A transistor radio is a small portable radio receiver that uses transistor-based circuitry. Following their development in 1954 they became the most popular electronic communication device in history, with billions manufactured during the 1960s and 1970s. Their pocket size sparked a change in popular music listening habits, allowing people to listen to music anywhere they went. In the 1970s their popularity declined as other portable media players such as boom boxes and portable cassette players took over.

Bell Laboratories demonstrated the first transistor on December 23, 1947. The scientific team at Bell Laboratories responsible for the solid-state amplifier included William Shockley, Walter Houser Brattain, and John Bardeen. After obtaining patent protection, the company held a news conference on June 30, 1948, at which a prototype transistor radio was demonstrated.

There are many claimants to the title of the first company to produce practical transistor radios, often incorrectly attributed to Sony (originally Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering Corporation). Texas Instruments had demonstrated all-transistor AM (amplitude modulation) radios as early as 1952, but their performance was well below that of equivalent vacuum tube models. A workable all-transistor radio was demonstrated in August 1953 at the Düsseldorf Radio Fair by the German firm Intermetall^{[citation needed]} . It was built with four of Intermetall's hand-made transistors, based upon the 1948 invention of Herbert Mataré and Heinrich Welker. However, as with the early Texas Instruments units (and others) only prototypes were ever built; it was never put into commercial production. RCA had demonstrated a prototype transistor radio as early as 1952 and it is likely that they and the other radio makers were planning transistor radios of their own, but Texas Instruments and Regency were the first to offer a production model.

Connie Smith (born Constance June Meador; August 14, 1941) is an American country music artist. Active since 1964, Smith is widely considered to be one of the genre's best female vocalists. She has earned eleven Grammy award nominations, twenty top ten Billboard country singles, and thirty one charting albums, three of which have hit number one. In 2012 Smith became the twelfth solo female vocalist and nineteenth woman to be elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame.

Despite her success, Smith is often considered of the most underrated vocalists in country music history due to the decision not to pursue super stardom with the non-country general media market like such contemporaries as Loretta Lynn, Dolly Parton, and Tammy Wynette . Artists such as Parton,George Jones, and Chely Wright have cited Smith as either one of the best vocalists in the music industry or their favorite female artist.