June 3 — The Opryland USA country music theme park opens in Nashville.
June 13 — The Country Music Foundation Library and Media Center is dedicated.
September — The premiere issue of Country Music magazine hits the newsstand. The magazine, which will be issued monthly (later bi-monthly), is an immediate hit with critics and readers.
September 17 — Faron Young — who has international success with "It's Four in the Morning" — is charged with assault for spanking a girl in the audience at a concert in Clarksburg, West Virginia after claiming she spat on him.[1] Young appeared before a Wood County, West Virginia justice of the peace and was fined $24, plus $11 in court costs.[2] It is the first in a string of incidents involving Young, whose increasingly bizarre behavior would begin overshadowing his success.
October — The Country Music Association moves from NBC to CBS, where it remained until 2006 when the awards show moved to ABC. Loretta Lynn becomes the first woman to win the CMA's Entertainer of the Year award.
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The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, a California-based country-folk-rock band, releases their landmark album Will the Circle Be Unbroken. The album of folk and country standards, recorded in Nashville alongside traditional country artists, is a huge critical and commercial success. Two additional volumes would be released in 1989 and 2002.
Music and Billboard chart historian Joel Whitburn releases "Top Country Songs 1944–1971." The book, published by Record Research, marks the first time a listing of every song and artist that had ever appeared by means of a country and western hit parade had been compiled into a single volume. Eight more updated volumes will follow (the most recent edition covers through 2017), as well as two editions focusing on strictly those songs reaching the Top 40 (the original released in 1996, and an updated version in 2006).
Buck Owens returns to his musical roots when Jerry Brightman is added on pedal steel for records and tours.
A class of new artists proves to be among the most prolific of the 1970s. Singers Donna Fargo, Johnny Rodriguez, Joe Stampley, Mel Street and Tanya Tucker, and harmonica player Charlie McCoy each have their first major hits during 1972 and would be among the most successful of the newcomers.
June 23 — Elton Britt, 59, 1940s country star best known for "There's a Star-Spangled Banner Waving Somewhere."
July 16 – Charlie Chamberlain, 61, Canadian Country Singer, who was the Male vocalist for Don Messer's Islanders from the band's inception in 1933 until shortly before his death (Heart Attack).
Kingsbury, Paul, "The Grand Ole Opry: History of Country Music. 70 Years of the Songs, the Stars and the Stories," Villard Books, Random House; Opryland USA, 1995
Kingsbury, Paul, "Vinyl Hayride: Country Music Album Covers 1947–1989," Country Music Foundation, 2003 (ISBN0-8118-3572-3)
Millard, Bob, "Country Music: 70 Years of America's Favorite Music," HarperCollins, New York, 1993 (ISBN0-06-273244-7)
Whitburn, Joel, "Top Country Songs 1944–2005 – 6th Edition." 2005.