Keith Urban, Vince Gill Raise $600K
Tuesday night, Keith Urban and Vince Gill hosted their fifth annual All For The Hall concert in Nashville. The 3 hour show raised over $600,000 for the Country Music Hall of Fame & Museum. The show featured a broad range of artists, from newcomers to established superstars to legends. The day before, Keith met with radio reporters and talked about the show.
Talk about the theme of the night: I chose the name “Songtellers” because some of the artists like Reba and Ronnie Milsap aren’t known as songwriters, they’re song interpreters. So they probably have their own stories to tell us about why they choose certain songs. I was curious to know if they had to fight other artists to get that song, that sort of stuff as well. So I wanted to know the story of the song, not just the writing of it necessarily, so I think it’ll be an interesting evening.
Since the list of performers was announced, one of the artists got some news. Ronnie Milsap is the newest member of the Country Music Hall of Fame, so it’s appropriate that he perform for this benefit: Yeah, what are the odds of that? It’s very cool. We had no idea about that when we asked Ronnie so it was cool to see it happen. One of my favorite albums of all time is ‘Out Where the Bright Lights Are Glowing,’ which was a tribute record to Jim Reeves. I heard that album and fell in love with the album. It’s a little bit like ‘Good Old Boys Like Me,’ that melancholy lyric to it, and I didn’t know it was about Jim Reeves at the time, but I could relate to the person in the song late at night.
One of the new artists on the show is Brett Eldredge. Talk about him: We took Brett Eldredge with us to Canada, he’s a cool guy, I love his voice, he’s a great entertainer, and he’s made a great album.
How did you get involved in this All For The Hall concert? Vince Gill told me this idea which was to have all of us artists donate one night’s proceeds to the Hall of Fame, and I thought what if we put on a specific concert for that, which would be significantly more money because it’ll be all of it, and we can create a lot of awareness. So we can make it an event, put a bunch of people on stage, and really do a great show as well. It’s a labor of love. If there’s one challenge, it’s trying to condense the guest list. From the beginning, it’s like doing a wedding guest list. So the idea of themes came up, so there’s some criteria for a guest list. Now that we get to do it every year, I have a huge list of people I want to invite through the years.
You’re hosting this benefit at the same time that you’re appearing on American Idol. How do you manage your schedule? I have a really good team around me. I couldn’t do it without my team. Two days ago, I felt slightly overwhelmed, and I heard this voice that asked ‘Are you having fun?’ Because if you’re not enjoying it, you need to stop. It’s all very fleeting, and I’ll look back and say I should have enjoyed it more. I can’t let stress affect me, so I need to step back and enjoy it, because it’ll all be gone before I know it. The great thing about Idol is it’s not a huge time commitment once we get to the live shows.
Speaking of Idol, Jennifer Lopez has said she’d like to sing with you. Have you talked about singing with either her or Harry Connick Jr.? The three of us have been trying to figure a song we can sing together for the finale. It’s proved a bit challenging to find one song that works for all three of us vocally because we’re so different. So we may put together several songs in sequence we can do. We’ve got Randy Jackson working on that. So hopefully we can do that because I’d like to.
The American Idol finale airs May 21st on Fox. Keith will perform at CMA Music Fest in Nashville on June 7. He will then do a 2 week tour of Australia, one week in Canada, before launching the Raise ‘Em Up Tour in July.
Here are some photos from the 5th annual All For The Hall Concert in Nashville:
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