Vince Gill Dedicates Emotional Performance To Toby Keith And Blake Shelton’s Late Brother

Vince Gill honored two Oklahomans taken too soon during a Saturday night concert hosted by Blake Shelton.

During his set at Oklahoma Is All for the Hall, a fundraiser for the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum’s education programs, Gill dedicated an emotional performance of “Go Rest High on That Mountain” to Shelton’s late brother and country legend Toby Keith, who died of cancer in February.

“I thought I’d do something sweet tonight,” Gill told the crowd in Tulsa. The 22-time Grammy winner went on to explain that he wrote “Go Rest High On That Mountain” in memory of his late brother, Bob, and that he wanted to dedicate the performance to Shelton’s brother, Richie, who died in a car accident, and also “my fellow Okie, Mr. Toby Keith.”

According to American Songwriter, Gill actually started writing “Go Rest High on That Mountain” following the death of country singer Keith Whitley in 1989. He didn’t finish the song until four years later, after his older brother suffered a fatal heart attack in 1993. In 2019, Rolling Stone ranked the 1995 hit number 17 on its list of the 40 Saddest Country Songs of All Time.

Shelton was just 14 years old when his older brother, Richie, died in a car accident in 1990.

“My brother, if he had been around, he would’ve freaked out if he had known what I had gone on to do,” Shelton told Entertainment Tonight in 2023. “He was just such a huge music fan. You could hear him coming six blocks away, the stereo blaring out of his truck.”

Keith was 62 when he lost his battle with stomach cancer earlier this year. The 2024 CMT Music Awards, airing on April 7, will include a special musical tribute to the late legend starring Brooks & Dunn, Lainey Wilson, and Sammy Hager.