Patty Loveless, Tanya Tucker and Bob McDill to join the Country Music Hall of Fame

Two legendary vocalists and one of Nashville’s most prolific and profound songwriters will take their place in the Country Music Hall of Fame later this year.

Patty Loveless, Tanya Tucker and Bob McDill are the Hall’s 2023 inductees, the Country Music Association announced Monday.

Loveless and Tucker were selected for the annual “Modern Era Artist” and “Veteran Era Artist” categories, respectively. McDill was selected in the “Songwriter” category, which rotates with “Recording/Touring Musician” and “Non-Performer” categories each year.

Their induction will raise the total number of members to 152. Inductees are voted on by CMA’s Hall of Fame Panels of Electors, an anonymous body chosen by the CMA Board of Directors.

Patty Loveless

When Loveless received her invitation into the Country Music Hall of Fame, her thoughts turned to the teenager who decorated windows inside Music Mart USA, a downtown Nashville record shop neighboring the Ryman Auditorium.

A Kentucky native, Loveless spent summers in Nashville, visiting her industry-savvy older brother Roger Ramey. Inside Music Mart, she remembers dressing the displays with new releases from Marty Robbins and Merle Haggard – top country stars of the time and regular performers inside the nearby home of the Grand Ole Opry.

Like many in Music City, she hoped to one day be worthy of a record store display or Opry performance. And like so few who chase Nashville’s promise of neon-soaked success, Loveless’ hitmaking ambitions eventually became a reality.

“It’s like I was dreaming,” Loveless told The Tennessean, part of the USA TODAY Network, “and all of a sudden, this dream – it came true.”

CMT Awards 2023 winners: Lainey Wilson, Cody Johnson, Jelly Roll and the night's victors

Born Patty Lee Ramey, Loveless comes from a long-running tradition of landmark country singers – including Hall of Fame members Loretta Lynn, Keith Whitley and The Judds – to hail from the so-called “Country Music Highway” in eastern Kentucky. One of seven children born to a coal mining family, Loveless was raised on Saturday night Opry broadcasts, the Stanley Brothers and 1950s rock ‘n’ roll records.

She picked up a guitar at age 11. When it came to lessons, Loveless said she didn’t want to learn “Old McDonald.” She wanted the chords to “Harper Valley P.T.A.” As a kid, Loveless took her love of music to local jamboree stages, where she and Ramey caught the attention of country act the Wilburn Brothers. She was soon swept into Nashville’s thriving country music scene – sharing stages with Dolly Parton and touring with The Wilburn Brothers.

In 1976, she relocated to North Carolina after marrying Wilburn drummer Terry Lovelace. The marriage dissolved, and she embraced a new name – Loveless. Spending nearly a decade in North Carolina, Loveless honed her craft on speakeasy stages, covering top rock hits of the late 1970s and ‘80s.

Eventually, she found her way back to Nashville – and this time, she made good on her childhood dreams of singing country music. She inked a deal with MCA and began releasing music in 1985 produced by her now-husband and longtime collaborator Emory Gordy Jr. Three years after her first single, Loveless scored her first top five country hit, the Steve Earle-penned “A Little Bit In Love.” From there, the hits kept coming: “Timber, I’m Falling In Love,” “Chains, “Hurt Me Bad,” “Blame It On Your Heart,” “I Try To Think About Elvis” … and the list goes on.

Kelsea Ballerini talks gun violence at CMT Music Awards, walks red carpet with Chase Stokes

Throughout the late 1980s and into the ‘90s, Loveless embraced a neotraditional country style that merged old-school playing with a honky-tonk attitude and occasional rock ‘n’ roll flare. Growing up, she loved Elvis Presley, Patsy Cline, Molly O’Day and Otis Redding. Listeners who turn on a Loveless song can hear a little of each, while knowing fully that it’s Loveless behind the microphone.

“When I got into the rock clubs, I learned a lot more about my phrasing and where to go with the way that I delivered my style,” Loveless said. “But I was always influenced early, early on by Loretta Lynn and Patsy Cline, Connie Smith … and then Linda Ronstadt came along. I incorporated that into some of the country music I was doing.”

She added, “I very much was influenced at a very, very young age, listening to all the music my parents listened to.”

In 2001, after a decade-plus of major label hitmaking, Loveless returned to her roots by releasing the Appalachian-inspired album “Mountain Soul.” She reprised the project in 2009 for what would be her last studio effort to-date, “Mountain Soul II.”

2023 CMT Music Awards: Here's what you didn't see on TV

She largely retreated from the limelight in recent years, but Loveless can still be found occasionally collaborating with artists such as Chris Stapleton or Carly Pearce – follow Kentuckians among the cohort of modern singers to praise her withstanding influence.

As for entering the Country Music Hall of Fame? That’s the stuff dreams are made of.

“Seeing this little girl from 14 years old, looking back and thinking my gosh, I’m going to be in the Country Music Hall of Fame,” Loveless said, “I wanna cry about it, to tell you the truth. It brings back so many wonderful memories for me.”

Tanya Tucker

Twenty-four hours before being announced as a member of the 2023 induction class of the Country Music Hall of Fame, Tucker reflected on what she told The Tennessean was a "miserably hot" day in the Summer of 1968 that ultimately defined the stubborn determination that has fostered her indomitable and undeniable five-decade-long career.

Then, as a nine-year-old aspiring vocalist, she – alongside her then 16-year-old sister, LaCosta – was on Music Row, standing in front of the Hall of Fame and Museum's classic location at the corner of 16th Avenue South and Division Street.

Her father, Beau, spent what the 2020 Grammy-winning legend calls "his last dime" to get his daughters to Nashville for a recording session after they experienced some regional success around America's southwest.

The recording session where she cut versions of Jim Reeves' "Welcome To My World," Hank Williams' "Your Cheatin' Heart" and Glen Campbell's "I Wanna Live" was not as successful as expected.

Loretta Lynn honored by CMT: Wynonna Judd, Brandi Carlile perform in star-studded tribute

Tucker vividly recalls that she was "despairing and solemn" but hopeful about the potential of heading a dozen blocks down the road to see a recording of the Grand Ole Opry.

Her father made the following statement as they saw the stars featuring the names of the hall-of-famers on the sidewalk, just like the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

"Look down at all them stars right now because you'll never be down there."

Her father was wrong.

Tucker signed a recording contract in Nashville in 1974 at age 16. By 21, she was a Los Angeles rock 'n' roller dating Glen Campbell and rumored to be – like Campbell – using drugs. Rebounding from those allegations led her to hits like 1988's "Strong Enough to Bend" and 1992's "Two Sparrows in a Hurricane."

Music festival lineups 2023: Lollapalooza, Coachella, Bonnaroo, Summerfest and more

The notoriety associated with her career placed her emotional state about the likelihood Hall of Fame induction. She kept those thoughts in the same space she’d put the potential of winning a Grammy Award – in the back of her mind, a dream deferred.

“It’d be a big deal if it happened, but it’s not something I have to [accomplish].”

Buoyed by support from singer Brandi Carlile and well-respected producer Shooter Jennings Tucker saw her career resurrected once again with the Grammy-winning success of her 25th studio album "While I'm Livin'" and its torch song single "Bring My Flowers Now," changing her mindset to being open to the possibilities of incredible dreams coming true has again proven successful.

“Everybody’s been loudly b***hing about me not being in the Hall of Fame. So many people have wanted me to get in – Bobby Bare, Alabama’s Randy Owen and Marty Stuart (“he’s been my biggest campaigner”). They have not allowed me to go away. That means they’ve loved my contributions and spirit – which makes me feel honored.”

Related: Country's male superstars should be chasing Kenny Rogers' 1983 pop culture success

Tucker, cackling, adds a bittersweet note.

“I just wish my daddy would be there (Beau Tucker died on Nov. 23, 2006) so I could say, ‘remember the walk of fame!”

Bob McDill

In his song “Gone Country,” which Alan Jackson took to the top of the charts in 1994, McDill wrote about an enduring phenomenon in Nashville: the pop and rock music-makers who come to town and attempt to bluff their way through a career in country music.

“I hear down there it's changed, you see,” one character says in the second verse. “Well, they're not as backward as they used to be.”

“I was hearing people say, ‘We came to Nashville because it's a great place to raise children,’ and so on,” the songwriter shares. “But the real reason was their career was in the tank, and they were trying to get a fresh start."

McDill’s own story, in fact, shares some common threads.

“I came here from Texas by way of Memphis,” he says. “I went country.”

In that case, perhaps no songwriter has “gone country” more brilliantly than McDill, who weaved delicate melodies into stories that drew from deep cultural and literary roots.

'My Kind of Country': Mickey Guyton, Jimmie Allen, Orville Peck scout for diverse voices

His compositions include “Song of the South” (popularized by Alabama), “Good Ole Boys Like Me” for Don Williams, “Don’t Close Your Eyes” for Keith Whitley and “Amanda” (recorded by both Williams and Waylon Jennings).

He enjoyed 31 No. 1 hits over three decades – at one point, the joke on Music Row was that performing rights organization BMI stood for “Bob McDill, Incorporated.”

But when McDill arrived in Nashville in 1970, he didn’t have country music on his mind. He’d “tagged along” with his friends Allen Reynolds and Dickey Lee, after scoring his first cuts in the late ’60s with Perry Como and Sam the Sham. His hope was that Nashville was about to turn into a pop and rock hotbed.

That didn’t come to pass, and after two years, McDill couldn’t afford to wait any longer. Reynolds helped him finish off a folk song he’d started called “Catfish John.”

“I was a folkie, and a pop guy,” McDill says. “It was not a country song, but it certainly became one.”

“Catfish John,” recorded by Johnny Russell, cracked the top 20 in 1972, and kicked off McDill’s near-30-year reign on the country charts.

CMT Music Awards 2023: 7 standout moments from the show, including a Naomi Judd tribute

Though he’d grown up putting nickels in the jukebox to hear Johnny Cash, his eyes weren’t fully opened to the beauty and brilliance of the genre until he heard George Jones’ hit ballad “A Good Year For The Roses,” penned by Jerry Chesnut.

From there, McDill became a star pupil – and soon a master – in country songcraft. He tapped into his childhood in Walden, Texas, and drew from a vast well of musical, literary and cultural influences.

“Those Williams boys, they still mean a lot to me,” Don Williams sang on the McDill-penned “Good Ole Boys Like Me.”

“…Hank and Tennessee.”

Williams, in fact, was one of McDill’s first country co-writers, as both first worked at Jack Clement’s publishing company Jack Music. As Williams’ star rose in the ‘70s, McDill supplied many of his chart-toppers, including "(Turn out the Light and) Love Me Tonight,” “Say It Again” and “It Must Be Love.”

“I'm so happy I was in the Don Williams club,” McDill says.

'Behind the Seams: My Life In Rhinestones': Dolly Parton will reveal 'passion for fashion' in new book

He had quite a few memberships, in fact. Country Music Hall of Famer Bobby Bare devoted an entire album to his friend’s songs: 1977’s “Me and McDill.” Crystal Gayle’s 1976 album “Crystal” featured three songs of his, including the No. 1 hit “You Never Miss a Real Good Thing (Till He Says Goodbye).”

Waylon Jennings, Ronnie Milsap and Mel McDaniel were all repeat customers, as well, and McDill wrote several songs with and for Dan Seals, including “Everything That Glitters Is Not Gold.”

McDill retired from songwriting in 2000, and donated his life’s work to the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in 2017. That included 217 legal pads of lyrics and notes, demo tapes, his trusted guitar and dozens of awards. The vast collection is a testament to his gifts and unflagging work ethic.

If he got stuck on one song during a workday, he says, “I did not go home. I went to the next unfinished song and worked on that one.”

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Country Music Hall of Fame 2023 inductees: Patty Loveless, more