The Grand Ole Opry just hit its 100th birthday and fans got to vote on the greatest country song ever performed on its stage.
One legend got the honor of revealing the winner and performing it live for the first time in his career.
And Vince Gill stunned fans when he revealed this country song that beat everything else.
The Opry asked fans to pick the greatest country song of all time
The Grand Ole Opry celebrated its 100th anniversary on November 28 with a historic concert at the Grand Ole Opry House in Nashville.
Nearly 30 Opry members performed during the three-hour show that fell exactly 100 years after the first Opry performance in 1925.
Throughout the year, the Opry asked fans to vote on the 100 greatest country songs ever performed on its iconic stage.
On Friday night, Vince Gill stepped onto that stage to reveal which song topped the fan poll.
He admitted he was nervous about the assignment.
"No pressure, singing the most popular song of all time. Thanks a million," Gill joked with the crowd. "They asked me to do it, 'cause I'll do anything. I ain't scared of nothing."
The crowd waited to hear which song earned the title of greatest country song in Opry history.
George Jones' signature song tops the fan poll
Gill announced the winner: George Jones' "He Stopped Loving Her Today."
"This is one of the most iconic records, songs, voices of all time. The great George Jones sang this song many years ago," Gill told the audience.
Written by Bobby Braddock and Curly Putman, "He Stopped Loving Her Today" was released as the lead single from Jones' 1980 album I Am What I Am.
The song follows a man who refuses to stop loving the woman who walked away from him — and he keeps that promise right up until his death.
Jones fought recording the song for two years after producer Billy Sherrill first played it for him in 1978.
The country legend thought the song was too depressing and nobody would buy it.
"I looked Billy square in the eye and said, 'Nobody will buy that morbid son of a bitch,'" Jones wrote in his autobiography I Lived to Tell It All.
Jones even tried to sabotage the recording sessions by refusing to learn the melody.
He kept singing the lyrics to the tune of Kris Kristofferson's "Help Me Make It Through the Night" instead.
Jones was in such bad shape from drinking that Sherrill couldn't get the spoken section recorded until a year and a half later.
The song saved George Jones' career when he needed it most
Jones couldn't have been more wrong about the song's commercial prospects.
"He Stopped Loving Her Today" became a massive hit after its release in April 1980.
The song reached number one on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart in July 1980 and stayed there for 18 weeks.¹
It was Jones' first number one single in six years.
By 1980, Jones' career was in serious trouble.
His last top 10 hit was "Bartender's Blues" in 1977 and his divorce from Tammy Wynette sent him spiraling deeper into drug and alcohol abuse.
Many critics had written him off as a has-been whose best days were behind him.
"To put it simply, I was back on top," Jones wrote in his autobiography. "Just that quickly. I don't want to belabor the comparison, but a four-decade career was salvaged by a three-minute song."²
The song earned Jones the Grammy Award for Best Male Country Vocal Performance in 1980.³
The Academy of Country Music awarded it Single of the Year and Song of the Year in 1980.⁴
The Country Music Association named it Song of the Year in both 1980 and 1981.⁵
The Library of Congress preserved the recording in the National Recording Registry in 2008.⁶
"He Stopped Loving Her Today" has appeared on countless lists naming the best or saddest country songs of all time.
Rolling Stone ranked it number 142 on its 2021 edition of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time and number 4 on its list of the 100 greatest country songs.⁷
Vince Gill performed the song live for the first time
Gill's performance of "He Stopped Loving Her Today" was historic for another reason beyond the song topping the fan poll.
While he'd previously performed it with Jones, Randy Travis, Alan Jackson, and Burt Reynolds but he’d never sung it all himself live before Friday night.
"So here's my attempt. I've only sung this once live, and that was three hours ago," Gill explained to the audience before starting the song.
Gill's smooth, reverential rendition honored both Jones' legacy and the 100-year history of the Opry stage.
The performance was even more special because Jones is no longer here to sing it himself.
Jones passed away in 2013 at age 81.
Alan Jackson sang "He Stopped Loving Her Today" at Jones' funeral on May 2, 2013.⁸
Jackson and George Strait performed the song as a tribute during the 2013 CMA Awards.⁹
Jones' gravestone in Nashville bears the title of the song.¹⁰
The Opry celebration looked both backward and forward
The 100th anniversary concert featured performances from multiple generations of country artists.
Ricky Skaggs opened the show by playing "Tennessee Wagoner" on the same fiddle that Uncle Jimmy Thompson used in the very first Opry performance a century ago.
Bill Anderson, the Opry's longest-tenured member with 64 years of performances, gave an emotional toast to the Opry's past and future.
"To 1925 and all that was, to 2025 and all that is, and to a hundred years from tonight for all that there may be, long live the Grand Ole Opry," Anderson declared with tears in his eyes.
The show closed with a rendition of "Will the Circle Be Unbroken" led by Steven Curtis Chapman with a chorus that included Gill, Lorrie Morgan, Pam Tillis, Jamey Johnson and Skaggs.
The Opry released a special compilation album called Opry 100: Country's Greatest Songs featuring 20 never-before-released live recordings from the Opry stage.
The album includes a "Full Circle Mix" of George Jones and Alan Jackson singing "He Stopped Loving Her Today" together.
Fans voting George Jones' signature song as the greatest in Opry history proves that real country music still connects with audiences decades after it was recorded.
The song saved Jones' career in 1980 when everyone had written him off.
And 45 years later, it's still the standard by which every other country song is measured.
¹ "In 1980, George Jones' 'He Stopped Loving Her Today' Hit No. 1," Billboard, February 7, 2023.
² George Jones, I Lived to Tell It All, Dell Publishing, 1996.
³ "He Stopped Loving Her Today – Wikipedia," accessed December 2, 2025.
⁴ Ibid.
⁵ Ibid.
⁶ Ibid.
⁷ Ibid.
⁸ Ibid.
⁹ Ibid.
¹⁰ "Vince Gill Reveals and Sings the Grand Ole Opry's No. 1 Greatest Country Song," American Songwriter, November 30, 2025.
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