As we kick off Women’s History Month (March), we thought about the amazing women of country music. We’re thinking about today’s biggest stars, and also the biggest stars of all time.
Women have made a massive impact on country music ever since its popularity grew in the 1960s. Although there are many more to choose from, we narrowed down what we believe are the top twenty female country stars of all time.
20. Lainey Wilson
Brett Carlsen/Getty ImagesLainey achieves success in country music by simply being herself. Wilson shined at the 2022 CMA Awards in November with her thick Louisiana accent and won Female Vocalist of the Year.
Also, in 2022, Lainey tried her hand at acting with a role written just for her in the wildly popular Paramount show Yellowstone. She will open for Luke Combs when his 2023 stadium world tour starts soon. It’s clear she has a big future in country music.
19. Carly Pearce
Terry Wyatt/Getty ImagesCarly Pearce won her first Grammy Award earlier this year (2/5) for her collaboration with Ashley McBryde, “Never Wanted To be That Girl.” Carly is destined for country music greatness, as she has already won a handful of awards from the CMA as well.
She is spending the spring (2023) opening shows on Blake Shelton’s “Back To The Honky Tonk Tour.”
18. Kelsea Ballerini
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With her album “Subject To Change,” released in the fall of 2022, Kelsea Ballerini is quite hot in country music right now. She was nominated for a Grammy in 2023 for Best Country Solo Performance.
She has been touring Europe in February of 2023 and will set out with fellow native East Tennessean Kenny Chesney to tour starting in March (2023).
With her smart lyrics and growing rabid fan base, Kelsea will surely be a country music superstar in the coming years.
17. Patty Loveless
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Patty was one of country radio’s favorites in the late 1990s, charting more than 40 songs on the US Billboard Hot Country Songs charts, including five number ones: “Timber, I’m Falling in Love,” “Chains,” “Blame It on Your Heart,” “You Can Feel Bad,” and “Lonely Too Long.”
She won the CMA’s Female Vocalist in 1996 and CMA’s Album of the Year for her project “When Fallen Angels Fly” in 1995.
16. Faith Hill
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Faith was huge in the late 1990s and early 2000s. She graced the cover of several top magazines, not just in music but in the fashion world, including a couple of covers for Glamour and several covers with and without her husband, Tim McGraw, for People magazine. She recently landed a role on the Paramount Plus series 1883 with her husband.
She charted several number-one singles on country radio and even scored a number-one pop song with “Breathe” in 1999. She also won the CMA’s Female Vocalist honor in 2001.
Hill has sold over 20 million albums in her musical career to date.
15. Maren Morris
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Maren is becoming one of country music’s brightest superstars. Her latest album Humble Quest was released in 2022 to rave reviews.
Having kicked off her career with her anthem song “My Church,” Morris was quickly noticed by Keith Urban, who put her on his tour as an opener before anyone knew who she was in 2015.
She has won multiple accolades, including one Grammy Award, five Academy of Country Music Awards, one American Music award, and five Country Music Association Awards, including one for Album of the Year for her 2019 project, GIRL.
Her first Billboard chart-topper, “The Bones,” also won Single and Song of the Year at the 2020 CMA Awards.
14. Trisha Yearwood
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Having sold ten million albums worldwide, Trisha took her debut single, “She’s In Love With The Boy,” to the top of the country charts. She followed that up with many more number-one songs, including “Thinkin’ About You.”
Married to Garth Brooks on December 13, 2005, her career took on a whole new life when she collaborated with her husband and toured stadiums nationwide (2019 and 2022) with Brooks as his opening act.
She also hosts her own cooking show on the Food Network and has written several cookbooks.
13. Crystal Gayle
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Crystal’s biggest hit was in 1977 with “Don’t It Make My Brown Eyes Blue,” for which she won a Grammy in 1978.
Crystal went on to chart sixteen songs at number one on the Billboard charts and toured extensively with Kenny Rogers in the 1980s. Known also as a great photographer, Rogers sparked Gayle’s interest in the medium, and she still takes pictures today.
Gayle has her own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and was inducted as a member of the Grand Ole Opry in 2017. Her big sister Loretta Lynn made the induction at the Opry.
12. Martina McBride
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A powerful voice with powerful songs to go with it is what makes Martina McBride a country superstar.
Martina has sold over 14 million albums. In addition, she has won the Country Music Association’s Female Vocalist of the Year award four times and the Academy of Country Music’s “Top Female Vocalist” award three times. She is also a 14-time Grammy Award nominee.
Many of her songs had a pop-styled crossover sound, similar to Shania Twain and Faith Hill. She had a string of major hit singles on the Billboard country chart and occasionally on the adult contemporary chart.
11. Tanya Tucker
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Tanya has been a consistent hitmaker in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. In 2019, her album While I’m Livin’ won the Grammy Award for Best Country Album, and “Bring My Flowers Now” from that same album won Tucker a shared songwriting Grammy for Best Country Song.
Tucker began her career at age thirteen, releasing her debut album Delta Dawn. The title song from the album became her signature hit, although it peaked at number three on Billboard. It wasn’t until a year later that she scored her first of more than ten number-one singles, “What’s Your Mama’s Name.”
It’s hard to believe Tanya is not yet in the Country Music Hall of Fame. Hopefully, she’ll get there because she is a big part of country music’s history both yesterday and today.
8. Barbara Mandrell
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In the early 1980s, no one was bigger in country music than Barbara Mandrell, who hosted her own variety show with her sisters on NBC called “Barbara Mandrell and the Mandrell Sisters.” The show had 40 million people watching every Saturday night.
She became the first woman to win the coveted “Entertainer of the Year” honor twice from the CMA in 1980 and 1981. In 2017, Keith Urban told me in an interview that when he thinks of the Entertainer category, Mandrell is the first person that comes to mind.
Sadly, Barbara retired from the music business in 1997 and spends time these days with her kids and grandkids. She loves to garden and has a mean set of flowers on her property south of Nashville.
7. Taylor Swift
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Yeah, she’s one of music’s biggest stars right now, but let’s not forget she began her musical dream in Nashville and in country music.
In 2007, with her debut album, Taylor set music on fire, bringing so many young people in the direction of country music and into Nashville for the summer CMA Fest party.
She has her own learning center at the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville and took home the CMA’s coveted Entertainer of the Year honor in 2009 and 2011.
In 2007, she won the ACM’s Album of the Year honor for her debut project. Swift also won the ACMs Entertainer of the Year award in 2010 and 2011.
6. Miranda Lambert
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Finally crowned the Entertainer of the Year in 2022, Miranda is the most winning artist in the Academy of Country Music (ACM) history.
She took home the Female Vocalist award from the ACMs nine times and won the same honor from the CMA seven times.
Lambert has sold over eight million albums to date. Her songwriting and talent embody what a country singer should be.
She most recently started a Las Vegas Residency, and her show proved once again why Queen of Country Music is a title she is quite worthy of in this decade.
5. Shania Twain
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You don’t sell over 100 million albums and not make it into the top five of the 20 Best Female Country Artists of all time. Shania has done just that.
She has inspired many acts that came after her in country music, including Taylor Swift, Carrie Underwood, and more.
Twain has received five Grammy Awards, a World Music Award, 27 BMI Songwriter Awards, and has stars on Canada’s Walk of Fame and the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
She is the only female artist in history to have three (consecutive) albums certified Diamond by the RIAA (that’s 10 million for each album).
With the February 2023 release of her Queen of Me album, Shania proved that she has still got it.
4. Carrie Underwood
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Let’s be honest; Carrie has a fantastic voice, beauty, and excellent songwriting skills, and she sure knows how to put on a show. She proved that with the glowing reviews of her 2022 Las Vegas show at Resorts World.
She is the most-awarded country artist of all time. She has been the recipient of seven Grammy Awards, twelve Billboard Music Awards, sixteen Academy of Country Music Awards, seventeen American Music Awards, nine Country Music Association Awards, seven Teen Choice Awards, five CMT Artists of the Year awards, and twenty-three CMT Music Awards, among others.
Underwood has sold 70 million records worldwide.
3. Loretta Lynn
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Loretta was the first absolute female superstar in country music, rising to fame not long after her friend Patsy Cline died in a plane crash in the 1960s.
Her fame really took off when Sissy Spacek played her in the 1980 movie “Coal Miner’s Daughter” and won an Oscar for the role.
Lynn has scored twenty-four number-one hit singles and eleven number-one albums. She ended 57 years of touring on the road after a stroke in 2017 and broke her hip in 2018.
Lynn passed away in October of 2022. Her memorial saw in-person performances from George Strait, Keith Urban, Wynonna Judd, and many more.
2. Reba McEntire
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Reba has sold over 75 million records worldwide. Since the 1970s, McEntire has placed over 100 singles on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart, 25 of which reached the number one spot.
Aside from music, Reba is also a well-known TV and film actress. She starred in the television series Reba, which aired on the CW network for six seasons.
She had performed at the Oscars twice in her career, recently (2022), when she performed the Oscar-nominated song written by Diane Warren, “Somehow You Do.” She first performed at the Academy Awards in 1991, singing a song from the movie “Postcards From The Edge.”
She still tours and records music today (2023). She currently has a reoccurring role on the popular CBS sitcom “Young Sheldon.” She also starred in a season of the ABC drama “Big Sky.”
1. Dolly Parton
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This music icon is going on her seventh decade of making successful albums, and movies, writing songs, selling cosmetics, and then her philanthropy. She gives a lot, including books, to every school-age child in America and beyond with her Imagination Library.
She is also the only artist on this list and beyond that has her own theme park, Dollywood, in her native East Tennessee, where she recently announced that she would pay for college for any of her employees there. And, of course, there’s that million-dollar donation to Moderna in 2020 for the COVID vaccine.
Aside from all that, there is the music. Dolly released her first album in 1967 and her latest album in 2022. She has had 110 career-charted singles over the past 40 years. She is one of the latest Rock and Roll Hall of Fame members and is, of course, in the Country Music Hall of Fame.
Parton has 11 Grammy Awards and 51 nominations, including the Lifetime Achievement Award. There is simply no one in country music like her.
