Vince Gill And Reba McEntire Reunite To Perform ‘The Heart Won’t Lie’ On The Opry

The early ’90s found Reba McEntire and Vince Gill at the height of their country music careers. Both artists had already been inducted into the Grand Ole Opry, and were dominating the industry as top male and female vocalists in their respective fields. When they teamed up for a duet in 1992, it was no surprise that the song, “The Heart Won’t Lie,” found great success.

According to Reba, the song originally intended to be a duet between her and Kenny Rogers. But, Rogers’ vocal range didn’t quite match up with Reba’s so the collaboration didn’t happen.

“Later when I was working on a new CD, I remembered that song and called Kenny to see if he was recording it and if not, could I have it and he passed it along to me,” Reba said. “We asked Vince Gill to sing the background harmonies on the song. Tony Brown, who was co-producing the CD with me, suggested letting Vince do more than just sing harmony on the song, so he took a couple of verses, and we decided to turn it into a duet.”

The two recorded “The Heart Won’t Lie” in 1992 and released it in early 1993. The song, also a second release from Reba’s album It’s Your Call, saw immediate success as it soared to the top of the Billboard Hot Country Singles chart, earning Reba her 17th Number One and Gill his third.

The legendary pair reunited one Saturday evening for an audience-free performance at the Grand Ole Opry. They each took turns singing some of their own biggest hits before teaming up to cover “The Heart Won’t Lie.” Gill introduced the song by sharing a memory from when they recorded the military-themed video for the song.

“I’ve gotta go do a wardrobe change right now. I’ve got my Marine uniform from when we did the video for this song, but I couldn’t get it past my calf,” Gill joked. “That was a lot of fun.”

Gill then recalled his first thoughts after getting the call from Reba inviting him to record the song with her. “Oh no. She’s gonna want to make a movie video,” Gill laughed as Reba recalled the four-day music video shoot in California.

Even though nearly 30 years have passed since Vince and Reba first recorded “The Heart Won’t Lie,” they sounded as amazing as ever during their Opry performance, even concluding with a salute, a nod to the song’s music video. Check out their performance below, then scroll down to see their original music video for “The Heart Won’t Lie.”