The annual Emmy Awards are a time to celebrate the television industry’s best and brightest. We honor the performances that moved us, educated us, or made us feel. However, the TV awards ceremony also carves out some time for somber reflection. A special “In Memoriam” segment honors and reflects on the lives we’ve lost this year. As we remembered those who left us, Lainey Wilson joined Vince Gill for a gut-wrenching rendition of his most emotional song.
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Vince Gill, Lainey Wilson Perform “Go Rest High On That Mountain”
Although hailing from different eras of country music, both Lainey Wilson and Vince Gill know how to harness the power of emotion through performance. On Sunday (Sept. 14), they joined together onstage at the Peacock Theater in downtown Los Angeles, California, to perform Gill’s timeless ballad “Go Rest High On That Mountain.”
Pictures of Maggie Smith, Quincy Jones, and Malcolm-Jamal Warner flashed on a screen as the country music hitmakers sang, Go rest high on that mountain / Son your work on earth is done / Go to heaven a-shoutin’ / Love for the Father and the Son.
“I just heard Lainey Wilson and Vince Gill are going to sing ‘go rest high on that mountain’ and I wanna cry,” one X/Twitter user wrote ahead of the performance.
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Gill Debuts Brand-New Verse
Vince Gill and Lainey Wilson’s heavenly rendition of “Go Rest High On That Mountain” may have sounded a bit different to those familiar with the song. That’s because the 22-time Grammy winner recently released a new extended version of the song to celebrate its 30th anniversary.
Truly a lighthouse in a storm, Gill began writing “Go Rest High On That Mountain” after country singer Keith Whitley’s untimely death in 1989. The track sat partially written for four years. Then, Gill lost his older brother, Bob, to a heart attack in 1993. The unspeakable loss spurred him to finish writing what would become his seminal hit.
However, the song still felt unfinished to Gill. So, to commemorate 30 years of “Go Rest High On That Mountain,” Gill recently dropped an extended version containing a third verse that he previously only ever played live.
“In all these years of singing that song, truthfully it felt just the slightest bit incomplete to me. I always thought it needed to tie itself up in some way,” Gill said, according to The Boot.
(Photo by Mickey Bernal/Getty Images)
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