70s Country Music
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7correct to beat the crowd
50 free 70s Country Music trivia questions with answers — music quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Country music spent the 1970s arguing with itself. Nashville polished its records with strings for pop radio, while a crowd of long-haired rebels grew their beards, kept their own road bands and sold millions anyway. Truck drivers, CB radios and rhinestone suits all had their moment on the charts. This 70s country music trivia quiz covers the whole decade: the story songs and crossover smashes, the duets and rivalries, the singer-songwriters who rewrote the rules, the award-show upsets, and the films and television shows that carried the sound far beyond the South. Dolly Parton, Loretta Lynn, Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings and Kenny Rogers all turn up, along with a few one-hit wonders. It is written for anyone who grew up with these records on the radio, and for younger listeners working backwards from the stars they know. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so you will leave with a few good stories even from the ones you miss.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which 1973 Dolly Parton hit was inspired by a flame-haired bank clerk who flirted with her husband?
Jolene
Jolene got its name and looks from a young girl who came on stage for Parton's autograph. It became her second solo country number one in early 1974.
Q 02Which 1978 Kenny Rogers story song, written by Don Schlitz, later inspired a series of five TV movies?
The Gambler
The Gambler was hawked around Nashville for two years before anyone cut it. Schlitz wrote it at 23, and Bobby Bare recorded it before Rogers did.
Q 03Which 1970 Loretta Lynn hit later gave its title to her autobiography and a 1980 film starring Sissy Spacek?
Coal Miner's Daughter
Coal Miner's Daughter recalls Lynn's childhood in Butcher Hollow, Kentucky. Producer Owen Bradley thought her first draft too long, so she cut several verses before recording it.
Q 04Which singer, nicknamed the Silver Fox, set fire to the winner's envelope while presenting a 1975 CMA award?
Charlie Rich
Charlie Rich had been named Entertainer of the Year himself in 1974. Presenting the same award a year later, he took out a cigarette lighter and lit the paper.
Q 05Which US president played piano on stage at the opening night of the new Grand Ole Opry House in 1974?
Richard Nixon
Richard Nixon also took a yo-yo lesson from Roy Acuff on stage that night. He resigned the presidency less than five months later.
Q 06Which former San Quentin inmate, famous for Okie from Muskogee, was pardoned by Governor Ronald Reagan in 1972?
Merle Haggard
Merle Haggard was moved to San Quentin in 1958 after an escape attempt. Released in 1960, he dug ditches for his brother's electrical firm before music paid.
Q 07Which instrument does Johnny play to win the contest in the Charlie Daniels Band's The Devil Went Down to Georgia?
Fiddle
Fiddle duels decide the 1979 song: the Devil stakes a golden instrument against Johnny's soul and loses. It reached number three on the Billboard Hot 100.
Q 08Which 1975 trucking anthem by C. W. McCall rode the CB radio fad to number one and inspired a 1978 film?
Convoy
Convoy was sung by a character invented to sell bread: ad man Bill Fries created C. W. McCall for a series of commercials. It led the country chart for six weeks.
Q 09Which singer was only 13 when her recording of Delta Dawn became a top-ten country hit in 1972?
Tanya Tucker
Tanya Tucker picked the song herself over The Happiest Girl in the Whole USA, which her producer had planned as her debut single. It reached number six on the country chart.
Q 10Which singer took Rhinestone Cowboy to number one on both the country and pop charts in 1975?
Glen Campbell
Glen Campbell's hit was written and first recorded by Larry Weiss a year earlier. It was one of six songs to top both charts in 1975, a crossover peak for country.
Q 11Which singer of Take Me Home, Country Roads topped the charts with a live Thank God I'm a Country Boy?
John Denver
John Denver recorded the hit version live at the Universal Amphitheatre in Los Angeles in 1974. A member of his backup band, John Sommers, wrote it on a drive from Aspen.
Q 12Which country star was Dolly Parton leaving when she wrote I Will Always Love You as a farewell in 1973?
Porter Wagoner
Porter Wagoner had been her mentor and business partner for seven years. Parton wrote the song to soften the blow of going solo.
Q 13Which Hello Darlin' singer won four straight CMA duo awards with Loretta Lynn from 1972 to 1975?
Conway Twitty
Q 21Which singer topped the pop and country charts in 1975 with Before the Next Teardrop Falls, half of it in Spanish?
Freddy Fender
Freddy Fender sang the first half in English, then repeated it in Spanish, and said the session took only a few minutes. The song had already been recorded more than two dozen times.
Q 22Which singer scored a number-one hit with David Allan Coe's 1977 workplace anthem Take This Job and Shove It?
Johnny Paycheck
Johnny Paycheck never had another number one. The song, about a man embittered by years of unrewarded work, went on to inspire a 1981 film of the same name.
Q 23Which Rhodes scholar turned Columbia Records janitor wrote Help Me Make It Through the Night?
Kris Kristofferson
Conway Twitty began as a rock and roll singer whose It's Only Make Believe topped the pop chart. His first hit duet with Lynn, After the Fire Is Gone, came in 1971.
Q 14Which singer with floor-length hair had her biggest hit in 1977 with Don't It Make My Brown Eyes Blue?
Crystal Gayle
Crystal Gayle is a younger sister of Loretta Lynn, who was a star before she began. At 16 she stood in for her sick sister on the Grand Ole Opry.
Q 15Which singer married George Jones in 1969 and topped the country chart with him again after their 1975 divorce?
Tammy Wynette
Tammy Wynette and Jones released Golden Ring 14 months after their divorce and took it to number one. The song traces the life of a wedding band bought in a pawn shop.
Q 16Which sparse 1975 Willie Nelson concept album did Columbia executives at first mistake for a demo?
Red Headed Stranger
Red Headed Stranger was recorded at low cost in Garland, Texas, and follows a fugitive who has killed his wife and her lover. Its hit single was Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain.
Q 17Which tiny Texas town gave Waylon Jennings the title of a number-one country hit in 1977?
Luckenbach
Luckenbach had been bought in 1970 by three friends who answered an advert offering a town with a population of three. The song held number one for over a month.
Q 18Which 1976 RCA compilation led by Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson became country music's first platinum album?
Wanted! The Outlaws
Wanted! The Outlaws reached a million sales in November 1976, the year the RIAA introduced its platinum award. Its cover styled the singers as a bullet-riddled wanted poster.
Q 19Which singer explained his dark stage clothes in a 1971 protest song and later hit with One Piece at a Time?
Johnny Cash
Johnny Cash's One Piece at a Time, about a Cadillac smuggled out of the factory part by part, was his last solo number one on the country chart, in 1976.
Q 20Which former baseball pitcher was named CMA Entertainer of the Year in 1971, the year of Kiss an Angel Good Mornin'?
Charley Pride
Charley Pride pitched for the Memphis Red Sox of the Negro American League during the 1950s. In Montana he was later paid to sing for 15 minutes before his semi-pro team's games.
Kris Kristofferson also flew helicopters to oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico, writing songs between flights. This one won him the Grammy for country song of the year.
Q 24Which pop newcomer's 1974 win as CMA Female Vocalist of the Year drove angry Nashville stars to form a protest group?
Olivia Newton-John
Olivia Newton-John beat nominees including Loretta Lynn and Dolly Parton. The protest group, the Association of Country Entertainers, proved short-lived.
Q 25Which 1977 Burt Reynolds film cast Jerry Reed as trucker Snowman and featured his hit East Bound and Down?
Smokey and the Bandit
Smokey and the Bandit was the second-highest-grossing film of 1977 in the United States, behind only Star Wars. Reed co-wrote the song, which peaked at number two on the country chart.
Q 26Which Brooklyn-born songwriter of Kentucky Rain sang the title song of the 1978 film Every Which Way but Loose?
Eddie Rabbitt
Eddie Rabbitt was born to Irish immigrants and raised in East Orange, New Jersey. The theme to the Clint Eastwood comedy was his first crossover single and topped the country chart.
Q 27Which director followed 24 main characters around Music City in the 1975 ensemble film Nashville?
Robert Altman
Robert Altman's film earned five Oscar nominations and won one, Best Original Song, for cast member Keith Carradine's I'm Easy. It also packs in an hour of musical numbers.
Q 28Which downtown Nashville venue, home of the Grand Ole Opry since 1943, did the radio show leave in March 1974?
Ryman Auditorium
Ryman Auditorium's farewell Opry show was covered for The New Yorker by Garrison Keillor, who said it inspired him to create A Prairie Home Companion. The building then stood mostly vacant for nearly 20 years.
Q 29Which Nashville theme park opened in 1972 and was demolished after 1997 to make way for a shopping mall?
Opryland USA
Opryland USA was built by the company behind radio station WSM to sit beside a new home for the Grand Ole Opry. The mall that replaced the rides opened in 2000.
Q 30Which 1970 Lynn Anderson crossover smash did her producer husband at first refuse to record as unfit for a woman?
Rose Garden
Rose Garden was written by Joe South, and Anderson had to talk Glenn Sutton into letting her record it. It won her a Grammy and reached number one in several countries.