Keith Urban, Vince Gill, and Special Guests Testify to the Power of Song at All For The Hall Nashville Benefit Concert

Bridgestone Arena show supports Country Music Hall of Fame
and Museum education programs

About two hours into Tuesday night’s (December 5) All for the Hall concert at Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena, Trisha Yearwood made her way onstage to perform her 1993 hit “The Song Remembers When.” “It’s about the power of music,” she said in describing the song, written by Hugh Prestwood, “and that’s why we’re here.”

“The Hall of Fame is a treasure, and the Hall of Fame is where our stories are told forever,” continued Yearwood, who worked as a tour guide at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum before her music career took off. “That’s what this is all about: preserving those stories.”

Yearwood’s song title captured the way music evokes memories so well, in fact, that Keith Urban selected “The Song Remembers When” as the theme for All for the Hall 2023, his eighth benefit concert for the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum. The four-time Grammy winner and his “trusty co-pilot” for the evening, Country Music Hall of Fame member and museum board president Vince Gill, asked each of the night’s special guests—Kelsea Ballerini, Ernest, Riley Green, Mickey Guyton, Hardy, Old Dominion, the War and Treaty, Yearwood, and Country Music Hall of Fame members Brooks & Dunn, Brenda Lee, and Patty Loveless—to perform both one of their own songs and a song that defined a memorable moment in their life.

“A lot of us artists, we hear stories from you guys . . . where you tell us about how our songs have affected you and what memories you may have from some of our songs,” Urban noted at the start of the show, “but I think sometimes you forget that we have the same kind of feelings about other people’s songs.”

Often, those songs came from another country artist’s catalog. Urban kicked the night off with two of his own songs, “Wild Hearts” and “Blue Ain’t Your Color,” then played the Dukes of Hazzard theme song—on a guitar previously owned by Waylon Jennings, who wrote the song and narrated the popular TV show—while explaining to the crowd that the series taught him “everything I needed to know, basically” about America while he was growing up in Australia.

“I tried to slide across my [car] hood,” Urban admitted, adding that he quickly learned that the Duke cousins’ signature move “is not that easy.”

Co-host Vince Gill joined Urban onstage and delivered a blazing version of his 1992 #1 country hit “Don’t Let Our Love Start Slippin’ Away.” He followed that with an even more rocking version of his fellow Eagle bandmate Joe Walsh’s “Rocky Mountain Way,” a 1973 rock hit. On both songs, Urban traded hot guitar licks with Gill.

Rising country star Ernest followed his own song “Kiss of Death” with a cover of one of his favorite songs popularized by Country Music Hall of Fame member Merle Haggard, “That’s the Way Love Goes.” Ernest’s pal Hardy delivered an arena-rocking rendition of his song “Truck Bed,” then performed Travis Tritt’s 2001 hit “It’s a Great Day to Be Alive” (written by Darrell Scott), explaining to the audience that, for him, the song is a reminder to focus on slowing down and remaining grateful for health, happiness, and the simple pleasures in life. Riley Green offered his 2019 single “I Wish Grandpas Never Died” and Alabama’s “Dixieland Delight,” the latter a nod to his Alabama roots.

Instead of singing country songs, two acts acknowledged the season with songs pegged for the holidays. Midway through the night, Brenda Lee (a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame and the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame) had the audience singing along to “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree,” currently the #1 song on the Billboard Hot 100 all-genre chart, sixty-five years after it was recorded. While she sang, Urban, Gill, and the night’s house band—Urban’s touring band plus fiddler Deanie Richardson and steel guitarist Paul Franklin—donned Santa hats and blinking Christmas-light necklaces to complete the mood.

The War and Treaty took a different holiday tack, delivering a stirring, reverent rendition of “O Holy Night.” It’s the first Christmas song the duo’s Tanya Trotter remembers learning as a child, and she and her husband and singing partner, Michael Trotter Jr., sang the song’s final lines a cappella, fully demonstrating their vocal power.

Old Dominion played a rocking version of their recent Top Ten country hit “Memory Lane.” They followed it with a powerful cover of Pearl Jam’s 1991 rock hit “Alive.” The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame group, frontman Matthew Ramsey explained, “blew all of our minds and really made us all want to be in a band.”

“One of the beautiful things about country music is how it really embraces all genres of music,” Ramsey told the crowd. “Our influences sort of come from all over, and we’re just so proud to be included in this community.”

Several of the night’s performances underlined the connections between the artists on the bill. Brooks & Dunn ended the show with “I Ain’t Living Long Like This,” written by Rodney Crowell, whose backing band in the early 1980s included none other than Vince Gill on lead guitar. Mickey Guyton, meanwhile, seemed thrilled to be singing “Blame It on Your Heart,” the rollicking 1993 #1 hit originally recorded by one of her idols, Country Music Hall of Fame member Patty Loveless.

“Being in the same house with all these wonderful, beautiful artists,” Loveless said when she got onstage later in the evening, “it’s such an inspiration, still, to me.” Loveless hushed the audience with her introspective 1993 hit “Nothin’ but the Wheel,” written by John Scott Sherrill, before bringing them to their feet and inspiring a rousing singalong with a cover of fellow Kentucky native Jackie DeShannon’s 1969 pop hit “Put a Little Love in Your Heart.”

Kelsea Ballerini, like Guyton, told the audience how ecstatic she was to have the opportunity to share the stage with co-hosts Gill and Urban, who spent the night as members of the backing band. Gill’s soaring tenor was in full display as he added buoyant harmonies to Ballerini’s lighthearted song about deep friendship, “If You Go Down (I’m Goin’ Down Too).”

“If you had told me when I was writing that song that I would have Keith Urban and Vince Gill sing harmony and play guitar while I was singing my most unhinged lyrics,” Ballerini joked, “I’d feel pretty proud.”

A distinct undercurrent of spontaneous and communal fun ran throughout the show, often thanks to Urban, who took his role as host and emcee seriously (but not too seriously), whether he was adjusting Gill’s microphone stand mid-song or leading a “Happy Birthday” sing-along for “Olivia from Alabama,” a fan near the front of the stage.

“This is the most loose, disheveled, flying-by-the-seat-of-our-pants show you’re gonna see all year,” Urban told the crowd as the show began. “It’s kind of like the vibe of a back-porch picking session.”

The evening also showcased the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum’s flagship education program, Words & Music, which pairs students in grades 3-12 with professional songwriters, who help the students develop language-arts skills while they learn to write songs. Abigail Sowards, a senior at Rutherford County’s Stewarts Creek High School, along with her classmates John Dechira and David Guydon and professional songwriter Paulina Jayne, performed the song “These Moments.” More than 150,000 students have participated in the Words & Music program since its inception in 1979.

From the stage, Urban and Gill announced that Tuesday night’s All for the Hall concert raised more than $900,000 in support of the museum’s education initiatives—the most of any of the benefit concerts Urban has hosted. Collectively, the Nashville events have raised more than $5 million to date.