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\n\tTim McGraw<\/a> couldn\u2019t help but marvel at the interconnectedness of the biggest night of his career. Onstage at the CMA Theater in Nashville on Sunday, the brand new member of the Country Music Hall of Fame<\/a> drew a clear line from his fellow inductees the Stanley Brothers<\/a> and Paul Overstreet<\/a> to his first day arriving in Nashville from his hometown of Start, Louisiana: May 9, 1989.<\/p>\n \n\tIt was the same day that Keith Whitley<\/a>, McGraw\u2019s musical hero and a former member of Ralph Stanley\u2019s<\/a> band, had died at 34, just a year after scoring one of his five Number One hits with \u201cWhen You Say Nothing at All.\u201d The writer of that song? Overstreet.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cI don\u2019t believe that\u2019s coincidence,\u201d McGraw said from the podium. \u201cI believe that\u2019s country music.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tIt was hard not to notice more than a few of those magic country moments during the 31st annual Medallion Ceremony, which welcomed McGraw as the Modern Era Artist, Overstreet in the Songwriter category, and the late sibling duo Ralph and Carter Stanley as Veterans Era Artists. There was Billy Strings<\/a> and his arena-headlining band bringing the old-timey mountain sounds of the Stanleys into the present. There was Ricky Skaggs, another onetime member of Stanley\u2019s Clinch Mountain Boys, joining Vince Gill<\/a> to perform \u201cRank Stranger.\u201d There was Jamey Johnson singing Overstreet\u2019s \u201cForever and Ever, Amen,\u201d while the artist who made it a country cornerstone, Randy Travis, looked on. And there were the frequent tributes to 2000 inductee Dolly Parton, who died<\/a> in August, from Hall of Fame CEO Kyle Young, from Molly Tuttle and a band of female bluegrass aces, and from Patty Loveless, who closed the evening with the traditional singing of \u201cWill the Circle Be Unbroken,\u201d ad-libbing lines about our \u201csister Dolly.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tThis being a pinnacle, if invitation-only, event of the country music calendar, star power was ever present. Blake Shelton was in the house, singing the cheeky Overstreet composition \u201cSome Beach.\u201d The 2023 inductee Tanya Tucker, who claimed she had recently fallen down a flight of stairs, dropped one-liners about muscle relaxants during her speech inducting Overstreet. And Parker McCollum and Lainey Wilson both sang for McGraw, with Alabama\u2019s Randy Owen hanging the ceremonial medallion around McGraw\u2019s neck.<\/p>\n