Carrie Underwood, Reba McEntire and More to Be Honored by the Country Music Hall of Fame

Carrie Underwood and Reba McEntire are just a few of the artists who will be honored by the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, as part of their annual American Currents: The Music of 2018 exhibit.

The stars will be joined by celebrities like Bobby Bones, Jason Aldean, Dan + Shay, Carly Pearce, Pistol Annies and more, who will have highlights from the previous year on display at the Hall of Fame.

“Each year brings new components to the country music story, and 2018 was no different,” said Kyle Young, CEO, Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in a statement. “Last year, we witnessed extraordinary chart and tour success, exciting collaborations, and well-deserved honors. American Currents allows us to highlight these moments while showing their significance in country music history.”

The accolades keep pouring in for Underwood, who is the reigning CMA Female Vocalist of the Year, an honor she claimed one day before she was inducted into the Oklahoma Hall of Fame. It’s fitting that Underwood and McEntire are being honored together, since Underwood credits McEntire with inspiring her own career.

“I grew up in Checotah,” Underwood shared in her acceptance speech after her induction into the Oklahoma Hall of Fame. “I always wanted to sing. If you had asked me when I was 5 years old, 10 years old, ‘What are you going to be when you grow up,’ I would have said, ‘I’m going to be a famous country music singer.

“The only reason, in my head, as a child, that something that big and that grand and that amazing was possible, was because I had seen other people do it that were from places just like where I grew up,” she continued. “I saw Reba [McEntire]. I saw Garth [Brooks], I saw Vince [Gill], I saw Toby [Keith], I saw Bryan White.”

The pregnant star hopes that, just as artists like McEntire inspired her, she can inspire others as well.

“Hopefully there is some little girl at home right now,” Underwood shared, “who is dreaming of being a country music singer, sees what I have been lucky enough and able to do, and blessed to do, and all of the other people that I just named, what they’ve been able to do and what they’ve been blessed enough to do, and think ‘That’s possible.’”

American Currents: The Music of 2018 will open on March 8, 2019, and run through Feb. 8, 2020. Other artists included in this year’s American Currents exhibit include Brothers Osborne, Kane Brown, Luke Combs, Dan + Shay, Miranda Lambert, Ashley McBryde, John Prine, Chris Stapleton and Keith Urban, among more. See a complete list by visiting the museum’s website.

Photo Credit: Getty images/Taylor Hill