Joe Kelly: The 5 Friendliest Country Stars I’ve Met

Some questions I'm often asked are: "What are country singers really like?"; "Who's the nicest singer you've ever met?"; "Is so-and-so as real as they appear to be?"

Let's make it easy: Almost every country star I've met has been kind and welcoming. Yes, there have been one or two exceptions - but not many.

Top 5 nicest country stars

Honestly, I could almost write any five names here, and be satisfied - so, I'll key on some of the bigger stars.

(I will say throw in one caveat here. There may be a little bias here - I work in radio and decide the music our radio station plays. Artists know they should be nice to radio people if they want radio people to play their music.)

*Kenny Chesney

I've met Kenny several times over the years. He's always nice, respectful, and happy to speak about almost anything.

Shortly after some young men from our area died in a tragic accident, I passed to Kenny a letter from the father of one of the young men. Kenny was kind enough to read it - and remembered it when I saw him a year later. A few years after that, I had the opportunity to introduce Kenny to that Dad, and he remembered the story.

Amazingly, he remembered.

He also fondly remembers playing the Wildwood Beach back in 2012. He talks about that each time I see him too.

*Garth Brooks

A nice guy and a true gentleman. He and Trisha are both down-to-earth, "real people." He doesn't talk like he's a superstar.

Garth is someone that you want to lean in and listen to every time he speaks.

*Keith Urban

He's just a fun guy from Australia. He's as outgoing, charming, and fun-loving as he appears.

I said, "Keith let's do something different here. Instead of looking at the camera, let's look up there!"

JK

*Dierks Bentley

I've known Dierks for 20+ years since he signed his first record deal. When I first met him, he was a fun-loving single guy. Now he's a fun-loving father of three.

The one thing that you can feel with Dierks - he loves being on the stage playing music.

A cool guy, always with great stories.

*Jelly Roll

Talk about a cool guy with great stories!

I can tell you Jelly is as fun in person as you've seen him in front of the camera. Again, he's a guy very grateful for his success.

He likes to laugh!

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*The rest

Again, this is just the short list. I could have easily added a couple dozen more names here - from Alabama to Brooks and Dunn to Carrie Underwood to Luke Bryan to Blake Shelton to Jason Aldean to Lainey Wilson.  Uh, and Toby Keith - he was such a great guy!