Oliver Anthony Sings a Blake Shelton Hit Inside a Coal Mine

Only a couple of days into 2025, Oliver Anthony is already keeping fans on their toes with a very unexpected choice of venue — and cover song.

The “Rich Men North of Richmond” singer shared video this week of a performance he gave inside a coal mine in Laeger, West Va.

Anthony wanted to play a special set for the miners, and he came down to their place of business to do it.

When he shared the video on YouTube, he explained that he and his band wanted to “come pay our respects to a great crew of underground coal miners, and suggested that his concert in the mines was recorded for a potential future release.

Joining Anthony in the mines was bluegrass, country and jazz fiddle player Billy Contreras, who’s known for his work with artists like Béla Fleck and Crystal Gayle.

A coal mine is an unexpected place for a country concert, and one song Anthony sang is pretty surprising, too.

He covered Blake Shelton‘s 2001 hit “Ol’ Red,” giving the coal miners a chilling live rendition of this story song about love, murder and a daring prison escape.

Anthony is best known for his original material. When he does perform covers, they’re typically older and more aligned with classic country, like his version of John Denver‘s “Country Roads.”

Plus, he’s been vocal about his distaste for the modern-day country music industry, so fans can be forgiven for being a little surprised that he’d choose to cover Shelton, an artist who’s one of the genre’s biggest mainstream stars.

Read More: Oliver Anthony Rips Beyoncé’s Cover of ‘Jolene’: ‘Complete Trash’

However, Anthony’s gravelly, passionate vocals are a perfect pairing with “Ol’ Red,” a grippingly creepy country song about how an incarcerated man trains a guard dog to help him plan his escape.

Anthony has said that he’s leaving the mainstream music industry, but hedged that by assuring fans that he’ll continue to sing and release music.

He recently released a wide-ranging YouTube vlog called “What I’ve Learned From the Music Industry So Far,” in which he — among other things — disparaged an unnamed artist who Anthony says performed with various electronic tools and props to help with vocal pitch.

He didn’t name names, but he provided enough clues for fans to speculate that Anthony might be talking about Parker McCollum. McCollum quickly responded, saying that any insinuation that he uses fabricated help to sing live is a “100 percent fabricated lie.”