Funding a vaccine? Co-funding a record company?
Selling song catalog rights? Here are the wealthiest country singers!
Pre-pandemic, Luke Bryan was one of the highest-earning celebrities, placing No.
62 on Forbes' 2020 Celebrity 100 with earnings of $45.5 million. From concerts, his average gross
per city exceeded $1 million, and his salary as an American Idol judge is reportedly $12
million per season. According to Celebrity Net Worth, his current net worth is $160 million.
"I just grew up waking up and getting after it. So, you know. Work hard, play hard."
With his packed schedule — which also includes owning Luke's 32 Bridge Food + Drink in Nashville
— Bryan was asked by PopCulture if there is any other area he'd like to conquer. The singer said,
And perhaps Bryant's biggest flex is that he lets his family spend his money without
his interference. In an interview for CMT Hot 20 Countdown, he said,
While Celebrity Net Worth reports that Kenny Chesney's net worth is $180 million,
it's probably a lot more in light of the news in January 2022 of the
singer selling 80% of his recorded music royalties to Hipgnosis Song Management.
"Each song is its own independent business,
and we want people to understand how valuable that music is."
The catalog includes 22 albums, from Chesney's 1994 debut In My Wildest Dreams to 2017's Live
in No Shoes Nation. The financial terms were not disclosed, but for reference, singer
Neil Young sold 50% of the rights to his song catalog to Hipgnosis for $150 million in 2021.
Along with Chesney's 30 million albums sold and nine No. 1s on the Billboard 200 albums chart for
all genres, he is a touring powerhouse. According to Billboard, his post-pandemic Here and Now
tour of 41 shows grossed $135 million and sold 1.3 million tickets. It's his highest-grossing
tour in his three-decades-long career and his second-highest in terms of ticket sales. It also
became his 13th tour to cross the million mark as well as his third $100 million tour. Cumulatively,
Chesney's tours have grossed a whopping $1.2 billion and sold 17.9 million tickets.
Much of Chesney's success can also be attributed to his attitude of being as hands-on as possible
with the business part of his career. He once said in an interview with The New York Times,
Tim McGraw and Faith Hill each have made their individual marks on country music,
and together they have a combined net worth of $200 million,
according to Celebrity Net Worth. According to E! News, the couple first co-headlined their
Soul2Soul tour in 2000 out of a desire to only be separated from each other for a few days.
"What do you think the key to a happy marriage is?"
"Just say, 'Yes, ma'am,' a lot."
"What do you think the key to a happy marriage is?"
"Is not saying yes all the time."
It grossed over $50 million, and their subsequent tours together — Soul2Soul II from 2006-2007 and
Soul2Soul: The World Tour from 2017-2018 — are in the top 10 highest-grossing country music
tours of all time at $1.41 million and $79 million, respectively. Their first album of
duets together, 2017's The Rest of Our Life, topped Billboard's Top Country Albums chart,
which marked McGraw's 16th No. 1 on the chart and Hill's 4th.
Both country superstars are also actors, and 2021's 1883 marked the second time the
couple acted together after filming a flashback scene in Yellowstone. In a Forbes interview,
McGraw talked about how he didn't want to play "just some singing cowboy," and
how he and Hill were very conscious of their identities as a couple and as singers. He said,
Known as the "King of Country," George Strait owns several records
for platinum album certifications, song charting, and single concert attendance,
all of which have contributed to his net worth of $300 million. The singer has 33 platinum or
multi-platinum albums, which places him third in this category behind The Beatles and Elvis.
"Every time I go in the studio, I want to make the best album that I've ever done in my life."
As for his songs, Strait has 60 No. 1 singles — the most of any artist in any genre — and,
according to Strait's official website, is also:
On the last day of his 44-city, two-year The Cowboy Rides Away farewell tour, Strait set a
single concert attendance record. On June 7, 2014, a total of 104,793 fans packed AT&T Stadium in
Arlington, Texas, the largest attendance at a North American indoor venue. At the time,
Strait actually broke his own record of 80,020 attendees at Houston's Reliant Stadium in 2013.
And while Strait has stopped touring, he hasn't stopped performing or reaching milestones. Since
2016, the singer has had his Strait to Vegas residency at the T-Mobile Arena. After his
two shows in 2020, his career total for concert ticket sales passed 10 million, making him the
eighth soloist in history and the second country artist after Kenny Chesney to reach that number.
Toby Keith's 2021 Peso in My Pocket was the first album he had released
in six years. After selling 40 million albums and producing 32 No. 1 hits,
Keith said on his website that at some point before the pandemic, he realized that:
In June 2022, the singer revealed that he'd been diagnosed with stomach cancer
and had been receiving treatment for the past six months. Consequently,
all the concerts he had planned for 2022 were canceled.
Despite slowing down, Keith's net value is $365 million. His wealth comes from his nearly 30-year
musical career as well as his many business ventures. He's the owner of the I Love This
Bar & Grill restaurant chain, which at one point had restaurants in over 20 cities across the U.S.
and was estimated to be bringing in $12 million a year, per Forbes. Keith launched his premium
mezcal called Wild Shot in 2011, and by the end of the year, it was No. 1 in its category in the U.S.
He also co-founded Big Machine Records in 2005,
and receives a percentage of what its artists made.
Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood have a combined net worth of $400 million,
with an estimated $300 to $350 million of that amount attributed to Brooks. Brooks
holds the U.S. record for the most albums sold by a soloist across all genres at 157 million,
and is the first artist to have singles in the top five of the country charts for five consecutive
decades since the '80s. Together, the couple holds several North American touring records with The
Garth Brooks World Tour with Trisha Yearwood. The three-year tour, which ended in 2017, sold 6.7
million tickets and is the highest-grossing country music tour at $364.3 million.
While Brooks is one of the most accomplished singers of all time, he credits Yearwood as "the
busiest person on this planet" and in an interview with CultureMap Houston proudly admitted that:
"Wherever we go I introduce her as the love of my life. She introduces me as her current husband."
Along with her own successful music career, Yearwood has her Emmy-winning
Trisha's Southern Kitchen on the Food Network, has written three New York Times-bestselling
cookbooks, and has her own cookware and furniture lines. She told CultureMap,
Often called the "Queen of Country Pop," as she was one of the first
country artists to successfully cross over to pop music, Shania Twain has a net worth
of $400 million. She has sold over 10 million albums throughout her career,
with nearly half of the sales coming from 1997's Come on Over. At 40 million albums sold, it's the
world's best-selling album by a female soloist and the highest-selling country music album.
Twain's road to enormous wealth wasn't without pain and tragedy. Growing up,
her mother and stepfather often couldn't afford to pay the bills or buy food, and when they both
died in a tragic car crash, she took care of her siblings. In 2011, she told Oprah Winfrey,
Later, Twain nearly lost her voice to Lyme disease
and her first husband cheated on her with her former friend and assistant.
"You know, after a divorce, you- it's a sever of so many things,
and you have to find and rediscover your independence."
However, with her voice back and in a happy second marriage,
Twain looks forward to a future that includes more music and a possible
biopic. After releasing her first single in five years with "Waking Up Dreaming" in 2022
and her biographical Netflix documentary, Not Just a Girl, the singer told The Sun,
"All sorts of things are in the pipeline [...] I've got a very busy few years ahead of me."
Dolly Parton's enormous list of accomplishments, roles, and business ventures has resulted in a
net worth of $650 million, but her philanthropic efforts are even more
impressive. The $1 million she donated through her Dolly Parton COVID-19 Research Fund went to
the development of the Moderna vaccine. Meanwhile, Imagination Library fights
illiteracy by providing books for children all over the world between birth and school age.
According to an interview with Money, Parton grew up poor, watching her parents as she described it,
"stretch a dollar farther than you could begin to imagine."
It made her thankful for her success and shaped her financial philosophy. She added,
"Are you a dream?"
"Some women say I'm their worst nightmare."
With her natural business sense, Parton is always on the lookout for new projects
and business opportunities — including the possibility of
selling the rights to her back catalog of over 3,000 songs. She told the BBC,