Hard to follow that.
Recently, Ernest appeared on comedian Bert Kreischer’s Something’s Burning alongside Travis Denning to talk all things music, and he told a great story about one of his friends and mentors, Dean Dillon. You might recognize Dean’s name as one of the most accomplished writers in country music, who famously penned hits for George Strait like “Ocean Front Property,” “The Chair” and so many others.
But he didn’t make his debut at the Grand Ole Opry until 2023, which is wild to think about but hey, better late than never, right? Well, being as Ernest and Dean have become friends, Dean wanted him there to sing a song with him.
Ernest’s current single at country radio “Would If I Could” is a 30-plus year old song Dean wrote with Skip Ewing decades ago that, for some reason, just got buried and never recorded, until he included it as a duet with Lainey Wilson on his recent Nashville, Tennessee album, though the radio single is a solo version.
Ernest recalled arriving to the Opry thinking it was just a normal night…
“So how about following this? So we’re at the Grand Ole Opry, me and Dean have become kind of good friends over the past couple years… he wrote a song 32 years ago and it’s my single now. ‘Would If I Could,’ But look so, Dean calls me last year and goes, ‘Ernest what are you doing, whatever March 15th?’
I was like, ‘I don’t know.’ He’s like, ‘I want you to come do the Opry with me.’ He goes, ‘I’m doing the Opry. They’ve been asking me to do it for years, come do night with me.’ I was like, ‘Alright, hell yeah.’ I get there, his whole family is there, there’s a cake and balloon and I was like, ‘Damn, this your welcome home party?’
He goes, ‘This is my debut. This is my Grand Ole Opry debut.’ I was like, ‘I’m here right now?’ He goes, ‘Yeah, I used to play in this parking lot when I first moved to town doing Hank Williams covers. Here I am 50 years later.'”
Ernest recalled having to follow iconic hits like “The Chair” and wishing he could’ve gone first…
“So, he goes out there and he plays ‘A Lot Of Things Different,’ ‘The Chair,’ and then calls me out to come sing our song together. And that was his 3 songs on his Grand Ole Opry debut. I was like, ‘Dude, could you not have done that one first and then done your two absolute heaters?'”
Denning seemed as shocked as Ernest first was when this all happened, agreeing he would’ve felt the same way:
“Just the most perfect songs ever written.”
Fair enough… like I said, that’s tough to follow, but “Would If I Could” is an incredible song too so I’m sure the Opry crowd loved it just as much as the others.
You can watch him tell the story here:
The duet with Lainey:
Ernest’s solo version:
Ernest also had Dillon feature on a song called “What Have I Got To Lose” from his Flower Shops album:
