On Sunday night (Oct. 18), the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum inducted its 159th, 160th and 161st members, as Tim McGraw, Paul Overstreet and the Stanley Brothers were awarded country music’s highest distinction, during the 31st Medallion Ceremony, held at the Hall of Fame’s CMA Theater in Nashville.
Members of the Country Music Hall of Fame, including Vince Gill, Randy Travis, Alabama’s Randy Owen, Ricky Skaggs and Dean Dillon, were also in attendance to usher in the Hall’s newest class members.
CMA CEO Sarah Trahern, who will retire at the end of the year after leading the CMA for more than a decade, spoke during her final time helping to lead the Medallion Ceremony.
“Telling 40 people or their loved ones they are going into the Country Music Hall of Fame is one of the biggest honors of my career,” Trahern said.
Before the inductions began, the evening paused to remember two Country Music Hall of Fame members who had passed away in the past year: Dolly Parton, who died in August at age 80, and songwriter Don Schlitz, who died in April 2026. Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum CEO Kyle Young called Parton “country music’s ambassador to the world,” and Schlitz was a frequent co-writer on current Hall of Fame inductee Overstreet, including co-writing songs such as “Forever and Ever, Amen” and “On the Other Hand.”
Bluegrass trailblazers the Stanley Brothers, Carter and Ralph Stanley, were inducted in the veteran era artist category. The brother duo, influenced by the works of Bill Monroe and Flatt & Scruggs, became one of the most influential duos in bluegrass. Carter wrote bluegrass standards including “The Lonesome River” and “The White Dove,” and was the duo’s main vocalist, while Ralph offered up precise banjo playing and high lonesome tenor harmony. The duo’s career was cut short when Carter died in 1966 at age 41, but his brother Ralph continued touring and releasing music for another half-century, including lending his unmistakable voice to “O Death” on the soundtrack to the 2000 film O Brother, Where Art Thou?. Stanley’s performance earned a Grammy for best male country vocal performance. Ralph Stanley died in 2016 at age 89.
“It is time,” Trahern said in honoring the Stanley Brothers. “I hope tonight you feel the love of the entire industry.”
During the Medallion Ceremony, Billy Strings feted the Stanley Brothers with a version of “How Mountain Girls Can Love,” while Gill and Ricky Skaggs teamed for “Rank Stranger” and the First Ladies of Bluegrass (Alison Brown, Missy Raines, Becky Buller, Sierra Hull and Molly Tuttle) sang “Bound to Ride.” Gill formally inducted the Stanley Brothers as members, with family members Ralph Stanley II, Ralph’s daughter Lisa and Carter’s daughter Jeanie accepting on their behalf.
“Ain’t nobody happier than I am to see this day finally arrive,” Skaggs said. “We love Ralph and Carter and all they gave to mountain music. They raised it out of the clay… so all the world can hear it.”
Gill noted that the first song he ever learned was a Stanley Brothers song, saying, “I tried my whole life to sound like Ralph Stanley.”
Overstreet was inducted in the songwriter category. He has co-written songs including The Judds’ “Love Can Build A Bridge,” Whitley’s “When You Say Nothing At All,” Kenny Chesney’s “She Thinks My Tractor’s Sexy,” and several of Travis’ signature hits. He’s also a member of the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame, and was named BMI’s country songwriter of the year for five years. Beyond his many hits as a songwriter, Overstreet also earned several of his own hits, including “Seein’ My Father in Me,” “Daddy’s Come Around” and a collaboration with Tanya Tucker and Paul Davis on the 1988 No. 1 Billboard Country Songs hit “I Won’t Take Less Than Your Love.” Overstreet was also part of the group SKO, known for the Country Songs No. 1 “Baby’s Got a New Baby.”
Songwriter and Country Music Hall of Fame member Dean Dillon performed “If I Could Bottle This Up,” while Jamey Johnson sang “Forever and Ever, Amen” and Blake Shelton sang his 2004 Overstreet-penned song “Some Beach.” Tucker inducted Overstreet into the Hall of Fame. “Congratulations big boy, welcome to the party,” Dillon told his longtime friend and songwriting colleague.
Shelton recalled seeing Overstreet perform while Shelton was still in high school, and getting Overstreet’s autograph after the show. “I wanted to be Paul Overstreet, and hoped to get [to record] a Paul Overstreet song,” Shelton said.
Taking the stage, Overstreet told the invitation-only crowd, “You don’t get here by yourself… I thank you all for voting for me and believing my contribution to country music is deserving of this honor.”
McGraw was inducted in the modern era artist category. Since first entering the Billboard country charts in 1992 with “Welcome to the Club,” McGraw has become known for hits including “Live Like You Were Dying,” “Where The Green Grass Grows,” and “Humble and Kind,” as well as such duets with his wife and fellow country star Faith Hill as “It’s Your Love.” McGraw was named the CMA’s entertainer of the year in 2001. Beyond music, McGraw has cemented himself as a multi-faceted creative force, starring in films like Friday Night Lights and The Blind Side, as well as the television series 1883.
During the ceremony, Parker McCollum honored McGraw with a rendition of “Don’t Take the Girl,” while trio Lady A turned in one of the night’s most well-received performances, with a version of his “Live Like You Were Dying.” Lainey Wilson, who grew up one parish over from where McGraw was raised in Louisiana, spoke about McGraw’s influence on her career and performed “Just to See You Smile.”
Lady A’s Hillary Scott spoke of how meaningful it was “to honor one of the most influential artists… that we have admired for so long and gotten to be the recipient of your generosity and kindness by joining you on tour two times… thank you so much for just the way that you lead and the way that you have given artists like us inspiration and a stage to stand on.”
“You know you’re my hero,” the group’s Charles Kelley told McGraw.
“A lot of people say, ‘Don’t meet your heroes’ — but you and Faith [Hill] are both more than I could have ever imagined,” Wilson said. “You are who you say you are and that means a lot to me… you were my very first concert, the Down on the Farm Tour… I feel like a seed was planted that night. And I want to say thank you for making me feel like I could do it, too.”
McGraw was inducted by Alabama’s Owen. Taking the stage, McGraw offered an emotional, heartfelt and inspiring acceptance speech.
“I’m a little overwhelmed right now,” McGraw said, before reflecting on arriving in Nashville the day that Keith Whitley passed away. “Some people might call that a bad omen. I’ve come to believe it was something else, that Nashville was telling me the truth on my very first day, that this music costs something. The people who make it give everything that they’ve got. And if you’re lucky enough to make it down the road, you owe it to the ones who didn’t and the ones who paved it… I can’t tell you what it means to walk into this Hall on the same day as the men whose fingerprints were on my very first day. I don’t believe that’s coincidence; I believe that’s country music.”
Whitley, who was posthumously inducted as a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2022, was a thread tying each of this year’s inductees together. Before finding country music stardom, then-teens Whitley and Ricky Skaggs had been part of the Clinch Mountain Boys band, which Ralph Stanley had continued with after the passing of his brother Carter. When Tim McGraw moved arrived in Nashville on May 9, 1989, it was the same day that Whitley passed away; one of Whitley’s final country radio hits at the time was “When You Say Nothing At all,” written by Overstreet and Don Schlitz.
McGraw also honored his fellow inductees, and said that country music “was in my blood from the beginning.” He recalled the familial struggles of his early childhood and how, at age 11, he discovered that his biological father was Major League baseball player Tug McGraw.
“Seeing what he had done with his life, I knew that there was something in me that was going to help me make something of mine,” he said. He recalled moving to Nashville, signing early on with Curb Records and striking out with his first record. “What I learned was the rules weren’t going to save me, but my instincts might,” he said, recalling he decided on his second album to take a different approach to making music; that resulted in hits including “Indian Outlaw,” “Not a Moment Too Soon,” “Down on the Farm” and “Don’t Take the Girl,” launching a career that has earned McGraw 26 Country Songs No. 1s.
He also thanked many of the people who have supported him on his own journey to enduring country music stardom — most notably, his mother, Betty D’Agostino Trimble, and his wife Faith Hill, who were both in attendance, as well as McGraw and Hill’s daughters.
“You have been my rock through it all,” McGraw told his mother. “You nurtured, you provided, you endured. You are the one who stayed. You sacrificed more than any of us understood at the time, and the pain you carried was real, and now, so is the joy we share in this room.” Of Hill, McGraw told the audience, “You know our story, but what you don’t know is she is the most loving, compassionate and the best person I know. She’s so solid, and I am more solid because of her… she is for many, many reasons, why I am standing here.” He added, “The only thing that can beat this night, is when you’re standing here and I’m sitting there.”
The evening traditionally concludes with a performance of The Carter Family’s “Will the Circle Be Unbroken,” and this year, Country Music Hall of Famer Patty Loveless did the honors, turning in a stellar performance, while also slightly changing some of the lyrics to honor the late Country Music Hall of Fame member Parton.
The evening’s music was spearheaded by a top-notch Medallion All-Star Band, including drummer Mark Beckett, keyboardist Jen Gunderman, vocalist Tania Hancheroff, bassist Alison Prestwood, fiddler/mandolinist Deanie Richardson, steel guitarist Scotty Sanders, band leader/acoustic guitarist Biff Watson, guitarist/vocalist Jeff White and electric guitarist/vocalist Charlie Worsham.
