2005 in Country Music - Events

Events

• April 30 — Billboard magazine renames the Hot Country Singles & Tracks chart "Hot Country Songs." The chart's renaming is part of a major redesign of the 110-year-old magazine.
• May 25 — Oklahoma-born Carrie Underwood becomes the fourth-season winner of "American Idol." Although her first single, "Inside Your Heaven," tops the Billboard Hot 100 chart, the 22-year-old Underwood's influences and music are predominantly country. Late in the year, she entered the top 10 of the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart for the first time with "Jesus Take the Wheel." Her debut album, Some Hearts, rockets to No. 1 on the album charts.
• May 25 — Garth Brooks proposes to longtime girlfriend and fellow country music star Trisha Yearwood in Bakersfield, California, ending long-standing speculation about their relationship.
• September — Country music acts participate in benefit concerts to aid victims of Hurricane Katrina. On September 9, Dixie Chicks, Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood are among the artists participating in "Shelter from the Storm: A Concert for the Gulf Coast," which airs live on cable and broadcast television stations in the United States and worldwide.

"ReAct Now: Music & Relief" is held September 10. Country performers at the 4½-hour concert — which airs live on CMT — include Alan Jackson and Gretchen Wilson.

• October — Koch Records Nashville folds when its parent company goes out of business.
• November 9 — After 27 years as host of "American Country Countdown," radio personality Bob Kingsley steps down, after his production company and ABC Radio Networks (which distributes the show) fail to come to terms in renegotiating a distribution agreement. Kix Brooks, one half of the superstar duo Brooks & Dunn, is named the new host and was slated to take over January 21, 2006. Kingsley's last shows with "ACC" are the December 24 countdown program and "Christmas in America."
• November 18 — The Johnny Cash biopic, Walk the Line, opens nationwide. The movie stars Joaquin Phoenix as "The Man in Black" and Reese Witherspoon as his girlfriend (and wife-to-be) June Carter. The movie is widely praised by critics and a major box office hit.
• November 25 — Garth Brooks releases The Limited Series, his second box set to be sold exclusively at Wal-Mart and Sam's Club stores. The set contains his previous two studio albums, Sevens and Scarecrow; plus his Double Live album; The Lost Sessions, a new album of previously unreleased material; and an All Access DVD containing behind-the-scenes footage of his concerts. The Limited Series is Brooks' first box set to be released under his label, Pearl Records; he had left his longtime label, Capitol Records, earlier in the year.
• December 5 — Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood marry at their home in Oklahoma. It is Brooks' second marriage, Yearwood's third.
• December 31 — Bob Kingsley's new countdown program, "Bob Kingsley's Country Top 40," premieres with the annual year-end countdown. The new four-hour show, which aired on many of the same stations that aired "ACC," is distributed by the Jones Radio Network.