ABC RadioOn Thursday, Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt honored Dierks Bentley with the inaugural star on its new Walk of Champions.
The “Woman, Amen” hitmaker has raised millions of dollars for the Nashville hospital through his Miles and Music for Kids motorcycle rides and concerts.
Just as in his 2006 chart topper “Every Mile a Memory,” the Arizona native couldn’t help but reminisce about those who helped him with the cause through the years.
“I think back to Tim McGraw being my riding mate one year,” Dierks said in his acceptance speech. “Every year I’d have a different person riding next to me… and one year it was Tim McGraw.”
“I don’t think Tim got the memo that we ride about 25 miles an hour the entire time,” he explained. “It’s not really a ride. It’s more of just a ‘coast,’ you know. And he’s over there popping wheelies before we even left the Harley-Davidson dealership. He’s revving it up, he’s swerving in and out of my lane. It was a long two-hour ride with McGraw,” he laughed.
With the funny memories, also comes the bittersweet.
“Some sad memories too,” Dierks recalled, “of our buddy Troy Gentry, who was always the first guy to call me up to volunteer every year to be part of that ride.” The Montgomery Gentry singer was killed last year in a helicopter crash in New Jersey.
In 2016, after doing Miles & Music for ten years and raising around four million dollars for the cause, Dierks decided to take a break from the event. You can see one of his motorcycles from the ride, above the bar in his Whiskey Row honky tonk in downtown Nashville.
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