Patty Loveless, Tanya Tucker, and songwriter Bob McDill are the 2023 inductees into the Country Music Hall of Fame.
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Joining as a Veteran Era inductee, Tucker landed her first two No. 1 singles “What’s Your Mama’s Name” and “Blood Red and Goin’ Down” in 1973. By the time Tucker was 15, she already had three albums out and three No. 1 hits.
“Hi, I’m Tanya Tucker,” read the cover of Rolling Stone issue from September 26, 1974. “I’m 15. You’re gonna hear from me.”
Throughout her 50-year career, Tucker has placed 41 singles in the Top 10 of Billboard’s Hot Country Singles chart, including 10 No. 1s. Her catalog also spans 25 albums, including her most recent While I’m Livin’ (2019), produced by Brandi Carlile and Shooter Jennings.
In 2022, Tucker was the focus of the documentary, The Return of Tanya Tucker (Featuring Brandi Carlile), and released the new song “Ready As I’ll Never Be,” a sentimental ballad, which she co-wrote with Carlile, that centers around watching the next generation in country music pass on.
“People ask me, ‘How do you think you lasted so long?’” said Tucker in 2022. “I won’t go away, so you’ll just have to put up with me.”
Also starting in music as a teen before her eponymous debut in 1987, Patty Loveless joins the Country Music Hall of Fame under the Modern Era category. In 1994, Loveless won a CMA for Album of the Year for When Fallen Angels Fly, while her most recent release, Mountain Soul II, picked up a Grammy for Best Bluegrass Album.
Loveless performed a stirring rendition of her When Fallen Angels Fly hit “You Don’t Even Know Who I Am” with Chris Stapleton during the 2022 CMA Awards.
McDill rounds out this year of inductees for his contribution to the country music songbook for more than five decades. In 1967, McDill landed his first charting track as a songwriter with “The Happy Man,” which was recorded by Perry Como.
Writing some of the biggest hits in country music over the past 50 years, McDill’s credits include Alabama’s “Song of the South,” Mel McDaniel’s hits “Louisiana Saturday Night” and “Baby’s Got Her Blue Jeans On.” He also penned Keith Whiteley’s 1988 No. 1 hit “Don’t Close Your Eyes” and Alan Jackson’s 1994 hit “Gone Country.”
Over the decades, McDill’s songs have also been recorded by Ray Charles, Joe Cocker, and The Grateful Dead.
The 2023 Country Music Hall of Fame announcement was made by Hall of Famer Vince Gill from the Hall of Fame Rotunda at the museum. His induction announcement was preceded by a moment of silence for late Hall of Fame members Loretta Lynn and Jerry Lee Lewis, who died in 2022, along with longtime museum employees Liz Thiels and Peter Cooper.
Tucker, Loveless and McDill will bring the total number of members of individuals and groups within the Country Music Hall of Fame to 152. Roy Rogers is the only artist listed twice, as a solo performer and as a member of the group Sons of the Pioneers.
The election of Hall of Fame members is chosen by an anonymous panel of voters picked by the CMA. In 1961, the first Hall of Fame members included Hank Williams and Jimmie Rodgers, and songwriter-publisher Fred Rose, six years before the opening of the original Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville.
Later in 2023, the new class of inductees will be formally honored during the Country Music Hall of Fame’s Medallion Ceremony at the CMA Theater, located at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum.
Photo of Tanya Tucker: Derrek Kupish / Courtesy of Adkins PR
