Election Process

As of October 2025, there are 158 members of the Country Music Hall of Fame. The most recently announced members—Tony Brown, June Carter Cash, and Kenny Chesney—became the 156th, 157th, and 158th members inducted in the Medallion Ceremony in October 2025. In some cases, a Hall of Fame member is a duo (such as the Judds and Brooks & Dunn) or a group (such as Alabama and the Jordanaires).

The CMA elects three new Hall of Fame members each year, unless there is a tie in the voting for a category. In that case, both of those who tie are admitted together. For example, in 2021, Eddie Bayers and Pete Drake tied in the voting for the Recording and/or Touring Musician category, and both were inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame.

Each year, CMA electors vote on a Modern Era Artist and a Veterans Era Artist. A Modern Era Artist is somebody who is eligible for induction twenty years after they first achieved national prominence. In 2025, Kenny Chesney was elected as the year’s Modern Era Artist. The Veterans Era Artist is someone eligible forty-five years after they first achieved national prominence. In 2025, June Carter Cash was chosen in the Veterans Era Artist category. In addition, electors also vote every year on one of three rotating categories. Those categories are Recording and/or Touring Musician, Songwriter, or Non-Performer. The rotating category for 2025 was Non-Performer, and record executive and producer Tony Brown was chosen. In 2026, the rotating category will be Songwriter, and in 2027 the rotating category will be Recording and/or Touring Musician.

Election to the Country Music Hall of Fame is the genre’s highest honor. To fittingly recognize those elected to this eminent mark of distinction, the Museum created the Medallion Ceremony. An annual event produced by the staff of the Museum, the Medallion Ceremony formally inducts and celebrates the newest members of the Country Music Hall of Fame.

The first Medallion Ceremony took place in September 1999 at the Executive Residence of Tennessee Governor Don Sundquist. Thereafter, the ceremonies took place each year at various locations, including at the original Museum on Music Row, until the new Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum building opened with a venue, the Ford Theater, created specifically to accommodate the Medallion Ceremony. The ceremonies continued to be held in the Ford Theater until October 2014, when they moved to the Museum’s new CMA Theater.

From the start, the invitation-only event was created and intended to be an intimate affair that would not be televised or broadcast. Instead, it is a private gathering of the honorees’ relatives and friends, Museum supporters, and the music community. During the Medallion Ceremony, artists and songwriters perform songs in tribute to the incoming members, and a Hall of Fame member formally inducts the new members with celebratory remarks and the conferring of a commemorative medallion to be worn each time the membership gathers.

Bronze plaques bearing the inductees’ likenesses are unveiled for the first time during the ceremony before they are installed permanently in the Museum’s Rotunda. The ceremony concludes with everyone singing “Will the Circle Be Unbroken.”