I saw that Forbes magazine listed the top ten country music stars in terms of income for 2007, which included tours, record sales, and the like. Toby Keith was #1 at $48 million, and Alan Jackson was #10 at $10 million. That got me to wondering, what would someone like George, Merle, Hank Jr. or Willie make in this day and time? What were they making in their prime?
I watched "Celebrity Apprentice" which had Trace Adkins in the final two against Piers Morgan. The last event was an auction. Piers's people were bidding several thousand dollars on items, and even though Trace had some country music friends there, he said he couldn't compete with Piers because he didn't know people with the kind of money they had.

I can't answer about the others, but, for instance, in 1970 Johnny Cash earned about $3 million. Based on the CPI increase since then (464%) that number would equate to nearly $17 million in today's dollars.

The $3 mil number is especially impressive when you consider that a concert ticket cost less than $10, a record sold for $3 or so and royalty payments were way, way less than they are now.

Think of what that 1970 figure would translate into today with bigger ticket prices, record prices, etc.

The older stars (like Johnny, Merle, Willie, etc.) don't have the support of record companies, large tour sponsors, etc., but their overhead is also a lot less than the 'big' tours whose overhead for giant stages, volcanoes, dancers, etc., etc. are out of this world.

At the end of the day, maybe Willie ends up with more in his pocket (dollar for dollar, proportionately)) than Toby does...just speculation, but it's possible.

I think the internet robbers reduce the income of many artists, as far as record selling is concerned. They have to tour more than before. For European tours, one example is Madonna, another is Joan Baez. Luckily, for whatever reason, Emmylou Harris is touring Europe in September.

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