Harold Reid, Jimmy Fortune, Jamie Dailey, Darrin Vincent, Don Reid and Phil Balsley. Photo by Randi Radcliff.

The venue drips with history, but for large parts of Wednesday, the Country Music Hall of Fame was filled with laughter. Dailey & Vincent performed a half dozen songs from their new Cracker Barrel album Dailey & Vincent Sing The Statler Brothers. The Statlers themselves were on hand for the event, and the quartet’s unrelenting humor launched Darrin Vincent into high-pitched yelps of laughter.

A sample of the one-liners between Statler members — and real-life brothers — Harold and Don Reid:

Don: “[Humor] was very much a major part of our career. We always included humor on stage because we had Harold, and people were gonna laugh when they see him.”
Harold: “I don’t know if people are laughin’ at me or with me. I never did figure that one out.”
Don: “But we intertwined that with the music, which was also funny sometimes, until [Dailey & Vincent] got a hold of it and made it serious.”
Harold: “Now we’re gonna have to get a hold of it and make it funny again.”

The support for D&V is serious. The turn-out for the performance — which included such Statler classics as “I’ll Go To My Grave Loving You,” “Flowers On The Wall” and “The Class Of ‘57” — included Ricky Skaggs, Steve Wariner, Oak Ridge Boys Duane Allen and Joe Bonsall, Hall of Famer Ralph Emery, gospel icon Bill Gaither and bluegrass players Ronnie McCoury, Rob McCoury and Ronnie Bowman.

And it was a full-circle sort of event. Dailey & Vincent played the same stage the night the Statlers were inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2008. D&V frequently do Statler material in their live shows, deeply inspired by their country-gospel sound, making the tribute album a natural.

“One of the big things is their harmony and the way they did their arrangements,” Jamie Dailey says. “The way they wrote, the way they entertained. Why wouldn’t you wanna do it? It touched us that much, and they’re fine people on top of that. And when you see your childhood heroes being good people, it makes it just that much more sweet. We love these guys. They’re good men and we’ve learned a lot from ‘em, and we carry what we’ve learned from ‘em on the road with us everywhere we go every night.”

Jamie and Darrin used the opportunity to present Cracker Barrel a Door Opener Award, a trophy they’ve created for people and companies that have opened important doors for them.

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