The tradition of the Country Music Hall of Fame benefit concert All for the Hall returned to Nashville Tuesday evening (Dec. 5), led by four-time Grammy Award winner Keith Urban and Country Music Hall of Famer Vince Gill.
They led a cavalcade of artists to perform some of their biggest hits — and highlight their personal favored songs from other artists — onstage at Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena. Joining Gill and Urban were Kelsea Ballerini, ERNEST, Riley Green, Mickey Guyton, HARDY, Old Dominion, The War And Treaty, Trisha Yearwood and Country Music Hall of Fame members Brenda Lee, Brooks & Dunn and Patty Loveless.
The War and Treaty offered up towering renderings of “Mr. Fun” and the holiday classic “O Holy Night.” Gill performed “Don’t Let Our Love Start Slippin’ Away,” as well as the Joe Walsh/Barnstorm song “Rocky Mountain Way.” Riley Green offered up “I Wish Grandpas Never Died,” before tipping his hat to Alabama’s classic “Dixieland Delight.” Meanwhile, Ballerini was all sass and starpower on “If You Go Down (I’m Goin’ Down Too),” before showing her tender side with a cover of Carole King’s “You’ve Got a Friend.”
Brooks & Dunn, like all of the artists on the bill that evening, were backed by an ace band that included Gill and Urban — making for a star-studded performance of B&D’s “My Maria,” followed by the Waylon Jennings classic “I Ain’t Livin’ Long Like This.” ERNEST offered “Kiss of Death” and “That’s the Way Love Goes,” while Old Dominion — who will themselves headline a show at Bridgestone Arena on Dec. 15 — performed “Memory Lane” and “Alive.”
In the process, this year’s show raised nearly $1 million (over $900,000) — the largest amount raised in the event’s eight-year history- -to support the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum’s education programs.
Though the evening featured numerous musical heavy-hitters, it also put the CMHoF’s Words & Music program in the spotlight. The program pairs students with professional songwriters to teach writing and language arts through music, and has had more than 8,000 students take part this year. Songwriter Paulina Jayne and Abigail Sowards, a senior at Stewarts Creek High School, performed the song “These Moments” with her fellow classmates John Dechira and David Guydon.
It was perhaps HARDY, who has been vocal about his own struggles with anxiety in recent months, who summed up the main emotion that flowed through the evening’s music and stories: gratitude.
“The holidays, stress and mental health, anxiety, whatever, whatever you’ve got going on– it’s always good to take a look around and realize you’re breathing, we’re all here and we’re all lucky to be alive,” HARDY told the crowd.
Here, we take a look at five top moments from the evening:
Mickey Guyton commanded the attention of everyone at Bridgestone Arena Tuesday night, thanks to both her otherworldly voice and her shimmering ensemble. She lent her considerable performing gifts to both her own “Better Than You Left Me,” as well as Loveless’ “Blame It on Your Heart.”
Loveless, who was recently inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame, offered up a version of Jackie DeShannon’s “Put a Little Love in Your Heart” — but it was her performance of her own 1993 Hot Country Songs top 20 hit “Nothin’ But the Wheel” that stirred listeners’ hearts, as she poured her crystalline, unadorned Kentucky twang into this lonely freedom song.
One of the evening’s co-hosts, Urban opened the show with his own “Wild Hearts” and “Blue Ain’t Your Color” — but during the show, he also performed “Good Ol’ Boys,” the theme song from the ’80s TV series Dukes of Hazzard, written and recorded by Waylon Jennings.
“I’m a lifelong Waylon Jennings fan — so much so that I have one of his guitars,” Urban told the crowd. He noted that in the show, fans see Jennings’ guitar and his hands, but never his face, which led to a key line in the song: “You know my Mama loved me/ But she don’t understand they keep showing my hands and not my face on TV.”
Yearwood, who spent time as a tour guide at the Country Music Hall of Fame before she rose to music stardom, noted that she has been part of the All for the Hall concerts a few times. This year, she performed her own “The Song Remembers When,” which served as the inspiration for this year’s All for the Hall theme, as well as a soaring and soulful rendition of “You’re No Good,” made most famous by Linda Ronstadt with her Hot 100-topping 1974 version.
“The Hall of Fame is a treasure,” Yearwood told the crowd, before paying homage to Lee. “The Hall of Fame is where all of our stories are told, forever — and artists like Brenda Lee, who came up here and did ‘Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree,’ she’s our history. She is to be revered and remembered. If you came here tonight and you’ve never heard of Brenda Lee, I don’t know where you live, but also, you want to look her up. What this woman has done in her career is astonishing. And she’s a true legend and hero. So, that’s what this is all about.”
At 78, Lee is as spry and humorous as ever, leading the Bridgestone Arena crowd deeper into the holiday spirit with her classic, the Johnny Marks-penned “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree,” which just earned Lee her third No. 1 Hot 100 hit, 65 years after its initial release.
Lee, dressed in an elegant black and white ensemble, sang her classic hit (which she recorded in 1958, at age 13) with gusto, commanding the stage and clearly taking joy in the performance as the audience shimmied and sang back to Lee at the top of their lungs. The screen behind the band displayed a decorated Christmas tree, while Lee was aided by an ace group of musicians, including Gill, who put Christmas lights around his neck, and Urban, who donned a Santa hat and holiday sweater for Lee’s performance. Lee and company earned a standing ovation from the Bridgestone Arena audience.