Physical Address
304 North Cardinal St.
Dorchester Center, MA 02124
Willie Nelson Joins Dolly Parton With Hot Country Songs Hits in Every Decade Since the ’60s
Willie Nelson has joined Dolly Parton with Hot Country Songs entries in every decade since the 1960s, thanks to Kacey Musgraves' “Uncertain, TX.”
Willie Nelson has now joined Dolly Parton in an elite slice of chart history: he has landed on Billboard’s Hot Country Songs in every decade since the 1960s. The new entry comes via Kacey Musgraves’ “Uncertain, TX,” which opens at No. 50 on the May 16-dated chart with 2.4 million official U.S. streams in the May 1-7 tracking week, according to Luminate.
The song appears on Musgraves’ Middle of Nowhere, a 15-track release that arrives at No. 2 on Top Country Albums. Written by Musgraves and her longtime collaborator Daniel Tashian, “Uncertain, TX” pushes Nelson’s chart run even further back into country’s history books. It comes 64 years and two months after his first Hot Country Songs appearance, “Willingly,” which peaked at No. 10 in 1962.
That original run was only the beginning. Nelson, now 93, logged two top 10 hits in the ’60s, then added 13 more in the ’70s, 24 in the ’80s, and one each in the ’90s and 2000s. Twenty-one of those songs reached No. 1, a reminder that his chart presence has never really been a matter of nostalgia. It has been sustained, decade after decade, by an unusually durable recording career.
His most recent Hot Country Songs appearance before this came in 2019, with a cover of Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Have You Ever Seen the Rain,” recorded with his daughter Paula Nelson. That track peaked at No. 36.
Parton’s chart run is even more singular in its own way. She first reached Hot Country Songs in 1967 with “Dumb Blonde,” which climbed to No. 24, and she has remained on the chart in every decade through the 2020s. She is still the only artist to place a song inside the chart’s top 20 in each decade since the ’60s, most recently with “Tyrant,” her 2024 collaboration with Beyoncé.
Her other entries this decade include “Have the Heart,” with Post Malone, which reached No. 22; a remake of “Does He Love You” with Reba McEntire, which peaked at No. 47; and “Cuddle Up, Cozy Down Christmas,” her Michael Bublé collaboration, which reached No. 48. Reba McEntire originally took “Does He Love You” to No. 1 with Linda Davis in 1993.
For fans, it is the kind of chart stat that feels bigger than a stat. Nelson and Parton are still writing themselves into the same long country timeline, one new feature at a time, and the proof is right there on the chart.
