With country legend Vince Gill<\/a> taking home the prestigious Willie Nelson lifetime achievement award at the 2025 CMA Awards on Wednesday (Nov. 19), it\u2019s only fitting that a who\u2019s who of country stars would show him their love.<\/p>\n First up, Americana star Brandi Carlile gave a plaintive rendition of Gill\u2019s \u201cWhen I Call Your Name.\u201d Dressed in simple yet sleek maroon suit and tie, Brandi kept her eyes trained on Gill as she belted out his moving ballad. Soon, she was joined on stage to turn the song into a rare duet with country star Patty Loveless for a moving final beat.<\/p>\n More from Billboard<\/strong><\/p>\n Once the pair stepped off the stage, the King of Country himself, George Strait, stepped up to offer a tribute of his own to Gill. Instead of singing, though, Strait gave a speech celebrating Gill\u2019s pioneering work in the country industry. \u201cThere\u2019s not a lot more to say about this man that hasn\u2019t been said, or that you don\u2019t already know,\u201d Strait offered. \u201cBut his guitar playing is amazing, his songwriting is amazing, his singing is amazing, he can sing higher than anyone I know \u2026 there\u2019s not a more deserving person to receive this great honor.\u201d<\/p>\n For his part, Gill thanked Carlile and Loveless for their tribute, joking that \u201cit\u2019s not lost on me that they had to have girls come out here and sing for me tonight \u2014 none of the boys can get up that high.\u201d He also took the moment to revel in being honored with a lifetime achievement award that very few other artists have received.<\/p>\n Have you played Billboard\u2019s \u201cA Little Bit Country\u201d Crossword? \u201cI think this has been give to nine or 10 people, and that list is astounding,\u201d he said. \u201cThe man whose name is on this is a long, long friend. Fifty years we\u2019ve known each other, shared stages and all that. I adore him.\u201d<\/p>\n Lainey Wilson, along with serving as host during the ceremony, earned six nominations at the awards \u2014 the most of any artist in 2025, alongside fellow nominees Ella Langley and Megan Moroney. Meanwhile, stars including Luke Combs, Shaboozey, Brandi Carlile, Kelsea Ballerini and more took to the stage for their own performances.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n Billboard VIP Pass<\/p>\n Best of Billboard<\/strong><\/p>\n Sign up for Billboard’s Newsletter<\/a>. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook<\/a>, Twitter<\/a>, and Instagram<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" With country legend Vince Gill taking home the prestigious Willie Nelson lifetime achievement award at the 2025 CMA Awards on Wednesday (Nov. 19), it\u2019s only fitting that a who\u2019s who of country stars would show him their love. First up, Americana star Brandi Carlile gave a plaintive rendition of Gill\u2019s \u201cWhen I Call Your Name.\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2021507,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25173],"tags":[29110,354643,331723,317642,348779,412396,320519,22640],"class_list":["post-2171072","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artists","tag-billboard","tag-brandi-carlile","tag-country-stars","tag-george-strait","tag-lifetime-achievement-award","tag-patty-loveless","tag-vince-gill","tag-willie-nelson"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Charli-XCX-and-George-Daniel-marry-for-second-time-in.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2171072","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2171072"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2171072\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2171073,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2171072\/revisions\/2171073"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2021507"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2171072"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2171072"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2171072"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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