Sheryl Crow, Margo Price, Old Crow’s Ketch Secor Play Solemn Musical Tribute to Victims of Nashville Grade School Mass Shooting

Sheryl Crow, Margo Price and Old Crow Medicine Show singer Ketch Secor performed at the “Nashville Remembers” vigil in the town’s Public Square Park on Wednesday night (March 29) honoring the lives of the three 9-year-old children and three adult staff members who were killed at the city’s Covenent School on Monday.

In the wake of Monday’s mass shooting, Crow responded to a tweet from Republican Sen. Marsha Blackburn’s comment that her office was “ready to assist” by suggesting, “If you are ready to assist, please pass sensible gun laws so that the children of Tennessee and America at large might attend school without risk of being gunned down.”

Crow performed first, playing a solemn “I Shall Believe” while seated at a keyboard to a hushed crowd, ending with a bit of Dionne Warwick’s “What the World Needs Now is Love,” according to the AP, while Price thundered an emotional a cappella cover of The Band’s “Tears of Rage,” according to Rolling Stone. Secor played the banjo — with harmonica accompaniment from his son — as the audience joined him in a sing-along to the anthem of the Grand Ole Opry, the Carter Family’s “Can the Circle Be Unbroken (By and By).”

The performances ended with Secor and Price joining for “Amazing Grace” and “I’ll Fly Away.” The 30-minute event included the repeated recitation of the victims’ names: 9-year-old students Evelyn Dieckhaus, William Kinney and Hallie Scruggs, as well as custodian Mike Hill, 61; the school’s headmaster, Katherine Koonce, 60; and substitute teacher Cynthia Peak, 61; the latter were reportedly close friends of Republican Gov. Bill Lee’s wife, Maria, and Peak was scheduled to have dinner with the Lee’s on Monday night. Hill’s seven children were also on hand at the event.

Price is raising funds for Everytown for Gun Safety, writing in an emotional Instagram post that, “It doesn’t have to be this way, yet, guns are the leading cause of death for children in the US. In Tennessee, @govbilllee has made it easier than ever to procure weapons when he passed permit less carry in 2021. @marshablackburn has accepted over 1 million dollars from the NRA. Please vote them out and also donate to @everytown and let’s help end this nightmare. Children shouldn’t go to school and fear for their lives.”

The day after the shooting, Secor posted an emotional video in which he said the community was struggling to understand a reality that includes “murder in our school systems with assault rifles and kids dying in classes,” and imaging how heart-wrenching it must have been for the parents of the fourth graders who had to identify the bodies of their children.

“We’re not gonna be pushed around anymore by people that think that the right to have an assault rifle okay,” he added through tears. “F–k your assault rifle. If you need to defend your house with an assault rifle you must be crazy… You need a storm the beaches on D-day weapon to protect your family? F–k you!… Never again, this has to stop.”

First Lady Jill Biden was also on hand — but did not speak — at the event, where Mayor John Cooper called the shooting the “city’s worst day.” A number of Nashville musicians spoke out in grief and anger after the nation’s 132nd mass shooting so far this year, carried out by a 28-year-old former student at the private religious charter school while armed with one military-grade semi-automatic rifle and two handguns.

As conservative politicians mostly offered up thoughts and prayers and made comments including “emotion doesn’t solve problems,” Pres. Biden once again urged Congress to take any action to curb the easy access to military-style weapons. “We have to do more to stop gun violence.  It’s ripping our communities apart, ripping the soul of this nation — ripping at the very soul of the nation.  And we — we have to do more to protect our schools so they aren’t turned into prisons,” Biden said in remarks following the 17th school shooting so far this year.

Biden once again urged Congress to pass his assault weapons ban, an action that GOP lawmakers have steadfastly refused to take on.