Were Vince Gill and Keith Whitley friends?

Songfacts®:

• Gill began writing this following the untimely death of country music superstar Keith Whitley. Gill didn't finish the song until a few years later following the death of his brother. Thus, the song is a tribute song to both Keith Whitley and Gill's brother. >>

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• Additional background vocals were provided by Patty Loveless and Ricky Skaggs.

• Gill played this song during his induction into the Country Music Hall of Fame in February 2009. He explained he penned it after his older brother Bob's death from a heart attack in 1993. "I wrote this song, and I didn't have any idea if anybody would want to hear it, or like it. All I wanted to do was grieve for him and celebrate his life. That's how I always process grief—sit down with a guitar and make something up. Turns out that if anybody remembers any of my songs, it'll be this one."

• This won the 1995 Grammy Award for Best Country Song.

Many of the songs written about in this weekly feature were collaborative writing efforts. It isn’t nearly as often that a song covered here was written and performed single-handedly by an artist, though those are often the most personal and emotional ones. Such is the case with a track that was the only one not a collaboration with another writer on Vince Gill’s 1995 album When Love Finds You, “Go Rest High On That Mountain.”

A song that has almost become a funeral and memorial service standard in the minds of many, Gill started writing “Go Rest High On That Mountain” after the death of country singer Keith Whitley in 1989. The last line of the first verse contains the title of Whitley’s biggest hit, “I’m No Stranger to the Rain”:

I know your life on earth was troubled
And only you could know the pain
You weren’t afraid to face the devil
You were no stranger to the rain

Gill finished the song after a heartbreaking death in his family in 1993. “I wrote it right after my brother died,” Gill told Rolling Stone Country in 2014. “I wasn’t going to record it, I didn’t want to. But [producer] Tony Brown talked me into it … When people are hurting the most, in the worst place they can be, they’re reaching out to that. To that song. And that means way more to me than where it landed on the charts.”

The life of Tony Brown, who is sometimes called “The King of Nashville” for his incredible success as a producer, is chronicled in an upcoming book of iconic photos, Elvis, Strait, to Jesus, which features Gill. Brown believed the song needed to be recorded even if Gill didn’t. “I really think that was just a serendipitous moment that came out of [Gill’s] pen, and it was very powerful!” he said. “After we cut it, Vince suggested we get Patty Loveless and Ricky Skaggs to sing on it.” Skaggs had originally come to prominence as a teenager playing bluegrass with Whitley in Dr. Ralph Stanley’s band.

Strangely enough – or not, since we are talking about the music business – “Go Rest High On That Mountain” almost never saw airplay, and was the sixth and final single released from When Love Finds You. “I vaguely remember that the radio promotion department was being a bit analytical about the track being too slow or something like that,” Brown recalled. But it became an enduring classic, an example of how radio programmers and record label executives don’t always know what will resonate with the public.

It’s also interesting that while the song seemingly comes from a Christian place, with the lines Go to Heaven a shoutin’/Love for the Father and the Son, it can appeal to people who aren’t necessarily believers. “It’s become the ‘How Great Thou Art’ of memorial services for Nashville industry folks,” Brown said. “It never fails to work as a song to sing as a final goodbye. It’s already on its way to becoming the ‘standard’ in Nashville, and even in Gospel circles, as well. I’m proud to have played a small part in working on that tune with Vince.”

Country music legend Vince Gill performed a moving tribute at a funeral ceremony honoring a fallen hero on Feb. 6.

Eric Mumaw was a respected 18-year veteran of the Metro Nashville Police Department. He died on Thursday, Feb. 2, while trying to rescue a suicidal woman from the cold waters of the Cumberland River. He was 44.

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During the memorial service, which was held at the Cornerstone Church in Madison, Tennessee, an incredibly teary-eyed Vince recalled his late older brother, Bob, as he dedicated the 1995 song, “Go Rest High on that Mountain,” to Eric’s mother, Esther Marie Connell.

Vince said, “This was a song I wrote when I lost my brother. He passed right around the same age as Eric, and I watched my mother have to go through this and it was very difficult.”

“I wrote this song for the love of a brother,” he added, “and today I want to sing it for all of you — for your love and for your brother.”

Then, Vince solemnly crooned the emotional ballad over the microphone amid a cop car covered in flowers and red, white and blue balloons.

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Many may recall that Vince began writing “Go Rest High on that Mountain” following the death of country superstar Keith Whitley. However, he didn’t finish the ballad until the passing of his sibling, who died of a heart attack in 1993.

Aside from Vince, stars Billy Ray Cyrus and Jamey Johnson were among others who paid tribute to Eric during the memorial service. They performed a stirring duet on “Some Gave All.” Our hearts go out to Eric’s family and friends during this time.

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