One Hit Wonder / Country

#s, A - C

• 4 Runner had only one top 40 hit with "Cain's Blood" in 1995, but any further hits were stalled by a series of label mergers and sudden departure of one of their vocalists. Their second album was never released, and three of the members later joined Loretta Lynn's road band.
• Buddy Alan hit top 10 with his debut single "Let the World Keep On A-Turnin", a duet with his far more famous father Buck Owens, but none of his other singles made much of an impact. He eventually quit performing and focused his career on managing the radio stations owned by his father.
• Daniele Alexander had a Top 20 hit in 1989 with "She's There" and was never heard from again.
• Jessica Andrews charted several minor entries between 1998 and 2003, but her only one by which most would remember her was her #1 smash "Who I Am". The song was a crossover on the pop, AC, and even Latin Airplay (!) charts, and was used as the theme to Sue Thomas: F.B.Eye.
• Actress Susan Anton's only chart entry anywhere was "Killin' Time", her duet with Fred Knoblock (see also S-K-O, below), which hit #10 at country, #28 on the Hot 100, and #5 on the AC charts. Despite its chart success, it never appeared on an album.
• Renée Armand had only one hit as (an uncredited) guest vocalist on Hoyt Axton's "Bony Fingers". She was more successful as a songwriter.
• Artists of Then, Now, and Forever was the one-time gathering of 30 country artists who performed "Forever Country", a medley of "Take Me Home, Country Roads", "I Will Always Love You", and "On the Road Again" to honor the 50th anniversary of the Country Music Association awards in 2016. It was a top-40 hit in several countries, and held the #1 position on Hot Country Songs for two weeks. While none of the involved artists is a one-hit wonder on the country charts (except Kacey Musgraves, listed below), it is unlikely that any more material will be released under this name.
• Leon Ashley had his only #1 hit in 1967 with "Laura (What's He Got That I Ain't Got)", a song which he wrote, produced, and distributed entirely by himself after releases on major labels failed to chart. The song was so successful that six other cover versions were released in the next decade. While Ashley later had a #8 hit with "Flower of Love", and got to #1 on the Canadian country charts with "While Your Lover Sleeps", neither is remembered today
• Asleep at the Wheel is one of the most famous names in Western swing, but only one of their singles was a chart hit: "The Letter That Johnny Walker Read", at #10 in 1975. Despite their lack of chart success, both they and frontman Ray Benson are well-known names in the industry.
• Chet Atkins, despite being one of the most famous guitarists in the genre, had only one major chart hit, when he covered Boots Randolph's "Yakety Sax" on guitar under the title "Yakety Axe" in 1965. Atkins later surfaced in 1983 backing Ray Charles and George Jones on "We Didn't See a Thing", but it was still mainly Charles's song.
• Bobby Austin had a hit in 1966 with "Apartment #9" but was never heard from again. The song was later made famous that same year as the debut single of Tammy Wynette, who would have several hits between then and The '80s.
• Australian-born singer Sherrié Austin, originally one half of the pop duo Colorhaus (and briefly a cast member on The Facts of Life), made several top-40 entries on the country charts between 1997 and 2003. But the only one to become a hit was the very last of these, 2003's "Streets of Heaven".
• Steve Azar had a huge hit in late 2001-early 2002 with "I Don't Have to Be Me ('Til Monday)" but was quickly sidelined by a vocal cord cyst. He did not return to recording until 2005, by which point country radio had moved on, although he has continued to tour and record since.
• Moe Bandy is not himself an example, but two of his collaborators are:
  • Judy Bailey was featured on his 1980 single "Following the Feeling", but nothing else she put out reached top 40.
  • Becky Hobbs sang duet vocals on the 1983 single "Let's Get Over Them Together" but none of her single efforts made it past #31. She had some later success as a songwriter, most prominently Alabama's Christmas single "Angels Among Us".
• R. C. Bannon's only major hit was backing his then-wife, Louise Mandrell (Barbara's sister), on a cover of Peaches & Herb's "Reunited" in 1979. The two had many other collaborations, and Bannon had a handful of solo singles, but none were as well-known. He was more successful as a songwriter.
• Bobby Bare Jr. had only one hit: the 1973 single "Daddy What If", recorded with his father Bobby Bare (see also the "Bill Parsons" example on the Rock subpage) when the younger Bare was only 5. He recorded one more single with his mother Jeannie, but it only got to #41. Interestingly, Bare Jr. went on to become an alternative rock artist in his adulthood and is now a member of indie stalwarts Guided by Voices.
• Benny Barnes, a former rhythm guitarist for George Jones, had the #2 hit "Poor Man's Riches" in 1956 and nothing else of note. His second single didn't chart until 1961, nor his third until 1977.
• Greg Bates had a Top 5 hit in late 2012-early 2013 with "Did It for the Girl". Bates got screwed over by his label's policy that albums are not released until the second single; said second single failed to make Top 40, and he ended up getting dropped. No other label has picked him up since.
• Jeff Bates (no relation) had a Top 10 hit right out of the gate with "The Love Song", but followups largely faltered. His third single, "Long, Slow Kisses", spent a then extremely long 38 weeks on the charts but still only barely cracked top 20.
• Tucker Beathard, son of Nashville songwriter Casey Beathard (and brother of San Francisco 49ers quarterback C. J. Beathard), had a big hit in 2016 with "Rock On" due to it being part of the iHeartMedia "On the Verge" program. The label usually only releases albums on the second single, but the second single's failure, combined with a restructure that eliminated the division he was signed to, cut him off entirely.
• Actress/model Barbi Benton, best known for her appearances on Hee Haw, was also a prolific singer for Playboy Records (yes, it was a division of Playboy magazine, which she appeared in regularly). She had only one chart hit with "Brass Buckles" in 1975.
• Natasha Bedingfield is not a one-hit wonder at pop, but at country, her only success was backing Rascal Flatts on the #3 hit "Easy" in 2011.
• Stephanie Bentley was the duet vocalist on Ty Herndon's 1995 "Heart Half Empty", and while she later released her own album on Epic Records (the same label Ty was signed to at the time), it failed to produce any further hits. She was previously heard singing backing vocals on Pam Tillis' 1992 hit "Shake the Sugar Tree"^note Bentley sang the demo, and Pam and her producer liked it so much that they just had Pam sing over it, and later had songwriting success with Faith Hill's "Breathe" and Martina McBride's "Concrete Angel".
• Jeanne Black's only country chart entry was "He'll Have to Stay", an Answer Song to Jim Reeves's "He'll Have to Go". The song reached Top 10 on the Country and Hot 100 charts, and #11 on the R & B charts.
• Lisa Hartman Black: Mainly an actress, she got Advertised Extra credit for singing backing vocals on her husband Clint Black's late-1999 chart-topper "When I Said I Do". The two had other collaborations but none fared as well.
• Thom Bresh had an unexpected hit in 1976 with the independent release "Homemade Love". While he later signed to ABC Records, none of his other work was successful. However, he was somewhat well-known as an actor, stuntman, and impersonator.
• Blue County: Actor and former Christian singer Aaron Benward paired up with soap actor Scott Reeves to form this duo, which accounted for the #11 hit "Good Little Girls". Followups failed and a second album never materialized, so both returned to acting.
• James Bonamy had a #2 hit in 1996 with "I Don't Think I Will" but none of his other songs were successful.
• Bon Jovi is an extremely famous band with multiple hits on rock and pop, Jennifer Nettles has had several hits as half of Sugarland, but their 2006 chart-topping collaboration "Who Says You Can't Go Home" became the former's only major hit on the country charts, and the latter's only major hit independently of her duo. While Bon Jovi released other songs to country, none fared nearly as well. After Sugarland went on hiatus in 2011, both members released solo side projects; this resulted in Sugarland's other member Kristian Bush also becoming a one-hit wonder with his 2014 release "Trailer Hitch" before the two reunited in 2018.
• The Oak Ridge Boys are by no means a one-hit wonder at country or pop ("Elvira" and "Bobbie Sue" both crossed over), but longtime tenor vocalist Joe Bonsall is. As "Cat Joe Bonsall", he backed Sawyer Brown on their 1986 hit "Out Goin' Cattin'", which reached #11 on the country charts.
• Debby Boone — the daughter of 1950s pop singer Pat Boone and granddaughter of early country pioneer Red Foley (Pat's father-in-law) — hit #1 on the Hot 100 for ten consecutive weeks in 1977 with "You Light Up My Life" before vanishing into obscurity. Boone would have a few more successes on the Billboard Hot Country Singles chart, including a #1 hit with 1980's "Are You On the Road to Loving Me Again", although none are as remembered.
• Larry Boone (no relation), despite recording five major-label albums between 1986 and 1993, had only one hit with "Don't Give Candy to a Stranger" in 1988. He was far more successful as a songwriter, in particular for Tracy Lawrence.
• Bobby Borchers, another Playboy Records artist, had only one hit, with 1977's disco-flavored "Cheap Perfume and Candlelight" peaking at #7. Interestingly, he was also the first artist to record "What a Way to Go", later Covered Up by also-one-hit-wonder Ray Kennedy. Borchers also wrote Tanya Tucker's hits "The Jamestown Ferry" and "Texas (When I Die)".
• Season 7 The Voice winner Craig Wayne Boyd had a #1 country hit in January 2015 with "My Baby's Got a Smile on Her Face", but this was due entirely to a download spike during a slow week; the song fell off the charts entirely after only one week, and was never even sent out to radio. That being said, some of his covers from the show charted beforehand. Not long after its release, Boyd asked out of his record deal for fear of Executive Meddling.
• Don Bowman had only one hit in his career with the novelty song "Chit Atkins, Make Me a Star", which hit #14. He was better known as a radio host (he hosted American Country Countdown before its most famous host, Bob Kingsley), cult comedy figure, and songwriter (Jim Stafford's 1974 pop Top 10 "Wildwood Weed" and Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson's 1982 duet No. 1 "Just to Satisfy You").
• Danielle Bradbery, the Season 4 winner of The Voice, had a hit in 2013 with her debut release "The Heart of Dixie", but struggled to get any more hits afterward.
• Terry Bradshaw, the legendary quarterback for the Pittsburgh Steelers, had a short-lived country music career, scoring a hit with his take on Hank Williams' "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry" before returning his focus back to football (aside from an appearance on The Masked Singer.)
• Walter Brennan is primarily known as an actor - he's one of only a handful of actors to ever win three Oscars - but he had a big country and pop hit in 1962 with "Old Rivers". He had a few other minor hits on the pop charts although he never troubled the country charts again.
• Jim Brickman is a very prolific pianist with a host of hits on the AC charts, but his only major entry on the country charts was backing Martina McBride on the #9 hit "Valentine". The song had already released to the AC format in 1997, and curiosity spins on country radio spurred by McBride's involvement led to it being issued as a single from one of her albums the following year.
• Lane Brody is known almost entirely for her duet vocals on Johnny Lee's 1984 chart-topper "The Yellow Rose", a rewrite of the old standard "The Yellow Rose of Texas" which was the theme song to the short-lived NBC soap opera The Yellow Rose.
• Karen Brooks: Another female singer whose only hit was a duet with someone more famous: namely, T.G. Sheppard, on the #1 hit "Faking Love" in 1983.
• Michael Bublé is by no means a one-hit wonder at pop, adult contemporary, or jazz, but in 2005, he appeared on the Canadian country chart with "Home". Blake Shelton would later have the more popular version for country music audiences in 2008, and would later record a re-written Christmas version with Bublé which made the U.S. country music charts in 2012.
• The Buffalo Club hit Top 10 in 1997 with "If She Don't Love You", but the band fizzled out in less than a year: the next two singles tanked, one of the members quit before the third, and the label closed with The Buffalo Club being their only chart success. The quitting member was then-former Restless Heart drummer John Dittrich, who would later return to that band.
• George Burns released a record in 1980 called "I Wish I Was Eighteen Again", which was a moderate crossover hit. The song made the then-84-year old actor/comedian the oldest artist ever to score a Top 40 country hit, a record that stands to this day.
• Carl Butler and Pearl are known almost entirely for their 1962 chart topper "Don't Let Me Cross Over". The song was also recorded seven years later by Jerry Lee Lewis and his sister Linda Gail Lewis. While Jerry Lee was immensely popular on both pop and country, his success didn't boost his sister's career any.
• Sarah Buxton has a large catalog of songwriting and backing vocalist credits, along with one solo album whose highest single only got to #23. As an Advertised Extra on David Nail's 2011 hit "Let It Rain", she went all the way to #1 before returning to songwriting.
• Cam had a big hit in 2015 with "Burning House", which went to #2 thanks to iHeartMedia's "On the Verge" program. Follow-up "Mayday" stalled out at #39 (having been Covered Up by A Cappella country group Home Free), and Cam has not hit Top 40 since. A cover of "Burning House" was also the only chart hit that same year for Emily Ann Roberts, the Season 9 The Voice runner-up, whose rendition got to #4 based on post-show downloads (although it got no airplay).
• Craig Campbell's only major hit was "Keep Them Kisses Comin'" in 2014. In a strange inversion of Network to the Rescue, his label Bigger Picture Music Group closed when the song was in the mid-teens, so he spent several weeks calling in requests to radio stations by himself in order to push it into the Top 10. While he did get picked up by another label, he was unable to replicate that song's success.
• If you know Henson Cargill for anything, it's for the 1968 Protest Song "Skip a Rope", his only #1 hit and only Top 40 hit on the Hot 100, which was notable as the first big country hit to explicitly condemn racism. His other Top 10 hit, "None of My Business", has fallen into obscurity.
• Bob Carlisle and the Raybon Brothers were both one-hit wonders with the same song at the same time: the 1997 hit "Butterfly Kisses". Marty Raybon, recording with his brother Tim at the time, had just left his role as the lead singer of Shenandoah (which he would later rejoin), while Carlisle previously had several hits on the Christian charts. This happened more often in the 1950s, when record labels released competing versions of popular songs tailored to different audiences, but in 1997, Bob Carlisle's popular radio song was very hard to find because he personally chose to only release the CD single to Christian media stores. This helped sales of the Raybon Brothers' cover, because it was simply easier to find. The result? While Carlisle's original version of the song was a Top 10 pop airplay smash then and the better remembered version now, it didn't make the Hot 100 and only the Raybon Brothers' version charted, peaking at #22.
• Highway 101 is not a one-hit wonder, but after lead singer Paulette Carlson quit in 1991, her only solo success was with "I'll Start with You". (She had released a few solo singles before Highway 101, but none were successful.) The song was later used in advertisements for the retail chain Canadian Tire in the early noughties.
• Kenny Chesney is by no means an example, but many of his collaborators have been.
  • 2008's "Everybody Wants to Go to Heaven" credited The Wailers for singing the last chorus, even though their part was cut from the radio edit. Obviously, Bob Marley and the Wailers are reggae legends, but this was their only visit to the country music charts.
  • The next single after "Everybody Wants to Go to Heaven" was "Down the Road", a duet with the song's writer and original artist Mac McAnally, which also topped the country charts. Mac had previously been a one-hit wonder on the pop charts with "It's a Crazy World" in 1977. While he had a top-20 country hit in 1990 with "Back Where I Come From", that song also came to be more associated with Chesney, who recorded it on two different albums and sang it in concert for many years. Despite his lack of long-term chart success, Mac has a large number of solo albums. He also has several credits as a songwriter, producer, and session musician, and he is a member of Jimmy Buffett's Coral Reefer Band.
  • Dave Matthews has had several hits as the leader of the Dave Matthews Band. But on his own, his only hit was accompanying Kenny Chesney on the 2009 release "I'm Alive".
• The Clark Family Experience, a band consisting of six brothers whose names all began with the letter A, had a hit in 2000 with "Meanwhile Back at the Ranch", but Executive Meddling from their label stalled their album and ultimately resulted in them filing for bankruptcy and disbanding. Three of the brothers later won FOX's The Next Great American Band as The Clark Brothers, and later renamed themselves Sons of Sylvia. Although they appeared on a Carrie Underwood album cut, Sons of Sylvia never notched any hits of its own and broke up. Ashley Clark attempted a solo career in 2015, but his label closed before he could release anything.
• Anita Cochran had a #1 hit in late 1997-early 1998 with "What If I Said", a duet with Steve Wariner. Wariner had several other hits dating to the winter of 1981, but hadn't touched the charts in nearly three years when this was released. This song was part of a brief late-90s Career Resurrection for Wariner, but Cochran never made Top 40 again.
• Tammy Cochran (no relation) had only one big hit with her 2001 ballad "Angels in Waiting", which hit #9 in late 2001-early 2002. Two other singles hit Top 20, but neither is as remembered.
• Kellie Coffey had a big Top 10 debut in 2002 with "When You Lie Next to Me", but all follow-ups withered, and her second album was never even released due to Executive Meddling.
• Shirley Collie, who was briefly Willie Nelson's wife and bass player, had only one hit: a duet with him on "Willingly", Nelson's first chart entry, which hit #10 in 1962.
• Brian Collins had only one hit, with his 1974 cover of Jack Greene's "Statue of a Fool" at #10.
• Jessi Colter is known almost exclusively for her 1975 hit "I'm Not Lisa", and for her longterm marriage to Waylon Jennings. Although she had two more Top 10 hits ("What's Happened to Blue Eyes" and a duet version of "Suspicious Minds" with Waylon), neither is remembered.
• Randy Cornor was a sideman for Gene Watson and Freddy Fender, but had only one hit of his own with "Sometimes I Talk in My Sleep" (written by a then-unknown Eddy Raven) in 1975.
• Orville Couch had a #5 hit in 1962 with "Hello Trouble" and was never heard from again. The song was Covered Up in 1989 by the Desert Rose Band, who had many other hits.
• Dick Curless was an eyepatch-wearing singer based in Maine who recorded "A Tombstone Every Mile", a trucker's anthem about winter driving in northern Maine, in 1965 and released it on a small local label. It eventually broke nationally and hit the country Top 10. He sustained a minor career specializing in trucking songs afterwards, with a bit of a cult following, but he never had another sizable hit.
• Sonny Curtis, who took over as leader of The Crickets after Buddy Holly's death, had multiple minor chart entries, but the only one that was an actual hit was 1981's "Good Ol' Girls" at #15. He also wrote and recorded "Love Is All Around", the theme to The Mary Tyler Moore Show, but it was not a major chart hit. However, Curtis has also had a long career as a performer and songwriter, most notably for "I Fought the Law".
• Miley Cyrus is by no means a one-hit wonder at pop. But at country, her only hit was backing her father, Billy Ray Cyrus, on the #4 hit "Ready, Set, Don't Go" in 2008. The song was originally a solo release by the elder Cyrus, but was re-recorded and re-released as a duet partway through its chart run. Her only other entry on the country music charts was "The Climb", which only got to #25 on the country charts but fared much better at pop.

D - G

• Davis Daniel had a hit in 1991 with "For Crying Out Loud", but a series of label mergers (the same ones that affected the aforementioned 4 Runner) stalled his second and third albums, and with them, any chance of building another hit.
• Clay Davidson had a #3 hit in 2000 with "Unconditional", but any further success was stalled by the closure of Virgin Records' Nashville division followed by a major tour bus accident.
• Danny Davis and the Nashville Brass scraped the bottom of the charts with several cover songs, played on a lot of Chet Atkins sessions and performed the theme song for Speed Racer. However, their only major impact on the country charts was a featured credit on Willie Nelson's 1980 single "Night Life".
  • Danny Davis' 1987 minor solo hit "Green Eyes (Cryin' Those Blue Tears)" featured credited vocals from Dona Mason, who had her only chart entry with the song. Mason is notable as being the last African American woman to appear on the Billboard Country chart until the 20-year gap was broken by Rissi Palmer's "Country Girl" in 2007.
• The Davis Sisters (not to be confused with the gospel group) had a #1 country and #18 pop hit with "I Forgot More Than You'll Ever Know" in The '50s, and absolutely no other chart action. Betty Jack Davis died in a car crash right after the single's release, and the other member (Skeeter Davis, who wasn't actually Betty Jack's sister) briefly recorded with Georgia Davis, who was Betty Jack's sister. This arrangement didn't work out, so Skeeter went on to have several solo hits.
• Linda Davis is known almost exclusively for her duet vocals on Reba McEntire's "Does He Love You", which went to #1 in 1993. She is also known for being the mother of Lady A member Hillary Scott. In 2016, Davis became a one-hit wonder a second time as one-fourth of The Scott Family, a one-time collaboration of Davis, husband Lang Scott, the aforementioned Hillary Scott, and her sister Rylee. This entity topped the Christian charts that year with "Thy Will" but released no other material.
• Cole Deggs & the Lonesome were one-and-done with their 2007 hit "I Got More". However, frontman Cole Degges (he altered the spelling of his name while in the band) has had a few songwriting hits for other artists.
• Martin Delray was one-and-done with a cover of Johnny Cash's "Get Rhythm", featuring an uncredited vocal from the Man in Black himself, in 1991. He retired from singing after a second album failed, and was last known to be working as a tennis instructor.
• Kevin Denney had a hit in 2002 with "That's Just Jessie", but his only other single never made it past #30 and a second album never materialized due to label management changes. His only subsequent work was co-writing Craig Morgan's 2009 hit "Bonfire".
• Dottsy (her actual first name) had a #10 hit with "(After Sweet Memories) Play Born to Lose Again" but nothing else of note. She was also the first artist to record "The Sweetest Thing (I've Ever Known)", later Covered Up by Juice Newton.
• Guy Drake, a 65-year-old rural Kentucky odd-job laborer who'd never even recorded before, had a surprise hit in 1970 with "Welfare Cadilac" [sic], a spoken word satire of welfare recipients that climbed up to #6. The record generated a fair amount of controversy, most infamously when Richard Nixon asked Johnny Cash to perform the song at the White House and Cash refused. Drake (who served a brief jail sentence while the song was on the charts for passing a bad check) released one album and a handful of other singles, and pulled some publicity stunts like launching a presidential campaign, but quickly disappeared. He died in 1984.
• George Ducas had his only hit in 1995 with "Lipstick Promises". However, he was more successful as a songwriter.
• Catherine Dunn, a cousin of Tim McGraw, is very unlikely ever to have another hit other than her Advertised Extra backing vocals on his 2015 hit "Diamond Rings and Old Barstools", which went to #3. Dunn doesn't even have her own Wikipedia article.
• After Brooks & Dunn split up in 2011, both of its members maintained solo careers on the same label. Ronnie Dunn scored a Top 10 hit with "Bleed Red" but failed to follow up, and was abruptly dropped due to Executive Meddling. Dunn had a few solo releases before Brooks & Dunn, and a few featured credits during their heyday, but none were as successful.
• Eagles are by no means a one-hit wonder in pop and rock, but despite having significant crossover with the country music genre, their only single to get significant country radio airplay was the #8 peak of "Lyin' Eyes" in 1975. Similarly, Lead Drummer Don Henley has multiple solo chart singles at pop and rock, but his only success at country was backing Trisha Yearwood on her 1992 hit "Walkaway Joe".
• Sheena Easton is by no-means a one-hit wonder in pop and rock. But her only success on the country charts was the 1983 chart-topper "We've Got Tonight" with Kenny Rogers.
• Clint Eastwood is extremely famous as an actor, director, and politician, but as a singer, he only had one major hit: the 1980 chart-topper "Bar Room Buddies", a duet with Merle Haggard featured in Eastwood's movie Bronco Billy.
• Edens Edge had a hit in 2012 with "Amen", but the follow-up single stalled out, and a third single was never even released due to lead singer Hannah Blaylock abruptly quitting.
• Bobby Edwards and the Four Young Men are known solely for their hit "You're the Reason", which hit top 5 at country and top 15 on the Hot 100.
• Emilio, the mononym of Tejano singer Emilio Navaira, was one-and-done in country music with his 1995 hit "It's Not the End of the World". He remained more popular on the Latin charts until his 2016 death.
• Ralph Emery, a popular radio and TV host in the genre, had a hit with "Hello Fool" in 1961. The song was an Answer Song to Faron Young's "Hello Walls".
• Blake Emmons had a #9 hit on the RPM country charts in Canada with "Let Me Do Something Lord" in 1976. While he never had another hit, he found various television hosting gigs in both Canada and the US (most notably the 1986 revival of Chain Reaction).
• Ty England, a former guitarist for Garth Brooks, had a hit in 1995 with his debut single "Should've Asked Her Faster" but had nothing else of note.
• Jace Everett is known almost entirely for his 2005 single "Bad Things"... which didn't even chart upon initial release, but saw a re-popularization many years later when it was chosen as the Real Song Theme Tune for True Blood.
• Little Big Town is not a one-hit wonder at country or pop, as several of their singles have fared very well in the Top 40 of the pop charts due to strong sales. But member Karen Fairchild had exactly one hit in 2016 as a duet partner on Luke Bryan's #1 hit "Home Alone Tonight", which is the only noteworthy contribution to date for any individual member of the group.
• The Farm (aka The Farm Inc., to distinguish them from the British band of the same name on iTunes) had a hit in 2011 and 2012 with "Home Sweet Home". A second single barely cracked the charts, and a third came and went without anyone noticing. The band has some pedigree, though: Nick Hoffman was Kenny Chesney's fiddle player, Damien Horne was an alumnus of Big & Rich's songwriting team the MuzikMafia; and Krista Marie had previously been a solo singer.
• Ella Fitzgerald is surely not a one-hit wonder from a pop or jazz standpoint, but her only country hit was her take on the pop standard "When My Sugar Walks Down the Street", which hit #2 in 1944.
• Bobbie Gentry is known almost entirely for her 1967 hit "Ode to Billie Joe", which hit #1 on the Hot 100 and #17 on the country charts. Interestingly, her most successful country chart entries were covers of The Everly Brothers' "Let It Be Me" and "All I Have to Do Is Dream" both done with Glen Campbell, which failed to displace the originals in the public conscuiousness. Her next most-famous song, "Fancy", has been Covered Up by Reba McEntire.
• Billy Gibbons is certainly not a one-hit wonder as one-third of the rock trio ZZ Top. But his only solo contribution is backing Brooks & Dunn on their last single, "Honky Tonk Stomp" in 2009.
• Terri Gibbs had a crossover smash in 1981 with "Somebody's Knockin'". The song got to #8 country, #13 pop, and #3 AC, and won her the first-ever Horizon (now New Artist) award from the Country Music Association, but follow-ups tanked. She moved to Christian music to little success, and retired in the 90's.
• Eric Church is nowhere close to a one-hit wonder, but Rhiannon Giddens, his duet partner on his late 2016-early 2017 hit "Kill a Word", is unlikely to have any more country hits because she normally doesn't perform in that genre. (In a bizarre subversion of Advertised Extra, the album version featured her and independent pop singer Andrea Davidson on backing vocals, but the radio edit turned it into a true duet by giving Giddens a few lines to herself.) She's better known as the frontwoman for the Americana group Carolina Chocolate Drops, for a critically acclaimed solo career that largely brings her airplay on adult alternative radio, and for her opera Omar, which won her the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 2023.
• Billy Gilman had a hit in late 2000-early 2001 with the ballad "One Voice", making him the youngest solo male artist to enter the country charts (the aforementioned Bobby Bare Jr. being the youngest overall). The novelty quickly wore off and none of his other material made any impact, but he continued to record well into adulthood. He later appeared on the eleventh season of The Voice, where he finished as the runner-up.
• Girls Next Door, a rare Girl Group in country music, had a Top 10 hit in 1986 with "Slow Boat to China". Their career was stunted by their label (MTM Records; yes, MTM as in Mary Tyler Moore's production company) closing partway through the release of their second album.
• Gloriana had a massive top 5 hit in 2011/2012 with "(Kissed You) Good Night", their first release after the departure of occasional lead vocalist Cheyenne Kimball (who has her own entry on the Pop subpage), but nothing else before or after her departure seemed to catch on. While their debut single "Wild at Heart" made some initial buzz, it was quickly forgotten.
• Billy Grammer had a hit with "Gotta Travel On", which went to #5 country and #4 pop in 1959, but nothing else took off. However, his cover of Lawrence Reynolds' "Jesus Is a Soul Man" (see the Pop subpage for his entry) was a Top 5 country hit in Canada in 1969. Grammer also recorded a version of "Detroit City" that for a time was better known than Bobby Bare's 1963 hit version; his was known as "I Wanna Go Home."
• Jack Grayson and Blackjack hit the charts in 1981 with a cover of Percy Sledge's "When a Man Loves a Woman" and that was it. However, Jack Grayson was more successful as a songwriter, having written three hit singles for Freddie Hart.
• Pat Green, though popular in his native Texas since the mid-90s, managed only one big airplay hit on country radio with the #3 "Wave on Wave" in late 2003-early 2004. He had a few other songs reach Top 40, including "Feels Just Like It Should" and "Let Me", which both fell just short of the Top 10, but "Wave on Wave" remains the only song by which most people outside Texas would recognize him. As with most other Texas-based artists, he has remained popular in his home state but largely unknown in the other 49.
• Jack Greene is no one-hit wonder on country radio, but his breakout smash "There Goes My Everything" was his only pop crossover hit.
• Lee Greenwood had numerous hits on country radio in the '80s, but outside that audience he's known for only one song — "God Bless the USA". While it wasn't his biggest hit on country radio upon its initial release in 1984, seventeen years later the patriotic ode the United States was re-released following the 9/11 attacks. Interest in the song shot up, and it reached #16 on the Hot 100. Naturally he never charted anywhere again. In fact, most younger country fans today probably only know him for that song.
• Terry Gregory was one and done with her 1981 hit "Just Like Me", an unexpected top-20 hit from a small independent label. While she later recorded for the much bigger Scotti Brothers label, her later material didn't fare as well.
• Bonnie Guitar is only remembered by mainstream audiences for her cover of pop-standard "Dark Moon", although she had a few other hits on country radio.
• Mickey Guyton had but one chart hit in the US with her 2015 single "Better Than You Left Me". While she has continued to record, nothing else has taken off. However, her profile was raised considerably in 2020 and 2021 when her non-charting single "Black Like Me" was nominated for a Grammy, leading her to host and perform on several awards shows.

H - L

• The Harden Trio released "Tippy Toeing" in 1966 but never had any other hits. After they broke up, member Arlene Harden became a one-hit wonder in her own right four years later with her gender-flipped cover of Roy Orbison's "Oh, Pretty Woman", titled "Lovin' Man (Oh Pretty Woman)".
• Jennifer Hanson, who was previously voted Miss California in 1994 and is married to Nashville songwriter Mark Nesler, had only one hit with "Beautiful Goodbye" in 2002. After failing to score another hit, she turned to songwriting.
• Trent Harmon had a top 20 hit with "There's a Girl" in 2016, following his win on the fifteenth season of American Idol. As that show was running on fumes by this point, his win made very little noise, as did his sole album.
• Rod Hart had an odd hit in 1976 with "C.B. Savage", about a Camp Gay Double Entendre-laden voice that two truckers hear on the CB radio before realizing that it's actually a policeman affecting the voice to distract them from the fact that he's caught them. After the novelty wore off, Hart was never heard from again.
• Heartland is one of the few acts to have a #1 country hit but no other songs that even entered the top 40: specifically, their 2006 smash "I Loved Her First". Although it was the first Top 40 hit for their entire label, and it made them only the second country band ever to send a debut single to #1, their label's inexperience with Top 40 radio and indecision over what the next single should be stopped them in their tracks. The band later scored a second Top 10 hit in 2015… with a re-entry of the same song, which had a momentary surge due to a viral video in which a man translates the song into sign language at a wedding.
• Eric Heatherly had a Top 10 hit in 2000 with his rockabilly-flavored take on The Statler Brothers' "Flowers on the Wall", but management changes at his label blunted his first album and prevented the release of his second. He moved to DreamWorks Records, where yet another album never got released, and still continues to record occasionally to this day.
• The Henningsens had a Top 20 hit in 2012 with "American Beautiful" but their only other single stopped at #36 and the label dropped them without ever releasing a full album. However, the members wrote singles for Highway 101, The Band Perry, and Billy Currington among others.
• James House, despite recording for three different labels in his life, having album cuts of his Covered Up by The Mavericks and Trisha Yearwood, and writing songs for the likes of Martina McBride, Dwight Yoakam, and Diamond Rio, is known only for one hit: "This Is Me Missing You", which hit Top 10 in 1995.
• Julianne Hough's only success at country radio was 2008's "That Song in My Head". She had one abruptly canceled single for a second album, and gave up singing in favor of focusing on her work with Dancing with the Stars.
• Rebecca Lynn Howard had a #12 hit in 2002 with "Forgive" but never saw Top 40 again. She tried to follow it up for several years on 4 different labels, racking up three unreleased albums in the process. She was also a one-hit wonder on the AC charts, as the featured vocalist on Jim Brickman's "Simple Things".
• Red Ingle, a novelty country singer, had a popular hit in 1947 with "Tim-Tay-Shun", a parody of the Perry Como hit "Temptation", which hit #2 on Country and #1 on Pop. None of his other singles ever went anywhere on any chart.
• Autry Inman's only major hit came from "That's All Right" in 1953. His 1968 song "Ballad of Two Brothers" was a minor pop hit, however.
• Casey James, a finalist on Season 9 of American Idol, had a hit in 2011 with "Crying on a Suitcase", but followups went nowhere. It probably didn't help matters that his label closed in the middle of the song's chart run.
• the JaneDear girls (yes, that was really how they capitalized their name) had a #15 hit on Hot Country Songs with "Wildflower" in 2010, but broke up almost immediately afterward. Member Danelle Leverett (aka Nelly Joy) joined Colbie Caillat's country side project Gone West in 2019.
• Shooter Jennings, the son of country music legend Waylon Jennings, had just one country chart entry with "4th of July", a duet with George Jones that made it to #26 in 2005. Shooter subsequently released a string of well-selling and critically acclaimed alt-country albums, but he never made the country singles chart again.
• Jewel is not a one-hit wonder at pop, but at country, she was one-and-done with "Stronger Woman" in 2008.
• The Mavericks are not one-hit wonders, but their 1996 single "All You Ever Do Is Bring Me Down" gave chart credit to the accordion solos performed by Tejano musician Flaco Jiménez, who has no other chart entries of note.
• Jamey Johnson is known almost entirely for "In Color", from late 2008-early 2009. (A previous release, "The Dollar", made #14 in 2005, but it was quickly forgotten due to a combination of Early-Installment Weirdness and a label restructure that killed the corresponding album.) Despite his lack of chart success, he has recorded several critically acclaimed albums, and has written hits for George Strait, Trace Adkins, and Joe Nichols among others.
• Lois Johnson, despite touring with Hank Williams Jr. in The '70s, had only one big hit with "Loving You Will Never Grow Old", at #6 in 1974.
• Anthony Armstrong Jones built his career almost entirely on cover songs, but only one of them was a hit: namely, his 1970 take on R. B. Greaves' "Take a Letter Maria".
• David Lynn Jones hit #10 in 1987 with his debut single "Bonnie Jean (Little Sister)" (about his real-life sister who was a truck driver), but none of his other singles made any impact. However, he also wrote Willie Nelson's #1 hit "Living in the Promiseland".
• George Jones is by no means a one-hit wonder, but many of his collaborators have been:
  • Jeanette Hicks sang duet vocals on his 1957 hit "Yearning", which went to #10. Hicks has become so obscure that she doesn't even get her own listing in Joel Whitburn's Hot Country Songs books (which list every artist who ever made the country charts alphabetically).
  • Brenda Carter's only hit was backing him on "Milwaukee, Here I Come" in 1968. Carter never charted again.
  • His 1974 single "The Telephone Call" was the only credited chart single for his then-stepdaughter Tina Byrd (and she is actually credited as "stepdaughter Tina" on the recording). However, Tina had recorded other songs with her mother (and Jones's then-wife), Tammy Wynette.
• Grandpa Jones, one of many regulars on Hee Haw, had his only hit in 1962 with "T for Texas".
• Toby Keith is by no means a one-hit wonder, but many of his collaborators have been:
  • In 1997, he coverd Sting's "I'm So Happy I Can't Stop Crying" as a duet with Sting himself. While Sting has had several pop hits both by himself and in The Police, this was his only visit to the country charts. Interestingly, the duet version also outpeaked the original on the Hot 100.
  • Keith's frequent writing partner Scotty Emerick made his only visit to the country Top 40 in 2003 with "I Can't Take You Anywhere", previously recorded by Keith in 2002 and featuring him on guest vocals. Emerick continued to write for both Keith and others, but had no other hits as a singer.
  • In 2004, Keith released a cover of Inez and Charlie Foxx's "Mockingbird" as a duet with his then-19-year-old daughter Krystal Keith. While Krystal later began her own singing career in The New '10s, nothing else she put out made a dent.
• Josh Kelley, brother of Lady A's Charles Kelley and husband of actress Katherine Heigl, had a few minor hits on the AC charts but was one-and-done in country with his 2011 hit "Georgia Clay".
• Ray Kennedy hit #10 in late 1990-early 1991 with a cover of the aforementioned Bobby Borchers song "What a Way to Go" but never saw Top 40 again. However, he has had more success as a Record Producer, usually working with Steve Earle as the "Twang Trust".
• The only Top 10 hit for The Kentucky Headhunters was their 1990 cover of Don Gibson's "Oh Lonesome Me", although they are far better known for its predcessor "Dumas Walker" which only got to #15. Brothers Ricky Lee and Doug Phelps (respectively the lead vocalist and bassist) quit after the second album to form Brother Phelps, whose only chart hit was the #6 "Let Go" in 1993. They split up after a second album, and Doug rejoined the Headhunters.
• The Kimberlys, two brothers who were married to two sisters, were featured on Waylon Jennings' 1969 album Country-Folk, and notably backed him on its cover of "MacArthur Park" (see also Richard Harris on the Pop subpage). Although it won both acts that year's Grammy Award for Best Country Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal, the Kimberlys were never heard from again.
• The Kinleys, identical twin sisters Heather and Jennifer Kinley, had a Top 10 hit right out of the gate with the ballad "Please" in late 1997-early 1998, but were unable to repeat the feat.
• Pee Wee King had several country hits, but his 1951 #1 pop smash "Slow Poke" was his only crossover hit. His more famous composition "Tennessee Waltz" found more success after being covered by other artists, though it was a big hit from him on country.
• The King Sisters had several pop hits in The '30s and The '40s, but their only country chart entry was a cover of Merle Travis's "Divorce Me C.O.D." in 1946.
• Alison Krauss & Union Station is a curious example. Despite being one of the most critically acclaimed country groups of the 1990s, they were also primarily a bluegrass band, and that genre hardly gets any airplay on country radio at all. Their only major hit on the format was their their 1995 cover of Keith Whitley's "When You Say Nothing at All", an unexpected hit from a tribute album to him. Krauss herself has had three hits independently of her band, albeit as a featured artist each time: on Shenandoah's 1995 hit "Somewhere in the Vicinity of the Heart", which immediately preceded "When You Say Nothing at All" on the charts; Kenny Rogers' 2000 chart-topper "Buy Me a Rose", which also featured non-one-hit wonder Billy Dean; and Brad Paisley's 2004 hit "Whiskey Lullaby". In addition to all of these, Krauss holds many more credits as a backing vocalist.
• Kris Kristofferson, although an acclaimed songwriter and successful actor, had only one major hit on any chart as a singer: the #1 hit "Why Me" in 1973. Kristofferson later became a one-hit wonder a second time as one-fourth of The Highwaymen, a supergroup consisting of him, Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, and Willie Nelson (none of whom are by any means one-hit wonders in their own right) which had its only major hit in 1985 with "Highwayman". Interestingly, Kristofferson also wrote several other entries on this list, including "One Day at a Time", "Help Me Make It Through the Night", and "Lovin' Her Was Easier".
• Blaine Larsen had a hit in late 2004-early 2005 with "How Do You Get That Lonely", but had no other success despite releasing two albums and multiple singles for what would've been a third. The only thing he's really done since is write George Strait's "I Gotta Get to You".
• Comedian/actress Vicki Lawrence, better known for her roles on The Carol Burnett Show and Mama's Family, had a major pop and country hit with non-comedic song "The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia". None of her other releases went anywhere, and "Georgia" was later Covered Up by Reba McEntire.
• English singer Leapy Lee had only one hit with "Little Arrows" in 1968, which hit #11 on the country charts and #16 on the pop charts. It also topped the Canadian country music charts, and went to #2 in both England and Australia.
• Chris LeDoux, a rodeo star and singer-songwriter, had been recording and sporadically charting since the 1970s. His only hit was "Whatcha Gonna Do with a Cowboy", a 1992 duet with (an uncredited) Garth Brooks, which went to #7. LeDoux has a large catalog of popular songs, but only one other cut of his ("Cadillac Ranch", which came right after "Whatcha Gonna Do with a Cowboy") made even Top 40. Despite his lack of chart success, LeDoux is well-known in both rodeo and country music circles; he has a large catalog of well-known songs far surpassing their low chart showings, and he was well-known enough to be name-dropped by Garth in his debut single "Much Too Young (To Feel This Damn Old)" (and memorialized after his 2005 death with Garth's tribute song "Good Ride Cowboy").
• Zella Lehr was a Hee Haw regular who began recording for RCA Records in 1977. For her debut single she did a Cover Version of "Two Doors Down", a song that fellow RCA artist Dolly Parton wrote and recorded earlier that year for her Here You Come Again album. Lehr's version was a smash, hitting #7. She had some low-key success after that, with eight Top 40 country hits, but no other Top 10s. Not long after Lehr's "Two Doors Down" peaked, Parton recorded a new version aimed at the pop market. While it became a Top 40 pop hit, country radio eagerly played it as well, and the net effect was Parton having Covered Up Lehr's version, which is quite obscure today. Lehr eventually moved to Reno, Nevada, where she became a regular casino performer and ran her own dinner theatre for a while.
• Aaron Lines, yet another Canadian more successful in his homeland than stateside. He hit #4 in late 2002-early 2003 with "You Can't Hide Beautiful", but his only other two chart entries stateside barely scraped top 40.
• Little Texas is not a one-hit wonder, but both of their frontmen have been involved in this:
  • Lead singer Tim Rushlow embarked on a solo career in 2000, but just as his song "She Misses Him" reached #8, Atlantic Records closed its Nashville division. An indie label picked up his album and issued two more singles, but they went nowhere. He became a one-hit wonder a second time leading the band Rushlow, which had a Top 20 hit in 2003 with "I Can't Be Your Friend" before a label restructure killed their momentum. Tim later released two singles with cousin and former Rushlow bandmate Doni Harris as Rushlow Harris, but neither hit Top 40 and the two broke up. As for the other members of Rushlow? Tully Kennedy, Kurt Allison, and Rich Redmond joined Jason Aldean's road band (which, along with David Fanning, performs double duty as the Record Producer team New Voice Entertainment), while Billy Welch joined Jake Owen's road band.
  • Keyboardist Brady Seals had a couple of minor chart entries after leaving Little Texas in 1995. He became a true one-hit wonder as the lead singer of Hot Apple Pie, who had a hit with "Hillbillies" in 2005 before DreamWorks Records' closure blunted their momentum. Seals has largely recorded independently since.
• Demi Lovato is far from a one-hit wonder in pop, but their only country music chart entry was as a duet vocalist on Brad Paisley's 2016 single "Without a Fight".
• Lyle Lovett had only one major chart hit, 1986's "Cowboy Man". His quirky, idiosyncratic brand of alt-country made him lucky to have even that one hit. Over on the rock charts, he also only has a single major hit: "You've Been So Good Up to Now" in 1992. The only chart where he has more than one big hit is adult alternative, where he's had five entries. Pop culture knows him more for his big hair and his short-lived marriage to Julia Roberts than for his music.
• The Lost Trailers are known almost entirely for their 2008 hit "Holler Back". Their other claim to fame is that they were the first act to record "Chicken Fried" before Zac Brown Band's version became a chart-topping debut; the Trailers version was withdrawn just as it got released, due to the Trailers' label ignoring Zac Brown's request that the band not release it as a single.

M - R

• Henry Mancini is by no means a one-hit wonder as a film composer, with multiple notable hits such as the "Pink Panther" theme and "Love Theme from Romeo and Juliet". But at country, his only hit was backing Charley Pride on the 1972 release "All His Children", the theme which Mancini composed and produced for the film of Ken Kesey's Sometimes a Great Notion.
• Much like C. W. McCall below, Jay Huguely was an advertising executive who wanted to take advantage of the CB radio craze of The '70s. Asked one day to incorporate C.B. jargon into a jingle, he purchased a citizen's band radio, listened for awhile and took notes ... and after writing his jingle came up with a musical monologue called "The White Knight". Recording under the Punny Name Cledus Maggard and the Citizen's Band, he took the comic tale about a truck driver suckered into a corrupt highway patrolman's speed trap (full of mid-70s C.B. jargon) to #1 on the country charts and top 20 of the pop charts. Nothing else he put out afterward made top 40 in either chart, though one of his later singles, "Virgil and the $300 Vacation", became a recurring Dr. Demento Show favorite. Reverting back to his real name, Huguely (no relation to modern actor Jay Huguley) eventually moved to Hollywood, becoming a writer and producer on Magnum, P.I. and co-writing, of all things, Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday.
• Brad Martin was one of two out-of nowhere, traditionally-minded singers who had a hit in 2002 (the aforementioned Kevin Denney being the other). Martin hit #15 with "Before I Knew Better" and completely disappeared afterward, outside a very brief stint with the duo Martin Ramey in 2008.
• Shane McAnally (no relation to Mac McAnally) had his only top 40 hit as a singer with "Are Your Eyes Still Blue" in 1999. After going away for several years, he resurfaced as a prominent Nashville songwriter and producer in The New '10s, working with artists such as Kacey Musgraves, Sam Hunt, and Old Dominion.
• C. W. McCall was originally a truck driver character created for a series of Old Home bread commercials by Omaha, Nebraska advertising executive William Fries, with Fries himself doing the proto-Country Rap narration for the spots. Eventually Fries adopted the McCall persona, and with writer-producer Chip Davis (future founder of Mannheim Steamroller) recorded several albums worth of spoken-word songs about trucking and life on the road. While McCall did decently on the country charts, with nine Top 40 hits, far and away his biggest success was "Convoy." The CB-jargon laced song about rebellious truck drivers frustrated with paying tolls and various other restrictions topped both the country and pop charts in January 1976, and even reached #2 in Britain later in the year. He only scored one other Top 10 country hit (the sentimental "Roses for Mama" a year later), and his only other brush with the pop Top 40, 1975's "Wolf Creek Pass", peaked at #40. After retiring from music, McCall served under his real name as the mayor of Ouray, Colorado.
• Brian McComas is known entirely for his late-2003 hit "99.9% Sure (I've Never Been Here Before)", but a label restructure killed his first album while also keeping his second one in the vaults.
• Richie McDonald had several hits as the lead singer of Lonestar, but on his own, his only hit was as an Advertised Extra on Mindy McCready's 1996 hit "Maybe He'll Notice Her Now".
• Pake McEntire, the oldest brother of country superstar Reba McEntire, had only one hit, with 1986's "Savin' My Love for You".
• Mark McGuinn had a dark-horse hit in 2001 with "Mrs. Steven Rudy", but was unable to follow up strongly due to being on a very small independent label that closed up soon afterward. However, he also wrote Lonestar's 2002 hit "Unusually Unusual".
• Roger McGuinn (no relation) and Chris Hillman are best known as members of The Byrds, with Hillman having also been a member of the Flying Burrito Brothers and the Desert Rose Band, among others. But on their own, McGuinn and Hillman only had one hit: their cover of Bob Dylan's "You Ain't Going Nowhere" (previously recorded by the Byrds as well), with an uncredited backing from the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. This rendition hit #6 in 1989. McGuinn was also a one-hit wonder on the Mainstream Rock charts with "King of the Hill" in 1991.
• Although heartland rock has been a major influence on country, John Mellencamp only had one major hit at country radio, as a guest vocalist on Travis Tritt's 2004 hit "What Say You". Mellencamp previously scraped the lower regions of the chart with his 1989 song "Jackie Brown", and released "Our Country" to the format in 2007 after it was popularized in Chevrolet commercials, but the latter only notched a single week at #39. Obviously, Mellencamp remains anything but a one-hit wonder in pop and rock.
• Ken Mellons, "Jukebox Junkie". Mellons' tribute to the jukebox hit #8 in 1994. He had two songs that very barely made the top 40, and after that, nothing.
• Ned Miller has his only claim to fame with "From a Jack to a King". Issued in 1957, it didn't chart the first time around, but it became a massive crossover upon rerelease five years later. While Ned had a few other chart hits, most of them were long since forgotten. Contemporary audiences may know it better from Ricky Van Shelton's cover in 1988.
• Priscilla Mitchell had a #1 hit as a duet vocalist on Roy Drusky's "Yes, Mr. Peters" in 1965 but never saw Top 40 otherwise. She was married to the far more popular country singer Jerry Reed from 1959 until his 2008 death.
• Shane Minor had a Top 20 hit in 1999 with "Slave to the Habit", a very rare outside cut from Toby Keith. None of his other songs went anywhere, and his lone album didn't even chart. He has been more popular as a songwriter.
• Robert Mitchum had a very successful acting career, but as a singer, his only major chart hit was "Little Old Wine Drinker Me" in 1967.
• William Michael Morgan had a big hit in late 2016 with "I Met a Girl", which hit #2 on the country airplay charts. His follow-up "Missing" went nowhere and he disappeared very quickly afterwards.
• Jason Mraz is not a one-hit wonder at pop, but his only country chart entry is a duet vocal on Hunter Hayes' 2013 release "Everybody's Got Somebody but Me". He also co-wrote Zac Brown Band's "Jump Right In" earlier in the year.
• While Michael Martin Murphey has a large catalog of hits, his son Ryan Murphey had exactly one, accompanying his father on the 1988 release "Talkin' to the Wrong Man", which hit #4.
• Jim Mundy hit the charts with his debut single "The River's Too Wide", later recorded by Olivia Newton-John. Nothing else took off, but his song "I'm Knee Deep in Loving You" was later Covered Up by Dave & Sugar.
• Kacey Musgraves has had only one major country radio hit: her 2012 debut release, "Merry Go Round". While "Follow Your Arrow" was a popular download and even won a Song of the Year award from the Country Music Association, this was in spite of near-total rejection from country radio. Musgraves has had more hits as a songwriter, including Miranda Lambert's Top 5 hit "Mama's Broken Heart" and a few songs from the TV series Nashville. Despite the lack of interest in her music from country radio, Musgraves has become one of the most critically acclaimed and popular country artists of the 2010s with pop and indie rock audiences. None of the singles from her 2018 album Golden Hour were major hits on country radio, but the album garnered critical acclaim and the Grammy for Album of the Year.
• *NSYNC are obviously not a one-hit wonder at pop, but at country, their only hit was backing Alabama on a cover of the former's "God Must Have Spent a Little More Time on You", which hit #3.
• Tim O'Brien is a prolific bluegrass musician, but his only chart entry to date is as a duet vocalist on Kathy Mattea's 1990 hit "The Battle Hymn of Love".
• Mark O'Connor had his only radio hit in 1991 with a cover of Carl Perkins' "Restless" which featured Vince Gill, Ricky Skaggs, and Steve Wariner alternating on lead vocals and guitar. O'Connor himself is not a singer, but he was credited as the lead artist since the song came from one of his albums and features him prominently on electric fiddle. The song won all four artists a Grammy, and while O'Connor never touched the charts again, he remained a popular album artist, session musician, and composer.
• Kenny O'Dell was a one-hit wonder in pop music in 1967 with "Beautiful People", and again in country music with "Let's Shake Hands and Come Out Lovin'" eleven years later. He was more successful as a songwriter, including "Mama He's Crazy" by The Judds, "Behind Closed Doors" by Charlie Rich, and "Lizzie and the Rainman" by Tanya Tucker. The B-Side of his own version of "Lizzie and the Rainman", called "Homecoming Queen", had a weird second life when a poor-quality dub of it got released on a Paul McCartney bootleg album, misidentified as a supposed Wings outtake called "Penny O'Dell".
• The O'Kanes, a duo consisting of Jamie O'Hara and Kieran Kane, had multiple top 10 hits but are known only for "Can't Stop My Heart from Loving You", which topped the charts in 1987. Both members had multiple songwriting credits before, during, and after their tenure, and Kane had several low-charting singles before the duo's foundation. After they split up, Kane became a bluegrass artist and co-founded the Dead Reckoning Records label, while O'Hara largely continued to focus on songwriting.
• Old Crow Medicine Show are one of the most revered acts on the Americana music scene, but "Wagon Wheel" is likely the only song of theirs casual audiences are familiar with. The song never made any Billboard chart, but was certified platinum by the RIAA. Most people know Darius Rucker's cover instead of Old Crow's version, but they're still generally known as the original performers of the song. What people might not know is that the tune is based on an unfinished Bob Dylan song from the early 1970s, and Dylan is even credited as a co-writer.
• James Otto's "Just Got Started Lovin' You" was a #1 smash and the biggest country hit of 2008, but nothing before or after made much noise on the charts. As with many other country one-hit wonders, he was more successful as a songwriter.
• Buck Owens was certainly not a one-hit wonder on the country charts, but his only visit to the Billboard Top 40 was with "I've Got a Tiger by the Tail", which peaked at #25 in 1965.
• Stella Parton, a sister of the very popular Dolly Parton, had only one Top 10 hit with "I Want to Hold You in My Dreams Tonight" in 1972.
• Eric Paslay had his only hit in late 2013-early 2014 with "Friday Night", a song that was written by him but originally performed by Lady A. He also hit Top 20 with "Song About a Girl" and "She Don't Love You", but neither is as remembered, and his second album got stuck in Development Hell.
• Minnie Pearl, the Southern comedienne known for her colorful flower hat with the $1.98 price tag and her appearances on Hee Haw, had several recording credits to her name. But her only hit was the #10 "Giddyup Go - Answer", an Answer Song to Red Sovine's sentimental trucking song "Giddyup Go".
• Danielle Peck had her only hit in 2006 with "Findin' a Good Man". Her second album was only released to digital retailers due to poor single performance.
• Perfect Stranger had "You Have the Right to Remain Silent" in 1995. Curb Records picked up the song after a small indie label managed to get it into the top 40. It managed a decent crossover (#4 country, #61 pop), but the band never even hit the country top 40 again, and a second album was delayed for many years.
• Charlie Phillips had his only chart hit in 1962 with "I Guess I'll Never Learn". He also wrote the pop standard "Sugartime", made famous by the McGuire Sisters.
• Ray Pillow (yes, that's really his name) is known for "I'll Take the Dog", his #9 duet with Jean Shepard, and nothing else. He later founded the independent Sycamore Records label, and worked in the A&R department of Capitol Records Nashville.
• Pinmonkey had a hit in 2002 with "Barbed Wire and Roses", but followups withered, the drummer quit, and a second major-label album never materalized.
• Bobby Pinson had his only hit with "Don't Ask Me How I Know" in 2005. After nothing else took off, he quit singing and focused on songwriting, landing several hits for Sugarland and Toby Keith.
• Pirates of the Mississippi had a #15 hit in 1991 with "Feed Jake", one of only five singles of theirs that even hit Top 40. The song became quite famous at the time for having a Gay Aesop, an extreme rarity in the usually-conservative genre. After they broke up in 1996, lead singer Bill McCorvey wrote Montgomery Gentry's 1999 hit "Lonely and Gone".
• Anita Pointer. As a member of the R&B group The Pointer Sisters, she had several hits on the pop and R&B charts. But independently, her only hit was as a duet partner on Earl Thomas Conley's "Too Many Times", which hit #2 in 1986.
• Rachel Proctor, despite writing several songs for other artists, put out only one album, which contained only one hit: "Me and Emily" in 2004.
• Jeanne Pruett is known almost exclusively for her 1973 hit "Satin Sheets", which was also a pop crossover. Although she had a couple more Top 10 entries, they've been forgotten.
• RaeLynn had a hit in 2015 with "God Made Girls" after becoming a quarter-finalist on The Voice three years earlier. Despite the song's success, it was only ever released on a digital EP, and none of the followups went anywhere. While she did release a full album in 2017, its singles fared poorly. She was also one of many featured vocalists on "Boys 'Round Here", listed below.
• Jon Randall is somewhat famous as a bluegrass singer-songwriter and occasional record producer, but his only top 40 hit as a singer was a duet vocal on then-wife Lorrie Morgan's "By My Side" in 1996.
• Mike Reid, formerly of the Cincinnati Bengals, had a number one hit in 1991 with "Walk on Faith." Although he had previously reached number 2 duetting with Ronnie Milsap on "Old Folks," he never reached the top 10 again on his own. However, he had a huge catalog of hits that he wrote for other artists throughout The '80s and early 90's, primarily for Milsap.
• The Remingtons. Comprising Richard Mainegra and Rick Yancey, formerly of also-one hit wonder group Cymarron (see their entry at "Soft Rock"), and Jimmy Griffin of the successful band Bread, they were the first act signed to the now-defunct BNA Records (which later had success with Lonestar and Kenny Chesney). They hit Top 10 right out of the gate with "A Long Time Ago" in late 1991-early 1992, and nothing else took off. Denny Henson (of Dan Fogelberg's backing band) replaced Yancey on their second and final album, which completely flopped. Griffin and Yancey had later work in other projects, but Mainegra and Henson seemed to completely disappear afterward.
• Lionel Richie has a huge catalog of R&B and pop hits, but his only major success at country was "Deep River Woman", which featured guest vocals from Alabama and got to #10 in 1986. "Stuck on You" had gotten some country radio airplay two years prior, but it only got to #24 there despite doing much better on other formats.
• Ricochet is often thought of as a one-hit wonder for their 1996 chart-topper "Daddy's Money"; although two other songs hit Top 10, and two more hit Top 20, none are remembered today.
• Jeannie C. Riley hit #1 on the country and pop charts in 1968 with Tom T. Hall's story song "Harper Valley P.T.A.", which she actually Covered Up from Margie Singleton (see below), and today it remains her only Top 40 song on the pop charts.^note For a long time it held the Hot 100 record for the biggest single week jump: it debuted at #81, then the next week vaulted up 74 spots to #7. At country, however, she had several more Top 10 hits, but none are well remembered.
• Julie Roberts (not to be confused with multi-hit wonder actress Julia Roberts) had her only hit in 2004 with "Break Down Here", but never saw Top 40 again, despite the album selling gold. Interestingly, she competed on The Voice in 2013 but failed to make a team.
• Rockin' Sidney was popular in Louisiana as one of the top touring musicians of zydeco, the Creole-R&B-Cajun fusion genre. In 1985, he had an unlikely national hit with the novelty song "My Toot-Toot", which hit the country Top 20.
• Kenny Rogers is by no means a one-hit wonder. But several of his duet partners have been:
  • Sheena Easton is very popular in her native Scotland, and has had several pop hits in the US. But her only country success was as a duet partner on Rogers' cover of Bob Seger's "We've Got Tonight".
  • Kim Carnes is not a one-hit wonder on the pop charts, but her only Top 40 visit to the country charts was as a duet partner on Rogers' "Don't Fall in Love with a Dreamer". A later duet, "What About Me?" (which also featured James Ingram) was a big crossover but only got to #70 on the country charts.
• Johnny Russell had success as a songwriter (including Buck Owens' "Act Naturally" and George Strait's "Let's Fall to Pieces Together"), but as a singer, he only had one Top 10 hit, "Rednecks, White Socks, and Blue Ribbon Beer", which hit #4 in 1973. The hefty Russell was still well-known as a Grand Ole Opry regular before his death in 2001.
• Rock singer Leon Russell is yet another artist who can claim a #1 country hit but nothing else that came even close on that chart, either as himself or as "Hank Wilson", the pseudonym under which he releases most of his country music work. In 1978, Russell and Willie Nelson had a #1 with a cover of "Heartbreak Hotel". (Russell has also had two top 40 pop hits, neither of which was "Heartbreak Hotel".)
• John Wesley Ryles is almost exclusively known for his 1968 debut single "Kay", a stark ballad about a Nashville cab driver abandoned by his girlfriend after she became a country star, which hit #9. Although he had one higher-charting song ("Once in a Lifetime Thing" in 1977), it has been forgotten. "Kay" was also his only crossover, nicking the bottom of the Hot 100 and the Australian charts. Ryles continued to record until 1987, and has largely worked as a session vocalist ever since.

S - Z

• Sunday Sharpe had a hit in 1974 with "I'm Having Your Baby", her female-perspective redo of Paul Anka's "You're Having My Baby", and was never heard from again.
• First Nations singer Crystal Shawanda was one-and-done in the States with her 2008 #21 hit "You Can Let Go". However, she has had three top-ten country hits in Canada.
• Blake Shelton is not himself an example, but he has repeatedly collaborated with artists who qualify:
  • His 2013 Massive Multiplayer Crossover "Boys 'Round Here" credited itself as "featuring Pistol Annies and Friends". Pistol Annies was a side project consisting of country superstar Miranda Lambert (Shelton's wife from 2010-15) plus Ashley Monroe (see below) and Angaleena Presley. The "and friends" consisted of the songwriters (Rhett Akins, Dallas Davidson, and Craig Wiseman), plus producer Scott Hendricks and The Voice contestant RaeLynn. Every "friend" on the song is therefore a one-hit wonder save for Akins (who had two hits of his own in 1995-96 before focusing more on songwriting) and RaeLynn, who is listed above. Davidson and Wiseman are of course well-known as songwriters, and Hendricks as a producer, but this is the only charted single for any of them as an artist.
  • Gwen Sebastian was already active as an independently-signed singer before she became a contestant on The Voice, on which Shelton is a judge. Her placement on that show got her a touring gig as one of his backing vocalists, and in 2014, she was an Advertised Extra on his #1 hit "My Eyes". This exposure didn't boost her career any, and she has never gotten past #58 otherwise.
  • Ashley Monroe herself, despite having been a recording artist and songwriter in various capacities since 2006, had her only major chart hit in 2014 as a guest vocalist on Shelton's "Lonely Tonight".
• Schuyler, Knoblock, and Overstreet, or S-K-O for short, was a trio consisting of songwriters Thom Schuyler, J. Fred Knoblock, and Paul Overstreet. They had a #1 hit in 1986 with "Baby's Got a New Baby". While two other singles hit Top 10 (one of which was as S-K-B following Overstreet's departure and replacement with Craig Bickhardt), both were quickly forgotten. Knoblock had two Top 10 country hits before the group's foundation (one of which was the aforementioned duet with Susan Anton) and a crossover pop smash with "Why Not Me", while Overstreet had nine Top 10 hits (of which two went to #1) between 1987 and 1992. All four members also had varying degrees of songwriting success before and after the trio's short life, with Overstreet also being the most successful in that regard.
• Earl Scott had a #8 hit in 1962 with "Then a Tear Fell", but was never heard from again. His son John Batdorf was also a one-hit wonder in the pop band Silver.
• Bob Seger is a very famous rock artist, but at country, his only hit was a cover of Rodney Crowell's "Shame on the Moon" in 1982.
• Ryan Shupe & the RubberBand were one-and-done with their 2005 debut "Dream Big". Their second single failed to chart entirely despite being released twice by Capitol Records, and they went back to under-the-radar independence.
• Jessica Simpson has had multiple pop hits, but only one country hit with 2008's "Come On Over".
• Another big name in the field of truck-driving country is Red Simpson, who hit #4 in 1972 with "I'm a Truck" (a cynical look at the truck driving profession, in which he gives Shouts Out to fellow country music stars Merle Haggard and Buck Owens—Simpson co-wrote Owens' hit "Sam's Place"). He only charted eight times total, and most of his singles didn't even make Top 40. However, his song "The Highway Patrol" is somewhat well known despite only peaking at #39, partly from being Covered Up by cult favorite Junior Brown in The '90s.
• Margie Singleton had her only hit in 1964 as a duet vocalist on the far more successful Faron Young's "Keeping Up with the Joneses". The one-time wife of prolific Nashville producer and label owner Shelby Singleton, she was the first one to record "Harper Valley P.T.A.", before Jeannie C. Riley (see above) had her hit with it. And Singleton's version was produced by Leon Ashley (also see above). And to add more drama to the fire, Shelby Singleton produced Riley's version!
• Canaan Smith, a former The Amazing Race contestant, scored a #1 hit in 2015 with "Love You Like That" and vanished afterwards.
• Sammi Smith (not to be confused with modern-day pop/R&B singer Sam Smith, who is not a one hit wonder) is known only for her 1971 #1 hit "Help Me Make It Through the Night", written by the aforementioned Kris Kristofferson. She had a few hits that scraped the bottom of the top 10 but only "Help Me" is still remembered. On pop, it is played perfectly straight, as "Help Me" hit #8 and she never made it past #77 afterwards.
• Sissy Spacek dabbled in country music a few times after recording songs for the soundtrack to Coal Miner's Daughter. Her highest charted effort was 1983's "Lonely but Only for You", from her sole studio album Hangin' Up My Heart. Of cousre, she remained famous as an actress both before and after this sole hit.
• The Stanley Brothers had their only hit in 1960 with "How Far to Little Rock". Ralph Stanley would later be a one-hit wonder in 2006 with his (uncredited) duet vocals on Josh Turner's hit "Me and God". Despite their lack of chart success, Ralph Stanley is a well known name in bluegrass.
• Kenny Starr had only one hit: a #2 cover of David Geddes' "The Blind Man in the Bleachers" in 1975.
• Ringo Starr, is, of course, no one-hit wonder on the pop charts owing to both his legendary work with The Beatles and his successful solo career. His second solo album in 1970 was actually a country album recorded in Nashville (Beaucoups of Blues) but was ignored by country radio, leaving his only country chart entry as "Act Naturally", a 1989 duet with country legend Buck Owens on a song that Owens had originally recorded in 1963 and that the Beatles, with Starr on lead vocals, had memorably covered in 1965. The new version of "Act Naturally" got to #27 on the country charts, and Starr never appeared on that chart again.
• Steel Magnolia, the Season 2 winners of CMT's Can You Duet. They had a Top 5 hit with their debut single "Keep On Lovin' You" (not to be confused with the REO Speedwagon song) in 2009, but Executive Meddling delayed their album's release while also blunting the momentum of any other singles. They broke up about a year after their fourth and final single (literally, as they were boyfriend and girlfriend). Joshua Scott Jones went solo, and Meghan Linsey was later runner-up on Season 8 of The Voice.
• Keith Stegall, although he had a handful of hits as a songwriter in The '80s, had only one major hit on his own as a singer with the 1985 release "Pretty Lady". When his well had run dry in both songwriting and singing, he became a Record Producer, and outside a one-time return to singing in 1996 with the album Passages and a handful of further songwriting credits, he has largely been a producer ever since. Most notably, Stegall produced all but one of Alan Jackson's albums.
• Tommy Shane Steiner had a #2 hit in 2001 with "What If She's an Angel" but never saw Top 40 again and never released a second album.
• In the early 1990s, Restless Heart lead singer Larry Stewart departed for a solo career. He hit Top 5 with "Alright Already" in 1993, but had no successful followups despite putting out four major-label albums, and he ultimately rejoined Restless Heart for good in 2003.
• Doug Supernaw is known almost entirely for his 1993 chart-topper "I Don't Call Him Daddy", a Cover of an obscure Kenny Rogers cut. While he also had Top 5 hits with "Reno" and "Not Enough Hours in the Night", both songs are largely forgotten, with "Reno" in particular being known more for the negative reception the song got in Reno, Nevada than for the song itself.
• Billy Swan hit big in 1974 with his debut release "I Can Help", a #1 smash at pop and country which also scored him a hit internationally. Nothing else he put out made a dent, although he continued to chart as late as 1987.
• Sunny Sweeney had a #10 hit with "From a Table Away" but never saw higher than lower 30's after that.
• The Swon Brothers, finalists on Season 4 of The Voice, had a hit with their 2013 debut release "Later On" but were never heard from again. They've had songs from the show chart from digital sales alone, including the top 20 cover "Danny's Song", but none of them got airplay.
• While country-pop singer Sylvia (surname Kirby; not to be confused with soul singer Sylvia Robinson, who is mentioned in the Rhythm and Blues subpage) had multiple Top 10 country hits and two #1's, she is almost exclusively known for the second of those, "Nobody", in 1982. "Nobody" was the only one of her singles to achieve significant crossover. She retired at the end of The '80s and became a life coach, although she sometimes comes out of retirement to tour with her boyfriend, songwriter Bobby Tomberlin.
• A Thousand Horses had a #1 hit with "Smoke" in 2015 due to sponsored airplay from iHeartMedia's "On the Verge" program (which promotes singles from up-and-coming artists), but follow-ups garnered no such support or interest.
• Billy Thunderkloud & the Chieftones, a band composed of First Nations musicians, had a hit in 1975 with "What Time of Day" (which featured uncredited children's vocals from the Franklin Road Academy, a private school in Nashville) but never hit with anything else.
• Cyndi Thomson had a big #1 hit in 2001 with "What I Really Meant to Say", but soon quit her recording contract due to fear of Follow-Up Failure. She later wrote Gary Allan's 2005 hit "Life Ain't Always Beautiful", albeit under a pseudonym.
• Josh Thompson is known almost entirely for his 2010 hit "Way Out Here". His second album was stuck in Development Hell for years, stalling out his career as a singer; however, he's had more luck as a songwriter, with hits by Jason Aldean and Blake Shelton among others.
• Trent Tomlinson is known almost entirely for his 2006 ballad "One Wing in the Fire", which hit #11. He never put out a second album due to a combination of single underperformance and label closure, although he also wrote hits for Parmalee and Brett Young many years later.
• Tompall & the Glaser Brothers (a trio consisting of brothers Jim, Chuck, and Tompall Glaser) started out as backing vocalists for Marty Robbins before branching out on their own in 1966. Between then and 1981, they had 13 Top 40 hits on the Country chart, but only two of them even made it higher than #15: "California Girl (and the Tennessee Square)" at #11 in 1969 (which also hit the lower rungs of Hot 100), and a #7 cover of Cymarron's "Rings" (see the Pop page) in 1971. They were better known by 1981 as background figures in Outlaw Country Music, running the Glaser Sound Studios in Nashville, one of the epicenters of the movement, plus Tompall Glaser scoring a hit on his own during a group hiatus with Shel Silverstein's "Put Another Log on the Fire (The Male Chauvinist National Anthem)", which was one of several Tompall songs included on the Wanted! The Outlaws compilation album. But in 1981 they finally scored a massive hit with their version of Kris Kristofferson's "Lovin' Her Was Easier (Than Anything I'll Ever Do Again)", which reached #2 and is easily their most-remembered song. After the group broke up again in 1982, Jim Glaser would become a Two-Hit Wonder with "If I Could Only Dance with You" and "You're Gettin' to Me Again", both in 1984.
• The Tractors had a debut album that went double-platinum entirely off its lone top 40 hit, the #11 "Baby Likes to Rock It". Despite this, they continued to record until 2009, with guitarist/vocalist Steve Ripley and drummer Jamie Oldaker also holding various other gigs until their respective deaths in 2019 and 2020.
• Trick Pony had eight chart entries, but the only one that was a hit was the #4 "On a Night Like This" in 2001. After their third album in 2005, lead singer Heidi Newfield quit and eventually became a one-hit wonder in her own right with the 2008 release "Johnny & June".
• Bonnie Tyler is known for several big hits in the 1980s, such as "Total Eclipse of the Heart" and "Holding Out for a Hero". But back in The '70s, she was a country singer, and had her only chart success there with the #10 "It's a Heartache".
• Lynyrd Skynyrd and .38 Special are not one-hit wonders by any means. But the side-project duo of the former's Johnny Van Zant and the latter's Donnie Van Zant (both brothers of Skynyrd's former lead singer, Ronnie Van Zant), creatively called Van Zant, are. The two had some modest success on rock radio early on, but on country were one and done with the Top 10 "Help Somebody".
• Jerry Wallace had a long chart history spanning from 1958 to 1980, including the Top 10 pop hit "Primrose Lane" in 1959, but the only song for which most people seem to remember him is "If You Leave Me Tonight, I'll Cry" in 1972. It was his only #1 hit, and its popularity was bolstered by being featured in the Night Gallery episode "The Tune in Dan's Cafe".
• B. B. Watson was one-and-done with "Light at the End of the Tunnel" in 1991.
• Eric Weissberg and Steve Mandell are known almost exclusively for the instrumental "Dueling Banjos", which was a #5 country, #2 Hot 100, and #1 AC hit due to the popular scene in Deliverance featuring the song.
• Billy Edd Wheeler was one of the few artists on the country charts to have a top 10 single and no other top 40 hits. His 1964 song "Ode to the Little Brown Shack Out Back" reached third place on the charts, but his second-highest peaking single just missed the top 50. He was more successful as a songwriter, including "Jackson" by Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash, and "Coward of the County" by Kenny Rogers.
• Drake White had a hit in late 2015-early 2016 with "Livin' the Dream", but the followup stalled out and he was never heard from again.
• While country-bluegrass group The Whites had several hits in the first half of The '80s, group member Sharon White had only one independently of her family: 1987's "Love Can't Ever Get Better Than This", a duet with her longtime husband, Ricky Skaggs (who is not a one-hit wonder).
• Chuck Wicks had a top 5 hit with "Stealing Cinderella", but nothing else connected with listeners. He didn't even get a second album before the label dropped him. Wicks was later a finalist on Dancing with the Stars.
• John & Audrey Wiggins had but one top-40 hit with 1994's "Has Anybody Seen Amy", and quietly disbanded in 1997 after a second album went nowhere. John would later write "Tequila Makes Her Clothes Fall Off" by Joe Nichols, "Anything Goes" by Randy Houser, and "Who Are You When I'm Not Looking" by Blake Shelton.
• Harlow Wilcox and the Oakies had their only hit in 1969 with "Groovy Grubworm", a guitar-based instrumental^note There's one spoken line in the song, "I'm a grubworm.". It hit #30 on the Hot 100 and even spent a week at #1 on the RPM country music charts in Canada. While it only got to #42 on the Billboard country chart, it bizarrely hit #1 on the Cashbox country chart. No chart saw anything else from Wilcox.
• Wild Rose, a very rare all-female band in the genre, had a hit in 1989 with "Breakin' New Ground", but a series of label mergers cut them off quickly. Group member Wanda Vick became a prominent session musician, and drummer Nancy Given is the ex-wife of Diamond Rio drummer Brian Prout.
• Canadian family group The Wilkinsons (lead vocalist Amanda Wilkinson, her brother Tyler, and their father Steve) had a #3 hit in 1998 with "26 Cents" but all followups failed to make an impact stateside. However, they had more chart success in their homeland. After they disbanded, Amanda Wilkinson was a one-hit wonder in Canada with "It's Okay to Cry" in 2006. She later reunited with Tyler to form the duo Small Town Pistols, which had their only hit with "Living on the Outside" six years later.
• Don Williams is clearly not a one hit wonder on the country charts (with 17 #1 singles), but his only Top-40 hit on the Hot 100 was 1980's "I Believe in You".
• Hank Williams Jr. is by no means an example, but some of his collaborations qualify:
  • His late 1986 chart-topping cover of his father's "Mind Your Own Business" featured several guest vocalists. Of these, Reba McEntire and Willie Nelson are clearly not one-hit wonders in any genre. However, it was the only time that popular rock singer Tom Petty saw the country charts, and it was also the only credit anywhere for evangelist Reverend Ike.
  • 1988's "Young Country", which went to #2, was a Massive Multiplayer Crossover featuring Butch Baker, Steve Earle, Highway 101, Dana McVicker, Marty Stuart, Keith Whitley, and T. Graham Brown. While all of the other named acts had several hits, Dana McVicker and Butch Baker never saw the top 40 otherwise. However, McVicker sang backing vocals for Travis Tritt for several years.
  • Williams' son, Hank Williams III, had just one entry on the country charts. 2001's "I Don't Know", from his debut solo album Risin' Outlaw, made it to #50. Hank III now hates that album and hasn't played that song in years, to the point where his current fans may not even know it exists. Although he's remained popular, the punk-influenced Alternative Country style he adopted on subsequent albums hasn't been particularly friendly to country radio.
• Leona Williams. On her own, she released a long string of singles between 1968 and 1986. Almost none even charted, and the few that did failed to make Top 40. But in 1978, she paired up with Merle Haggard to record the CB radio-themed "The Bull and the Beaver", which went to #8 on the country charts and became her only Top 40 hit.
• Tex Williams is not a one-hit wonder on the country chart, but his 1947 #1 hit "Smoke! Smoke! Smoke! (That Cigarette)" was his only success on pop radio.
• The Willis Brothers recorded eleven albums for Starday Records, but had only one hit with the truck-driving song "Give Me Forty Acres (To Turn This Rig Around)" in 1964.
• Norro Wilson had only one hit with 1970's "Do It to Someone You Love", which was never even put on an album. He eventually quit singing and became more famous as a songwriter (co-writing Charlie Rich's "The Most Beautiful Girl" and George Jones' "The Grand Tour") and Record Producer.
• Stephanie Winslow had one top 10 hit with a cover of Fleetwood Mac's "Say You Love Me" in 1979. The only other song of hers that came close to being a hit was her #14 remake of Roy Orbison's "Crying".
• Lee Ann Womack had several hits on the country charts between 1997 and 2009, but the only song by which most people outside the country demographic would remember her is her 2000 smash "I Hope You Dance", which also topped the AC charts and went to #14 on the Hot 100. Except for the AC remix, it gave full chart credit to a counterpoint sung by Sons of the Desert, who already qualify in their own right with their 1997 Top 10 country hit "Whatever Comes First". They were also featured in a prominent call and response on Ty Herndon's 1998 #1 hit "It Must Be Love", but unlike on Womack's song, were not credited.
• Charlie Worsham, formerly of the obscure band KingBilly, had his only hit with "Could It Be" in 2013. He later joined Old Crow Medicine Show.
• The Wreckers was a one-off duo consisting of Michelle Branch and Jessica Harp, are known almost entirely for their 2006 chart-topping debut "Leave the Pieces". While they did hit top 10 with "My, Oh My", it failed to leave much of an impact, and their third single only got to #33. Both members were also guest vocalists on Santana's "I'm Feeling You" a year prior, but they were credited as themselves and not as The Wreckers. Branch returned to her solo career and Harp tried to record solo material as well, but neither made much of an impact.
• Chely Wright's only major hit was 1999's "Single White Female", a #1 country hit from her fourth studio album. Her previous album had a #14 hit with "Shut Up and Drive", and she would later hit #11 with "Female"'s followup "It Was", but "Single White Female" still remains the only song by which most would know her. "The Bumper of My SUV" in 2005 got some buzz, but this was more for its highly polemic flagwaving lyrics and the fact that members of her fan club had placed radio requests while posing as friends or family of military members. And, in fact, the way most people know her is from her coming out of the closet as a lesbian in 2010...which makes her one hit, a love song about getting a guy to notice her through newspaper personal ads, Harsher in Hindsight.
• Johnnie Wright had several hits with his brother-in-law Jack Anglin as the duo Johnnie & Jack, most notably with a rendition of "(Oh Baby Mine) I Get So Lonely", as well as originating the country standard "Ashes of Love". After Anglin died in a 1963 car accident (on his way to Patsy Cline's funeral), Wright forged out on his own and had his only major hit in 1965 with the Tom T. Hall-penned "Hello Vietnam" (basically a pro-war song, but downbeat and resigned rather than gung-ho and jingoistic). Wright's only other claim to fame is being the husband of Kitty Wells, best known for being the first female to have a #1 hit on the country charts.
  • Wright and Wells's daughter, Ruby Wright, was also a one-hit wonder with her 1964 release "Dern Ya", an Answer Song to Roger Miller's "Dang Me".
• Canadian country singer Michelle Wright (no relation to either of the above two) has multiple hits in her native country, including "New Fool at an Old Game" which was later covered stateside by Reba McEntire. However, her one major hit in the US was 1992's "Take It Like a Man", which went to #10. While she has continued to record successfully in Canada, nothing else made much impact south of the border.
• Female pianist Del Wood had a top 5 hit in 1951 on both the pop and country charts with her novelty take on "Down Yonder". She never returned to either chart afterwards.
• Yankee Grey had a Top 10 hit in late 1999 with "All Things Considered", but a label closure and the departure of their lead vocalist blunted any further chances of success.
• James and Michael Younger hit in 1982 with "Nothing but the Radio On", but never saw Top 40 again after that.

---