
- March 2 — The Public Broadcasting Company (PBS) telecasts the Grand Ole Opry for the third time, and this telecast lasts longer than any of the other telecasts. The telecast featured Tom T. Hall, Ronnie Milsap, Roy Acuff, Hank Snow, Minnie Pearl, Porter Wagoner, Billy Grammer, George Hamilton IV, Marty Robbins, and many others. Sissy Spacek also appeared on this telecast with Loretta Lynn, promoting the new movie Coal Miner's Daughter, which opened the next week.
- March — Alabama, a southern rock-influenced band from Fort Payne, Alabama, signs a recording contract with RCA Records, and records its first album, My Home's in Alabama. The album is released in May, and by late in the year, the band was on its way to superstardom.
- April 19 — For the first time in chart history, the top 5 positions on the Billboard Hot Country Singles chart are held (or co-held) by female artists. The list:
- "It's Like We Never Said Goodbye" by Crystal Gayle
- "A Lesson in Leavin'" by Dottie West
- "Are You on the Road to Lovin' Me Again" by Debby Boone
- "Beneath Still Waters" by Emmylou Harris
- "Two Story House" by Tammy Wynette (Duet with George Jones)
- July 5 — George Jones' classic "He Stopped Loving Her Today" reaches #1 on the Billboard Hot Country Singles charts.
- November 18 — The country-variety TV series, Barbara Mandrell and the Mandrell Sisters, debuts.
Read more about this topic: 1980 In Country Music
Famous quotes containing the word events:
“Reporters are not paid to operate in retrospect. Because when news begins to solidify into current events and finally harden into history, it is the stories we didn’t write, the questions we didn’t ask that prove far, far more damaging than the ones we did.”
—Anna Quindlen (b. 1952)
“The return of the asymmetrical Saturday was one of those small events that were interior, local, almost civic and which, in tranquil lives and closed societies, create a sort of national bond and become the favorite theme of conversation, of jokes and of stories exaggerated with pleasure: it would have been a ready- made seed for a legendary cycle, had any of us leanings toward the epic.”
—Marcel Proust (1871–1922)
“As I look at the human story I see two stories. They run parallel and never meet. One is of people who live, as they can or must, the events that arrive; the other is of people who live, as they intend, the events they create.”
—Margaret Anderson (1886–1973)