Country Artists From the 1970s Who Were Way Ahead of Their Time

Times were much dif­fer­ent in the 1970s. The decade saw some artists have a big impact, while oth­ers were not able to see their impact until much lat­er. Either way, we found four coun­try artists from the 1970s who were way ahead of their time.

Dol­ly Par­ton

Dol­ly Par­ton was way ahead of her time in coun­try music in the 1970s. Par­ton, whose debut album, Hel­lo, I’m Dol­ly, was released in 1967, earned the role of a life­time when she was invit­ed to join Porter Wag­oner on his pop­u­lar TV show, The Porter Wag­oner Show. Par­ton joined the show in 1967, just as her career was begin­ning.

But by 1974, Par­ton was hav­ing big suc­cess, with hits like “Coat Of Many Col­ors”, “My Ten­nessee Moun­tain Home”, and more. Par­ton made the bold move to leave the show, despite Wagoner’s protests. At the time, the deci­sion seemed risky at best, and per­haps even fool­ish. But Par­ton stood her ground, prov­ing that women could stand on their own two feet. She also wrote “I Will Always Love You” as a farewell to Wag­oner.

Loret­ta Lynn

Loret­ta Lynn was def­i­nite­ly ahead of her time, espe­cial­ly when it came to the music she was mak­ing. At a time when women still made less than men, and wives were viewed more as a help­mate to their hus­bands than an equal, Lynn plant­ed a flag firm­ly in the ground about who she was, and wasn’t.

Scan­dalous for the 1970s, Lynn released songs like “Rat­ed X”, “The Pill”, “Fist City”, and more. Nowa­days, those songs wouldn’t even raise an eye­brow. But 50 years ago, Lynn lost air­play for songs that seemed sin­ful and inap­pro­pri­ate.

“It’s always been about truth,” Lynn tells Parade. “And if that means radio wants to ban it, well, that’s their prob­lem. Most of my records they banned became No. 1 any­way.”

Glen Camp­bell

Glen Camp­bell was far less con­cerned with genre lines and far more con­cerned with releas­ing good music. Camp­bell built a lengthy career by releas­ing songs, start­ing in the mid-60s, that were playable on both coun­try and rock radio

The more peo­ple want­ed to pigeon­hole Camp­bell, the more he was deter­mined to make music his own way. By 1975, Camp­bell made his point with “Rhine­stone Cow­boy”. The song, writ­ten by Lar­ry Weiss, became a No. 1 sin­gle at both pop and coun­try radio. For Camp­bell, there was no turn­ing back after the suc­cess of that song. For the remain­der of his career, Camp­bell toed the line between gen­res bet­ter than almost any­one

Reba McEn­tire

Few artists worked as hard as Reba McEn­tire, with very lit­tle to show for it, at least at first. McEn­tire released sev­en solo sin­gles in the 1970s before she had a Top 20 hit. Her “Sweet Dreams” sin­gle, out in 1979, became her first Top 20 sin­gle.

Not until 1982, six years after her debut sin­gle came out, did McEn­tire get a No. 1 hit. The song, “Can’t Even Get The Blues”, kicked off a career that is still going strong, more than 40 years lat­er. It wasn’t that McEn­tire wasn’t tal­ent­ed enough. She just came out a lit­tle before her time, as her decades of suc­cess now prove.