Our Top 10 Country Artists Who Were Born in Louisiana

We want to send one lucky winner and their guest to Las Vegas to see Tim McGraw and Faith Hill, and we kept thinking how cool it would be to have a Louisiana winner in this contest. After all, Tim is from Louisiana. In fact, a ton of great country music artists were born in Louisiana.

And that just made us want to write up a list of all those great artists. And so we did. And now you're reading it. I love it when a plan comes together!

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1
Tim McGraw
Delhi, La. (Lived in Start, La.)
Tim was born in Delhi but grew up in Start, La., up in Richland Parish. He attended what is now UL-Monroe on a baseball scholarship, almost following in the footsteps of his famous father -- "Tug" McGraw of the Philadelphia Phillies.
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2
Hank Williams, Jr.
Shreveport, La.
The son of the most important country music singer of all time also happens to be a Louisiana native. Not that Bocephus didn't do pretty well for himself in his own career, mind you.
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3
Trace Adkins
Sarepta, La.
Another North Louisiana native, Trace was born in Sarepta and raised in Springhill. That makes him pretty dang close to being an Arkansas native, but we're claiming him as ours.
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4
Jerry Lee Lewis
Ferriday, La.
He'll always be known as a rock 'n' roller, but if he were playing it today, it'd be country music. Jerry Lee is from Ferriday, though as great a performer as he is, marrying his own cousin certainly didn't help the image of the rest of Louisiana very much.
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5
Sammy Kershaw
Kaplan, La.
Sammy Kershaw burst out of Vermilion Parish with a set of vocal cords that came eerily close to George Jones'. Despite huge hits in the '90s, he never really severed his ties with Kaplan, and spends a lot of time there still.
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6
Hunter Hayes
Breaux Bridge, La.
Louisiana residents remember Hunter Hayes long before he was a country star -- back when he was a Cajun music prodigy with accordion skills better than people three times his age. Turns out, he's a surprisingly diverse musician, and we're not surprised to see him on the charts today.
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7
Kix Brooks
Shreveport, La.
As half of the mega duo Brooks & Dunn, Kix Brooks has seen the very heights of the country music business. But it all started in Louisiana in Shreveport. (Ronnie Dunn, by the way, is from Tulsa, Okla.)
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8
Chris Cagle
DeRidder, La.
We caught up with DeRidder native Chris Cagle not too long ago at the Texas Longhorn club in Vinton. Despite hanging out on the Top 40 of the country music charts, Chris still finds time to get back to his roots.
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9
Lucinda Williams
Lake Charles, La.
Being a critical darling is a tough job -- Lucinda Williams hasn't moved the number of records that some artists have on this list, but there's something very powerful in this Lake Charles native's music that everyone can relate to.
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10
Mickey Gilley
Ferriday, La.
He may be relegated to being known as the other famous guy from Ferriday, but Mickey Gilley certainly didn't have to live in the shadow of his cousin, Jerry Lee Lewis. Gilley will forever be tied to the Urban Cowboy era of country music, and few did it better.

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