The Best Live Country Albums

Zac Brown Band - Pass the Jar: Zac Brown Band and Friends Live from the Fabulous Fox Theatre in Atlanta

There are always those artists that you can tell just put on one hell of a show, and Zac Brown Band is one of them.

Dating back to their debut album, The Foundation, in 2008, there was something about this rag tag group of guys that immediately caught fire in the country arena (if we had to guess, it probably has everything to do with the tried and true classic, 'Chicken Fried'). However, this crew, led by frontman Zac Brown and with little turnover in terms of members, has been playing together for well over two decades.

With that much natural chemistry built up over time, it's no wonder that their live shows pack such a punch and why they decided to record one of them direct to tape back in 2010.

Captured at their headlining show at the Fabulous Fox Theatre in Atlanta, Georgia, Pass the Jar features an array of friends and peers across its 24 tracks, including Kid Rock, Little Big Town, Joey + Rory and more, as well as a smattering of their earliest and most enduring hits.

The Gold-certified record claimed the No. 2 spot on the Billboard Top Country Albums, as well as the seventeenth spot on the all-genre Billboard 200, and their mashup of their own 'Free' and Van Morrison's 'Into the Mystic' has remained a standard in their live shows ever since.

- Lydia Farthing

The Chicks - Top of the World Tour: Live

Not many live albums are captured in such turbulent times, for both the artists performing and the world at large.

Top of the World Tour: Live captured the 2003 dates of superstar country trio The Chicks. Then at the height of their popularity, the tour was marred in controversy and uproar due to lead singer Natalie Maines' negative comments at their London Royal Albert Hall show towards then president George W. Bush, who at the time was leading the United States of America into the Iraq War.

"Just so you know, we’re on the good side with y’all. We do not want this war, this violence, and we’re ashamed that the President of the United States is from Texas".

Despite the unending backlash and essential cancellation that the group were subject to following these comments, the group persevered not only with the rest of their dates, but with Top of the World: Live, captured the shows and band at their raw, resolute and unadulterated best.

The record simmers with ecstatic freedom and instrumental liberty, the group presenting themselves as a glorified bluegrass act with 90s country power with their fiddle trills and thumping singalongs through 'Some Days You Gotta Dance' and 'There's Your Trouble'.

What Top of the World: Live exhibited was The Chicks as a true group of musicians, a trio who had the instrumental fortitude and unequivocal songwriting and performance chops to be as deservingly impactful and inspirational in larger popular culture as they were.

- Ross Jones

Kenny Chesney - Live in No Shoes Nation

Those who have been lucky enough to experience Kenny Chesney’s fabled stadium shows often speak about wishing they could bottle up that feeling, so they can dip into Kenny’s sunny, celebratory reservoir of joie de vivre whenever they need to.

This was the reasoning behind the tropical country figurehead’s 2017 Live in No Shoes Nation project, which serves as a star-studded 29-song toast to the good life.

The guestlist is dizzyingly long, with Eric Church, Zac Brown Band, Mac McAnally, Old Dominion, Grace Potter, David Lee Murphy, Dave Matthews and even Taylor Swift making appearances.

But ultimately, Kenny Chesney is the beating heart of this record, which captures the energy and vitality he always brings to his concerts. It’s a rose-tinted snapshot into the world that Kenny’s fervent ‘No Shoes Nation’ fanbase long to reside in 24/7.

- Maxim Mower

Waylon Jennings - Waylon Live

One of Waylon Jennings’ most acclaimed releases is a live album, for good reason.

Waylon Live exhibits the best of a legend at a pinnacle of his career, perfectly showcasing his controlled croon, effortless showmanship and his intuition as a bandleader. Throughout the live collection, he’s cool, collected and committed to the show, delivering some of his now-classic works, like ‘Rainy Day Women’, ‘I’m a Ramblin' Man’ and ‘Good Hearted Woman’, against the sounds of an uproarious crowd.

Alongside his band the Waylors, Jennings brought Waylon Live to life over the course of three Texas shows – one at the Western Place in Dallas and two at the Texas Opry House in Austin – in September 1974.

The collection offers a pristine snapshot of the country icon on the cusp of a skyrocketing career, in the nascent days of the outlaw movement and on the verge of cementing his legend.

- Alli Patton

Charley Crockett - Live from the Ryman

Many a live record has been captured in the pews and halls of the famed Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, Tennessee.

As this list alone will attest, classic shows have been immortalised to tape thanks to the Ryman Sound Desk, capturing the unique bellow of the venue's acoustics and those lucky enough to perform on it's fabled floors.

When Charley Crockett stepped onto the stage for his first headline show at the historic Nashville venue on November 14th, 2022, he was deep into the lengthy tour behind his 2022 album The Man From Waco. The result, Live From The Ryman, embellished the lore behind Crockett's artistic character, embracing the western narrative elements of the aforementioned record while exhibiting Crockett's charm and cunning disposition.

The Blue Drifters, Crockett's backing band, step in waltzing time with each other throughout, creating a cinematic masterpiece through moving brass and melancholic electric that tells as much of a story as Crockett's alluring lyricism.

Crockett has this way of playing with a crowd, always offering a cheeky wink or a stern growl to keep them on their toes. His voice is in particularly fine fettle here too, his yearning, scratchy burl aching through 'The Man From Waco' and 'Just Like Honey', or through glorious covers of George Jones and his ol' mentor, James Hand.

With Live At The Ryman, he cemented himself as one of this modern generation's enduring greats.

- RJ

Margo Price - Perfectly Imperfect at the Ryman

Recorded during her triumphant three-night run at The Ryman Auditorium in May 2018, Perfectly Imperfect at the Ryman captures Margo Price at the top of her game as the newly crowned queen of traditional country music.

Featuring guest appearances from Emmylou Harris on 'Wild Woman', Sturgill Simpson for a version of Rodney Crowell's 'Ain't Living Long Like This' and Jack White for a duet of the White Stripes' 'Honey, We Can't Afford to Look This Cheap', the latter even manages to surpass the studio version in quality and enjoyment.

The album was released in May 2020 to celebrate the second anniversary of the residency, and made available exclusively through Bandcamp to raise money for MusiCares' COVID-19 Relief Fund, giving country music lovers stuck in lockdown a much needed reminder of what it was we all had to look forward to when we were able to go to concerts again.

- Jof Owen

Cody Johnson - Cody Johnson & The Rockin’ CJB Live

When Cody Johnson’s first ever live album, Cody Johnson and The Rockin’ CJB, dropped in 2022, the Texas crooner’s performances had been largely confined to the US and Canada.

As a result, this project offered an invaluable window for the rest of the world into what it’s like to be in the raucous, rowdy atmosphere of a CoJo concert.

There are a slew of moments where Johnson shows off his stellar vocals, particularly on ballads such as ’With You I Am’, ‘On My Way to You’ and ‘Dear Rodeo’, but the record truly comes to life when CoJo is roaring against a honky-tonk backdrop.

At the end of a great live album, you want to be left with a yearning to see the show in person. It’s safe to say, even with just the one-two sucker-punch of ‘Human’ and ‘Til You Can’t’, Cody Johnson and The Rockin‘ CJB deliver.

- MM

Taylor Swift - Speak Now World Tour Live

It may come as a shock, but Speak Now World Tour Live, is the only true live album that Taylor Swift, one of music's biggest stars of all time, has ever released. (Yes, there were the "Live From Paris" recordings following the release of Lover, but that took the form of eight singles as opposed to one "album"... ahh, technicalities.)

If you were to flashback to 2011, Swift was without a doubt one of the hottest stars in country music and well on her way to breaking into the mainstream too. While the Speak Now Tour sold over 1.3 million attendees, Swift and her team decided to record the whole show and release it as a 16-song CD, as well as an accompanying DVD of the tour itself.

Recorded across various dates of the Speak Now trek, the album features a version of nearly every song from the celebrated album – apart from 'Never Grow Up,' 'Innocent' and 'Ours' – as well as a trio of covers and a wild mashup of her own 'Back To December' and 'You're Not Sorry' from Fearless with OneRepublic's 'Apologize.'

Showing off Swift's already impeccable showmanship, something that has only been reinforced and masterfully refined in the nearly 15 years since, the live offering debuted at No. 2 on Billboard's Top Country Albums chart and surged to No. 11 on the all-genre Billboard 200.

Now, who do we talk to about getting a live album of the Eras Tour in 2025?

- LF

Jerry Lee Lewis - The Greatest Live Show on Earth

No one put on a show quite like Jerry Lee Lewis, so it only makes sense that one of his live recordings would be dubbed The Greatest Live Show on Earth.

The 1964 release features the rockabilly trailblazer delivering standards, like ‘Hound Dog’, ‘Long Tall Sally’ and ‘Whole Lotta Shakin’ Going On’, to a screaming mass of thousands at the Municipal Auditorium in Birmingham, Alabama.

The Greatest Live Show on Earth is truly just that, a high-energy, more-is-more showcase from one of country and rock’s greatest showman.

- AP

Townes Van Zandt - Live at the Old Quarter, Houston, Texas

"Restrooms, upstairs! Pay phones, upstairs! Pool tables, upstairs! Fußball's upstairs... cigarette machines, upstairs!" announces Dale Soffar for anyone who'd only just arrived at the intimate Old Quarter bar for the last of Townes Van Zandt's five night residency in July 1973.

Not that anyone would have been interested in going upstairs for any of those things, not with Townes playing downstairs in the kind of mood he was in that night.

Although Townes Van Zandt fans have been blessed with an abundance of live recordings since the singer songwriter died in 1997, Live at the Old Quarter, Houston, Texas is the very best of his concert albums

Captured on a portable four-track by Earl Willis, the album's producer and engineer, the liner notes describe the recording as the "Rosetta Stone" of Texas Music. Delivering covers of artists like Bo Diddley, Lightnin' Hopkins and Merle Travis, as well as pin-drop performances of originals like 'If I Needed You,' 'Panch and Lefty' and 'Loretta,' Townes intersperses the lot with what can only be described as a stand-up routine between songs.

In the 2007 biography To Live's To Fly: The Ballad of the Late, Great Townes Van Zandt, John Kruth writes that Van Zandt played "to nearly a hundred folks per set, packed shoulder to shoulder within the bar's bare brick walls. The room was so jammed that it was impossible for a waitress to wend her way through the crowd to take drink orders. People had to pass money hand over fist and wait, in hopes that a mug of cold beer would eventually find its way back to them."

"I've never heard it that quiet in here," Townes tells the spellbound audience after 'Pancho and Lefty', before launching into a bawdy dad joke that completely breaks the silence. A moment that sums up this near perfect 27-track live recording.

- JO

Zach Bryan - All My Homies Hate Ticketmaster (Live from Red Rocks)

Arriving out of the blue on Christmas Day in 2022, All My Homies Hate Ticketmaster - named in honour of Zach Bryan’s long-standing feud with the ticketing platform - captures one of the key chapters in the Zach lore.

On November 3, the fast-emerging Oklahoma crooner performed a show that has since gone down as a cult-classic, with Bryan taking the stage amidst a rapidly thickening flurry of snow at Colorado’s iconic Red Rocks Amphitheatre.

The raspy, guttural chants of anthems such as ‘Revival’ and ‘Open the Gate’ tend to receive most of the plaudits, but the keystone of this album is undoubtedly Zach’s beautifully sparse rendition of the ridiculously apt ‘Snow’. Other touching but underrated highlights are ‘Sweet DeAnn‘, penned for Zach Bryan’s late mother, and ‘Jamie’, a piece of storytelling magic delivered as a duet with his good buddy, Charles Wesley Godwin.

- MM

John Prine - John Prine Live

Recorded mostly during a three-day stint at The Coach House in San Juan Capistrano, California, John Prine Live showcased the singer's inveterate warmth and playful sense of humour, with some of the stories about the songs lasting longer than the songs themselves.

Highlights include a hilarious tale about Donnie Fritts apologetically showing Prine around an enormous new house his film royalties had bought him and the explanation for 'Sabu Visits the Twin Cities Alone'.

Originally released in 1988 on Oh Boy Records, John Prine's own independent label, it was only because they didn't have anything else to release that the album even came to be.

"We didn't have another artist to put out," Prine explained to David Fricke in 1993. "Oh Boy needed product. The idea was to have me and my guitar, telling stories and doing songs – and buying me some time until I could get into the studio again."

There's no one we'd rather buy time with than John Prine.

- JO

Emmylou Harris and the Nash Ramblers - At The Ryman

"I played a lot of different places in the last 16 years, from really megabucks, you know, multi-million-dollar places that really sound terrible to one place in Lake Charles, Louisiana, where the only way to get to the stage was to climb through a window," Emmylou jokes with the audience. "Anyway, this is the best... this is the best"

Sometimes a live country album is so good it changes the course of country music itself. When Emmylou Harris and her then newly formed acoustic backing band, The Nash Ramblers, chose to perform and record their hour long set at the Ryman Auditorium, the one-time home of the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville had fallen out of favour since the Opry had moved out in 1974 and it was barely being used as a concert venue.

From Tuesday 30th April to Thursday 2nd May, 1991, Emmylou and the Nash Ramblers performed three acoustic concerts of bluegrass and country songs, including versions of Steve Earle's 'Guitar Town' and 'Mansion on the Hill' by Bruce Springsteen, at the dilapidated building, during which no one was allowed to sit on or beneath the balcony due to safety concerns. Capacity was limited to around 200.

"Is it wonderful to sit out there?" she asks them, clearly overwhelmed by standing on the stage at the Mother Church of Country Music. "I mean, is this a great place to sort of feel the hillbilly dust?"

The concerts and the album that followed are rightfully given credit for the renewed interest in reviving the Ryman Auditorium as an active venue after nearly 20 years of dormancy. Soon after the shows, the building was completely renovated and has since become a concert hall, with the Grand Ole Opry returning there annually for all of its November, December, and January shows.

The album won Harris and the Ramblers a Grammy Award for Best Country Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal the following year.

- JO

Eagles - Eagles Live

Parting is such sweet sorrow, but Eagles fans sure got a damn good live album out of the band’s initial breakup in 1980.

While Eagles Live likely only happened out of contractual obligation, the band owing one more album to Elektra Records before their disbandment, the 1980 collection secures a deserving place among the greats.

The live record, taped during the group’s Hotel California and The Long Run tours between 1976 and 1980, features career-spanning hits like ‘Take It to the Limit’, ‘Take It Easy’, ‘Heartache Tonight’ and a performance of the spine-tingling ’Seven Bridges Road’ that would earn the band one more Top 40 hit.

- AP

Noah Kahan - Live From Fenway Park

Probably the newest of the albums on this list, Noah Kahan's live recording from his back-to-back sold-out nights at Boston's famed Fenway Park is simply a must-listen.

Kahan has been playing the music game since 2017, but things didn't really start connecting for our favorite New Englander until his breakout tune, 'Stick Season,' began popping up in virtually every corner of social media.

Spawning from the album that keeps on giving, 2022's Stick Season, the project saw a second life in 2023 with the release of its deluxe version, Stick Season (We'll All Be Here Forever), and now a third with this once-in-a-lifetime recording of nearly the entire album at the legendary ball park in July of 2024.

Featuring already well-loved hits like 'Dial Drunk,' 'Forever,' 'All My Love,' 'She Calls Me Back,' 'Orange Juice' and more, the project also gifts us with the Gracie Abrams duet,'Everywhere, Everything,' and the only version (so far) of 'Pain Is Cold Water,' a tune that's been long teased by the Vermont singer-songwriter.

Kahan's live shows have an indescribable mixture of euphoria, endearment, conviction and vulnerability that you'd be hard pressed to find in another artist from this generation.

Often diving into topics related to mental health, substance abuse and the universal aches and pains of growing up, this live collection of 18 songs brings all of the magic of Kahan's shows with you everywhere you go, offering a much-needed hug in times of despair and a raucous good time when you need it, too.

- LF

Gram Parsons & The Fallen Angels - Live 1973

It was just another Tuesday night in Hempstead, NY, but it turned out to be a very special one indeed for a particularly lucky audience at Ultra Sonic Recording Studios. They were there to witness Gram Parsons and his makeshift band the Fallen Angels gloriously rip their way through a selection of cuts from GP and the yet to be released Grievous Angel in the Spring of 1973.

Recorded in between Parsons' only two solo studio albums on March 13th, Live 1973 was not officially released until 1982, long after Parsons' death at the age of 26 later on in September of that year, but it captures the frustrating genius of one of country's biggest innovators at work.

As with both of Gram Parsons' solo studio albums, Emmylou Harris has some real main character energy throughout the set, providing harmony vocals, acoustic guitar and lead vocals on Jim Shumate's wailing spiritual 'Country Baptizing.'

The Fallen Angels, however, were a different band from the one that appeared on Parsons' two solo albums. James Burton, Ronnie Tutt and most of his studio band had prior commitments with Elvis Presley, so Parsons put together a crew of rough, honky tonk pickers he named "The Fallen Angels" for a ramshackle tour across the US in the spring and summer of 1973, captured here in all their glory on this live recording.

The album includes Parsons' originals 'Big Mouth Blues' and 'The New Soft Shoe', along with a version of The Byrds' 'Drug Store Truck Drivin' Man,' co-written with Roger McGuinn "when I was in fear of my life getting taken away from me," as he explains by way of introduction to the song live.

"Sometimes all you can do is sing gospel music," he ponders. This live recording of Gram Parsons, six months before his death, is testament to that.

- JO

Willie Nelson - Willie and Family Live

At times, Willie Nelson’s sprawling, esteemed discography can be difficult to navigate, with a seemingly innumerable roster of studio albums coupled with a prolific track record of writing hits for other artists.

This album, though, serves as a handy tour through some of Willie’s biggest songs, injecting an additional sense of swagger and charisma that you can only get at a live show.

As is always the case, Nelson makes each track on this project his own, whether he’s giving the blues treatment to Patsy Cline’s era-defining ballad, ‘Crazy’ - which Willie wrote - or somehow bringing even more unruliness and controlled chaos to his signature drinking anthem, ‘Whiskey River’.

- MM

George Strait - The Cowboy Rides Away: Live from AT&T Stadium

There comes a time where every King must say goodbye to their loyal subjects - but your average member of royalty doesn’t usually have the luxury of bidding farewell via a record-setting homecoming show that ends up being recorded for posterity.

Then again, nothing about George Strait has ever been ‘average’, as this bittersweet record highlights. With the best part of 60 No. 1s to choose from, it’s a stacked setlist featuring some of the biggest hits in country music, from ‘Check Yes or No’, ‘Write This Down’ and ‘The Chair’ to a heartwarming choral version of the iconic ‘All My Ex’s Live in Texas’ to help round off the record.

There are legendary guest appearances aplenty, including Alan Jackson, Sheryl Crow, Faith Hill, Kenny Chesney and many more. Plus, the twinge of sadness you get as Strait exits the stage on the title-track, ‘The Cowboy Rides Away’, is somewhat allayed by the fact that, ten years on from his ‘final tour-stop’, Strait is continuing his series of stadium shows with Chris Stapleton in 2024, as part of what very much looks and feels like a tour.

- MM

Tyler Childers - Live on Red Barn Radio I & II

There's an argument to say that Tyler Childers' Live On Red Barn Radio I & II possesses two unique components that make it a live album like no other.

Firstly, Live At Red Barn opened the door for Live Video Sessions to be a main vehicle for consuming music in the country, Americana and roots landscape. Colter Wall with The Original 16 Brewery Sessions? Sierra Ferrell with WesternAF? Hell, Zach Top with Holler Nashville Sessions? Tyler walked with Red Barn so all these could run.

Second, Red Barn has two, if not more, of the definitive recordings of some of the most beloved songs in Childers’ catalogue. 'Shake The Frost' and 'Follow You To Virgie' are so engrained into the legend of the recordings, that Childers has never included them on a studio album.

Find us a live album that holds such value in another artists' catalogue, we'll wait.

- RJ

Johnny Cash - At Folsom Prison

Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison is perhaps the most iconic live album in country music history. Not only does the 1968 release mark the Man in Black’s first live album, the collection, recorded at California’s Folsom State Prison, would make for a release like no other.

The legend, accompanied by June Carter, Carl Perkins, and Cash’s longtime backing band, the Tennessee Three, performed two shows for the inmates at Folsom, who can be heard cheering and clapping along to recordings of classics like ‘Folsom Prison Blues’, ‘Cocaine Blues’, ‘I Got Stripes’ and ‘Jackson’.

Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison would go on to earn Cash a Grammy for Best Album Notes in 1969, with the collection’s ‘Folsom Prison Blues’ earning him the Best Male Country Vocal Performance. However, the live album would have a far greater impact than simply bolstering Cash’s career.

At the core of Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison – and his subsequent release, Johnny Cash at San Quentin – is a call for change, the album having brought attention to America’s penal system and the need for prison reform.

- AP