1986 in country music

Events

• January 18 — "American Country Countdown" with Bob Kingsley expands from three to four hours. Several new features — including a chronological playback of songs reaching No. 1 on the Billboard Hot Country Singles chart and a calendar feature (highlighting a birthday, or anniversary of a notable song or event in country music) — are added.
• June 25 — Jenifer Strait, the 13 year-old daughter of George Strait (who by now is one of country music's top performers) is killed in a car accident in San Marcos, Texas. Her father still refuses to talk about his daughter's death to this day.

No dates

• For the first time in its 42-year history, there is a new No. 1 song for each week of the year, according to Billboard magazine's Hot Country Singles Chart.
• 1986 was a renaissance year in country music, with a host of "New Traditionalist"-minded artists reinvigorating a genre that critics were saying had grown increasingly stagnant and pop-oriented. Among the most successful new artists: Holly Dunn, Judy Rodman, Ricky Van Shelton, Randy Travis and Dwight Yoakam. Keith Whitley, another artist who had been around for a few years, has his first major hit early in the year. They - along with popular newcomers from earlier in the decade such as Alabama, George Strait and Reba McEntire, and longtime artists like George Jones, Merle Haggard and Conway Twitty - proved......
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