Country music legend Toby Keith died Feb. 5 after a nearly three-year battle with stomach cancer. One day later, the world learned that he would join the Country Music Hall of Fame. The “Big Dog Daddy” got his due Sunday (Oct. 20) during a ceremony at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum’s CMA Theater in downtown Nashville. Blake Shelton, Post Malone and more turned out to honor the “Red Solo Cup” legend. But Eric Church perhaps gave the night’s most stirring performances with a haunting rendition of “Don’t Let the Old Man In.”
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See Eric Church Perform “Don’t Let the Old Man In”
Donning an all-black outfit and his trademark dark sunglasses, Eric Church delivered an evocative performance of Toby Keith’s 2018 hit.
Keith was inspired to pen “Don’t Let the Old Man In” after meeting actor-director Clint Eastwood at a 2018 charity golf tournament in Florida. Despite being 88 years old at the time, Eastwood was hard at work on his film The Mule. When an impressed Keith asked Eastwood how he kept pushing forward at his age, the Dirty Harry star simply replied, “I don’t let the old man in.”
“And I thought, ‘I’m writing that,’” the seven-time CMT Award winner told Billboard.
Keith wrote the song for The Mule, and it debuted atop Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart. “Don’t Let the Old Man In” also saw a chart resurgence after the “Should’ve Been a Cowboy” singer’s death. It was a fitting tribute from Eric Church to the man he credits with kick-starting his career.
“There Is No Way I’m Standing Here Today if It Wasn’t for Toby Keith”
Eric Church toured with Toby Keith during the latter’s Locked & Loaded Tour in 2011. The invitation came at a time when the “Hell of a View” singer was receiving a chilly reception in Nashville. Without the “Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue” hitmaker, we may have never heard Eric Church.
“About 15 years ago, I was starting my career, and we were having a hard time getting anybody in country music to let us come play shows with ’em,” Church said during this summer’s Toby Keith: American Icon tribute concert. “And Toby Keith was the guy that called and said ‘Hey, why don’t you come play shows with me?’ And there is no way I’m standing here today if it wasn’t for Toby Keith.”
Featured image by Jason Moore/ZUMA Press Wire/Shutterstock
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