50 Years of Country Music

This NBC television special from January 1978 ran a whopping three hours (unheard of for a country music tv program at the time) and featured dozens of legendary performers from throughout the genre's history, from pioneering superstars Roy Acuff, Ernest Tubb, Kitty Wells, and Bill Monroe, to the biggest stars of 1978 including Dolly Parton, newly famous to the mass public outside of country music fans at the time thanks to her million selling hit "Here You Come Again". Dolly, Glen Campbell, and Roy Clark each host an hour of the show and get to perform the most songs (Dolly gets two full songs alone plus "Mule Skinner Blues" with Bill Monroe, and also sings two melodies of tunes, one of several of her greatest hits, and another of Hank Williams songs with Clark and Campbell. (Incredibly, Loretta Lynn appears only to sing a medley of Patsy Cline hits, none of her own while Tammy Wynette is limited to one number. Good thing these gals were friends!) This program has been released on DVD retitled "Country's Greatest Stars Live Vol. 1" (there was a sequel to this program later that year that has been released as volume 2).