10 Best Songs from the 2024 Country Music Hall of Fame Induction Class

by Julian Spivey

In late March it was announced that performers Toby Keith, John Anderson and guitarist James Burton would be inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame's 2024 class. 

Here are my selection's for their best songs: 
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Photos: BNA Records & Mercury Records

10. “Dream Walkin’” by Toby Keith
Toby Keith’s “Dream Walkin’” only topped off at No. 5 on the Billboard country chart in 1998, which is simply shocking to me. It should’ve gone all the way to No. 1. That album, which shared a name with the song, didn’t have a No. 1 and was the first album of Keith’s career at that point to fail to have a chart-topper leading some to believe he may have been a flash in the pan at the time.  “Dream Walkin’” sees Keith’s narrator having a recurring dream about the woman literally of his dreams kind of coming and going and never being one he can fully capture. I think it’s one of the best vocals of Keith’s career.

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9. “Hello Mary Lou” by Ricky Nelson (James Burton on Guitar)
James Burton was a great touring and session guitarist who played on a lot of great records by a lot of great artists. I’d likely have other of his performances on this list if the internet were more accurate on what exact recordings he played on. However, we know he was the author of the influential guitar solo on Ricky Nelson’s 1961 top-10 hit “Hello Mary Lou,” written by Gene Pitney. 

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8. ​“She Just Started Liking Cheatin’ Songs” by John Anderson
John Anderson’s 1980 hit “She Just Started Liking Cheatin’ Songs,” written by Kent Robbins, is easily one of the artist’s most notable greatest hits so it’s surprising to learn it only topped out at No. 13 on the Billboard country chart. It’s a unique take on the country theme of cheating songs in that the narrator doesn’t begin to doubt his lover’s loyalty until she gets a hankering for cheating songs. It’s a catchy number from Anderson’s early career. 

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7. “How Do You Like Me Now?” by Toby Keith
“How Do You Like Me Now?,” the title track of Toby Keith’s fifth studio album in 1999, is where Keith’s brash persona begins to come out on record. The song is a kiss-off to a woman the narrator pined for in high school, but never even knew he existed, while he winds up having a successful life and wonders if she ever thinks of him now. The song hit No. 1 on the country chart and stayed there for five weeks and even crossed over to being a top-40 pop hit. 

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6. “Susie Q” by Dale Hawkins (James Burton on Guitar)
Another epic guitar performance we know for sure that was a creation by James Burton is the solo played on Dale Hawkins’s original recording of “Susie Q” in 1957. Burton has even said he composed all the music to the song but was not given a co-writing credit or share of the publishing. The song’s bluesy, swampy guitar performance would help define the music of Creedence Clearwater Revival when they memorably covered it on their 1968 self-titled debut. 

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5. “Wild & Blue” by John Anderson
“Wild & Blue,” written by John Scott Sherill, was John Anderson’s very first No. 1 hit in 1982, which is somewhat surprising to me because of all the Anderson classics I’d heard on classic country radio format stations growing up it was not played a whole lot. I would’ve thought songs like “She Just Starting Liking Cheatin’ Songs, “I’m Just an Old Chunk of Coal” and “Would You Catch a Falling Star” would’ve been the bigger hits for him. But, “Wild & Blue” is absolutely one of my favorite Anderson songs with its wail of a vocal and whining, twanging fiddle and banjo as he sings about a woman who sits up late at night wondering what her man is doing elsewhere. 

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4. “My List” by Toby Keith
Toby Keith’s career kind of changed with his song “Courtesy of the Red, White & Blue (The Angry American),” which was written in response to 9/11 as if from the perspective of his veteran father. This is where some of the reactionary stuff began for his career and kind of drew a line in the sand for many when it comes to Keith overall. But his first single after 9/11, was “My List,” released in January of 2002, and it’s truly the song that hit home after 9/11 in its theme of having one’s priorities straight and never putting off the important things in life for tomorrow because tomorrow’s aren’t given. The music video for the song even begins with footage of a couple watching 9/11 coverage on their TV. 

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3. “Seminole Wind” by John Anderson
A lot of folks probably felt like John Anderson’s career was over by the early ‘90s. He hadn’t had a hit since 1986 and was probably viewed as a guy whose music was stuck back in the early ‘80s. Then came perhaps the greatest album in his career and a great comeback story in 1992’s Seminole Wind. The album would provide four top-10 hits, including its title track which went to No. 2. “Seminole Wind” was both a tribute to Anderson’s native state of Florida and a call to do better when it came to the environment and to do better with the Florida Everglades. The beginning of the song with its slow, plaintive piano and fiddle solos evolves into an up-tempo Southern Rock/Country beat. It was something country music didn’t have a whole lot of at the time – a banger with a message.

2. “Straight Tequila Night” by John Anderson
The first song off John Anderson’s Seminole Wind album that truly showed the big redhead from Florida was back on top was “Straight Tequila Night,” which went to No. 1 on the country chart in early 1992. The song, which was one of the genre’s best of the ‘90s, sees Anderson playing the narrator counseling a man at a bar that if he wants to go after the woman he’s eyeing he’d better not do it on a night when she’s drinking straight tequila. “Straight Tequila Night,” written by Debbie Hupp and Kent Robbins, proved to be a classic telling of a frequent country theme and provided Anderson with his first No. 1 in nearly a decade. 

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1. “Should’ve Been a Cowboy” by Toby Keith
The No. 1 Toby Keith song was a bit hard for me because 1) I don’t like going with the stereotypical answer, which I believe this to be and 2) it’s a song that’s been so overplayed on the radio that at times I just need a break from it – but both of those things truly explain why “Should’ve Been a Cowboy,” the very first thing we ever heard from Keith back in 1993, is such a classic. And, of all of the hit songs in Keith’s career, the content of the song is the most classically country with its story romanticizing the cowboy and Western lifestyle. It’s truly one of the great country music sing-along songs of all time.