March 13th in Country Music History

1930: Country music singer and Grand Ole Opry star Jan Howard is born in West Plains, Missouri.

1963: Singer/songwriter Billy Yates is born in Doniphan, Missouri.

1980: Willie Nelson sits at #1 on the Country Chart with “My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys,” the title of a song from the soundtrack for The Electric Horseman.

1987: George Strait dominates at #1 on the Country Chart with Ocean Front Property, his seventh studio album and Strait’s first to debut at #1 on the Billboard Top Country Albums Chart.

2005: Rascal Flatts takes #1 on the US Country Music Album Chart with Feels Like Today.

2012: Lady Antebellum are at #1 on the US County Chart with Own the Night, which won the Grammy Award for Best Country Album at the 54th Grammy Awards.

2015: A Woodstock woman takes out legal action suing Willie Nelson, claiming that the lyrics of a song on his Heroes album were “substantially and strikingly similar” to one written by her and her partner. The lawsuit filed in federal court in Atlanta by Ashley Wilson and the estate of Mark Reynolds contended Nelson’s 2012 song, “Roll Me Up and Smoke Me When I Die,” was written by Wilson and Reynolds in 1990.