Dalton Dover is honoring some of his musical heroes with a new, three-song EP, Take Me Home: Covers, out now. The project features Dalton’s take on three iconic songs: Vince Gill‘s “Go Rest High On That Mountain,” Alabama‘s “Mountain Music,” and John Denver‘s “Take Me Home, Country Roads.”
“These three songs are songs that I would listen to, going down the road, or if I was sitting by a fire, whatever I may have been doing,” Dover tells Everything Nash. “These are songs that shaped me into the artist that I am today.”
“Go Rest High On That Mountain” was especially poignant to Dover, who got to perform it last year, while Gill was watching.
“‘Go Rest High On That Mountain,’ I recorded it about a year and a half ago,” Dover reveals. “All these songs actually, but ‘Go Rest High On That Mountain’ especially was one that I wanted to do. Over the years, I’ve had friends pass away, and family members. We’ve had our share fair share of losses, and I’ve sang that song over many people that I love. So it was an honor for me to be able to cover it. I met Vince Gill at the Ryman last year, and he watched everybody’s show, but he watched our show.”
Not only did Dover get to sing “Go Rest High On That Mountain” in front of Gill, but he was able to invite Gill to be part of the song with him.
“He sat side stage and after the show was done, I just said, ‘Vince, I’m such a huge fan,'” Dover recounted, adding that he asked Gill while backstage to sing on “Go Rest High On That Mountain” with him for Take Me Home: Covers. “I never met him before. I’m such a huge fan … He was all in. He loved it. We talk all the time, and he’s such a great guy. It’s an honor for me to be able to sing with him. But more than that is to be able to know what that song means to people. So for me now to be a part of it is pretty cool.”
Both “Take Me Home Country Roads” and “Mountain Music” also have deeply personal ties to Dover, and his rural Georgia heritage.
“My grandparents live on this road in Polk County, Georgia,” Dover shares. “And for some reason, every time I cross the railroad tracks in front of the old country store right there, it just takes me back home. Walmart doesn’t do anything for me. Seeing the McDonald’s in my hometown don’t do nothing. Seeing the high school I went to don’t do anything, but every time I cross the tracks on my grandparents’ road, it does something for me.
“And every time, the only thing that I think about is ‘Country Roads, Take Me Home,’ every time I’m out there,” he adds. “So it was pretty cool for me to be able to put that song out, because it’s me.”
Dover may not have been born in the mountains, but he still calls “Mountain Music” one of his favorite songs, ever.
“That’s one that I just love singing,” Dover explains. “Anytime we’d be out having fun or anything like that, anytime you say ‘Who wants to play some music?’ somebody’s gonna sing along. It’s gonna make somebody say, ‘Heck yeah!'”
Dover is both joining Larry Fleet on Fleet’s The Earned It Tour, and headlining his own Never Giving Up On That Tour. Find Take Me Home: Covers, and all of Dover’s music and upcoming shows, at DaltonDoverOfficial.com.