Population: Tiny. Talent: Enormous. Three Country Stars From the Smallest Towns in America

Country music has always celebrated small-town roots, but most artists mean "small town" the way politicians mean it. Then there are the artists who grew up in places so small they barely show up on a map. Here are three country stars whose hometowns make most small towns look like a metropolis.

#3: Lainey Wilson, Baskin, Louisiana, Population 210

Lainey Wilson grew up in Baskin, Louisiana, home to roughly 170 to 210 people depending on who's counting, and she has described it simply as a big farming community. "My daddy farms corn, wheat, soybeans, oats," she said on the No Filter podcast. "Very blue-collar town. We don't even have a red light. We have a caution light."

Her father Brian was a fifth-generation farmer and her mother Michelle was a schoolteacher. Lainey grew up on the family farm surrounded by corn and cotton fields, and those rhythms of agricultural life shaped everything that came after. She started performing at age nine at a local convenience store opening in Baskin and pocketed twenty dollars for the show. That was the beginning.

"Everybody knows everybody," she said of Baskin. "It's like the best thing and the worst thing. They're there when you need 'em, and they're there when you don't. They're just there." She moved to Nashville at nineteen, lived in a camper trailer her father bought her, and spent the better part of a decade grinding before "Things a Man Oughta Know" changed her life. Today, a portion of Louisiana Highway 15 through Baskin has been officially renamed the Lainey Wilson Highway. Not bad for a town with a caution light. Read her full bio for more.

#2: Kacey Musgraves, Golden, Texas, Population 156

Kacey Musgraves grew up in Golden, Texas, a tiny community with a population of fewer than 200 people situated about 30 miles southeast of Mineola in Wood County, known for its rolling hills, wooded landscapes, and vast ranchlands. She was born six weeks prematurely and weighed only five pounds. Golden, Texas did not make it easy on her in any sense of the word.

She started writing songs at eight years old. Her first song was called "Notice Me," written for her elementary school graduation. By twelve she was taking guitar lessons from a local teacher named John DeFoore, who had also taught Miranda Lambert. By the time she was a teenager she was performing with a duo called Texas Two Bits, touring Texas and eventually performing at President George W. Bush's Black Tie and Boots Inaugural Ball. From a town of 156 people to the Grammys, with eight total wins and a record that made her the only artist to win a Grammy in every country category. Golden, Texas should probably rename a highway of its own. Get all the details on Kacey here.

#1: Cody Johnson, Sebastopol, Texas, Population 120

Cody Johnson was born and grew up in Sebastopol, Texas, located in Trinity County. According to the Handbook of Texas, the community had a population of 120. Sebastopol is not a town so much as it is a dot in the East Texas piney woods, the kind of place where a kid can spend his entire childhood roaming the woods, hunting, fishing, and never once running into traffic.

Home-schooling and family time around the piano gave young Cody the kind of upbringing many people envy, and his musical training started when his dad Carl taught him the chords to "I'll Fly Away," a Southern gospel favorite. When his agricultural science teacher overheard him playing an original song, he convinced Cody to form a band with other FFA members, and a few months later the band placed runner-up in the highly competitive Texas State FFA talent contest. That was the moment he fell in love with performing.

What came after is one of country music's great self-made stories. Bull riding, a prison guard job, six independent albums sold from the back of a truck, and eventually a path to stadiums, CMA Awards, and ACM Entertainer of the Year. Today he lives with his family on a 25-acre farm in the same town he grew up in and dreams of one day owning 250 acres or more in the Lone Star State. Population 120 produced a genuine country music superstar, and Sebastopol, Texas is never going to let him forget it. Read everything about Cody’s upbringing here.

Three towns. Three artists. A combined hometown population of less than 500 people. Country music has always come from somewhere real. These three came from somewhere really small.