Country Update BILLBOARD.COM/NEWSLETTERS MARCH 18, 2019 | PAGE 1 OF 22 INSIDE BILLBOARD COUNTRY UPDATE
[email protected] Maren Morris: Brooks & Dunn, Ray Stevens, Jerry Chart Meets Girl >page 4 Bradley Immortalized In Hall Of Fame George Strait Packs ’Em In “I don’t know how I got here, but I ain’t leaving.” Retired music RCA executive — providing the vital, unsung foundation upon >page 11 executive Jerry Bradley was both dumbfounded and celebratory which such Hall of Fame members as Waylon Jennings, Dolly on March 18 as he contemplated his entrance into the Country Parton, Charley Pride, Alabama and Ronnie Milsap were able Music Hall of Fame, an achievement that stands as the ultimate to build their creative houses. music-industry endurance test. Bradley, Brooks & Dunn and The Country Hall is, museum CEO Kyle Young said, a Where There’s Ray Stevens were revealed as the newest entrants inside “meaningful hall of fame.” Country music is an American- Smoke, the Hall of Fame’s Rotunda, bred genre, and the Hall There’s Country where the announcement was recognizes the figures who >page 11 made amid the plaques of the played the most significant Hall’s previous 136 inductees, roles in transforming it from an including Hank Williams, informal front-porch diversion Merle Haggard, Johnny Cash into a big business. Jake Owen and Jimmie Rodgers. Each of 2019’s inductees Sends His Greetings The names at the top of the impacted both the creative >page 11 charts regularly turn over, and and the business sides of the even the places where the music industry.