Keith Whitley passed away in 1989, and the country singer will be honored on the 30th anniversary of his death with a memorial concert.
The concert will take place on May 9 at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum’s CMA Theater in Nashville, and performers will include Garth Brooks, Tom Buller, Mark Chesnutt, Larry Cordle, Caleb Daugherty, Kevin Denney, Wesley Dennis, Joe Diffie, Corey Farlow, Carl Jackson, Cory and Dustin Keefe, Tracy Lawrence, Jesse Whitley, Mark Wills, Darryl Worley and Trisha Yearwood.
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Named the Keith Whitley 30th Anniversary Memorial Tribute Concert, the show will be hosted by Whitley’s widow, singer Lorrie Morgan, and their son, Jesse Whitley. Tickets will go on sale on March 29 at 10 a.m. CT and information can be found at CMATheater.com.
Whitley was a country singer who recorded two albums before his death at age 34, which was deemed to be the result of alcohol poisoning. Before he died, he had charted 12 songs, with seven more songs charting after he passed away. Some of Whitley’s most famous songs include “Don’t Close Your Eyes” and “When You Say Nothing At All,” later recorded by Alison Krauss.
He was a native of Sandy Hook, Kentucky, and formed the East Kentucky Mountain Boys with Ricky Skaggs before becoming members of Ralph Stanley’s bluegrass band, the Clinch Mountain Boys. Whitley eventually moved to Nashville in 1983 and signed with RCA Records.
His first album, 1986’s L.A. to Miami, earned him his first Top 20 single, “Miami, My Army,” and also included “On the Other Hand,” which was later recorded by Randy Travis. Whitley’s second album, Don’t Close Your Eyes, was released in 1988. The single “I’m No Stranger to the Rain” earned Whitley his only Country Music Association award as a solo artist as well as a Grammy nomination for Best Country Vocal Performance, Male. He and Morgan married in 1986 and welcomed their son in June 1987.
After Whitley’s death, his next album, I Wonder Do You Think of Me, was released posthumously, as was the 1995 album Wherever You Are Tonight, which was produced by Morgan. Whitley is remembered as an incredibly influential country and bluegrass singer who was at the peak of his career when he passed away.
Photo Credit: Getty / Waring Abbott
