Billy Sherrill (born Phil Campbell, Alabama, November 5, 1936) is a record producer and arranger who is most famous for his association with a number of country artists, most notably Tammy Wynette. Sherrill and business partner Glenn Sutton are regarded as the defining influences of the countrypolitan sound, a smooth amalgamation of pop and country music that was hugely popular during the late 1960s and throughout the '70s. On February 23, 2010 Sherrill was selected for induction into the Country Music Hall of Fame along with Don Williams, Ferlin Husky, and Jimmy Dean. The actual induction will be held later in the year.

Born in rural Alabama, Sherrill became initially interested in music, particularly jazz and blues, learning to play the saxophone. During his teenage years, he led a blues band, and later signed a solo record deal, though this led to little success.

In 1962, Sherrill moved to Nashville, where he was initially was hired by Sam Phillips to manage the Nashville studios of Sun Records. When Sun sold its Nashville studio the following year, Sherrill moved to Epic Records, as an in-house producer. Given his limited exposure to country music up to that point, his production incorporated many elements of pop music production. (His sound has often been described as a country equivalent to Phil Spector's Wall of Sound.) His first success was with country artist David Houston. Houston's recording of Sherrill's and Glenn Sutton's composition "Almost Persuaded" spent nine weeks at the top of the U.S. country charts in late 1965 and into early 1966.

Martina McBride (born July 29, 1966) is an American country music singer and songwriter. McBride has been called the "Céline Dion of Country Music" for her big-voiced ballads and soprano range.

McBride was signed to RCA Records in 1991, and made her debut the following year as a neo-traditionalist country singer with the single, "The Time Has Come." It was not until 1997, when she released her fourth album, Evolution, that she broke through into the country music industry with a new pop-styled crossover sound, similar to that of Faith Hill and Shania Twain. From that point on, McBride has had a string of major hit singles on the Billboard country chart and occasionally on the adult contemporary chart. Five of these singles went to No. 1 on the country chart between 1995 and 2001, and one peaked at No. 1 on the adult contemporary chart in 2003.

McBride has recorded a total of nine studio albums, one greatest hits compilation, one "live" album, a Christmas compilation, as well as two additional compilation albums. Seven of her studio albums and two of her compilations have received an RIAA Gold certification, or higher. In the U.S. she has sold over 14 million albums. In addition, McBride has won the Country Music Association's "Female Vocalist of the Year" award four times (tied with Reba McEntire for the most wins) and the Academy of Country Music's "Top Female Vocalist" award three times.

Emmylou Harris (born April 2, 1947 in Birmingham, Alabama) is an American singer-songwriter and musician. She has released many chart-topping albums and singles over the course of her career, and has won 12 Grammys and numerous other awards.

In addition to her work as a solo artist and bandleader, both as an interpreter of other composers' works and as a singer-songwriter, she is a sought-after backing vocalist and duet partner, working with numerous other artists including Gram Parsons, The Band, Linda Ronstadt, Roy Orbison, Dolly Parton, Mark Knopfler, Guy Clark, Willie Nelson, Bob Dylan, Rodney Crowell, and Neil Young.

Emmylou Harris is the daughter of a career military family, her father, Walter Harris, was a military officer and her mother, Eugenia was a wartime military wife. Her father, a member of the Marine Corps, was reported missing in action in Korea in 1952 and spent ten months as a prisoner of war. Born in Birmingham, Alabama, Harris spent her childhood in North Carolina and Woodbridge, Virginia, where she graduated from Gar-Field Senior High School as class valedictorian. In high school she also won a drama scholarship to the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, where she began to study music seriously, learning to play the songs of Pete Seeger, Bob Dylan and Joan Baez on guitar. Leaving college to pursue her musical aspirations, she moved to New York, working as a waitress to support herself while performing folk songs in Greenwich Village coffeehouses. She married fellow songwriter Tom Slocum in 1969 and recorded her first album, Gliding Bird. Harris and Slocum soon divorced, and Harris and her newborn daughter Hallie moved in with her parents in the Maryland suburbs on the edge of Washington, D.C.

Glenn Sutton (September 28, 1937 - April 17, 2007) was a country music songwriter and producer. Born Royce Glenn Sutton in Hodge, Louisiana, he was one of two chief architects of the countrypolitan sound (the other being Sutton's frequent songwriting partner Billy Sherrill).

Sutton wrote or co-wrote many of Tammy Wynette's early hits including, "You're Good Girl's Gonna Go Bad", "Take Me to Your World"(which would be the last song Tammy ever sang in concert before her death in 1998), "I Don't Wanna Play House", "The Ways to Love a Man", "Kids Say the Darndest Things" and "Bedtime Story". He also wrote the Jerry Lee Lewis and Rod Stewart recording "What's Made Milwaukee Famous (Has Made a Loser Out of Me)", as well as the David Houston classic "Almost Persuaded". Sutton won a Grammy Award for the latter composition. "Almost Persuaded" has been covered by artists from all genres of music, including Jazz legend Etta James. He also sang his own hit called "The Football Card" which nearly made the top forty on the Billboard Hot 100.

Billy Mize (Born William Robert Mize on April 29, 1929 in Arkansas City, Kansas) is a steel guitarist, band leader, vocalist, songwriter, and TV show host.

He was raised in the San Joaquin Valley of California, an area steeped in country music thanks to relocated Okies and other southerners headed for the gold in them there hills out west. He originally learned to play guitar as a child, but fell in love with the steel guitar he received for his 18th birthday.