List of Hot Country Singles number ones of 1968

Hot Country Songs is a chart that ranks the top-performing country music songs in the United States, published by Billboard magazine. In 1968, 24 different singles topped the chart, then published under the title Hot Country Singles, in 52 issues of the magazine, based on playlists submitted by country music radio stations and sales reports submitted by stores.^[1]

At the start of the year the number-one single was "

In the issue of Billboard dated October 19, Eddy Arnold, one of the most successful country singers of the preceding 20 years, achieved his final number one with "Then You Can Tell Me Goodbye". The single was his 28th number one on Billboard's country charts (including Hot Country Singles and its predecessor charts), a record at the time.^[8] Two weeks later Arnold was replaced in the top spot when Conway Twitty reached number one for the first time with his single "Next in Line".^[9] A former rock and roll singer who had turned to country music in the mid-1960s,^[10] Twitty would remain a fixture at the top of the country charts for two decades, and set a new record for the most country chart-toppers when he achieved his 29th number one in 1980.^[8] Twitty would ultimately take 40 singles to the top of the chart from 1968 to 1986, a record which would stand until 2006, when George Strait topped the chart for the 41st time.^[11] In addition to Twitty, four other acts reached number one on the Hot Country chart for the first time in 1968: Henson Cargill,^[12] Jeannie C. Riley,^[13] Bobby Goldsboro^[14] and Glen Campbell.^[15] Of these four acts, only Campbell would go on to top the chart again, and he did so before the end of 1968, when his single "Wichita Lineman" was the final number one of the year.

Chart history

See also

• 1968 in music
• 1968 in country music
• List of artists who reached number one on the U.S. country chart

References