Ahead of Wichita show, Eddie Montgomery remembers bandmate who died in helicopter crash

Eddie Montgomery remembers his duo partner and best friend Troy Gentry for his practical jokes.

“He was a big prankster, keepin’ a wooden spoon on the tour bus just to stir things up,” Montgomery recalled.

So when Gentry was killed in a helicopter crash at a New Jersey airport in 2017, with Montgomery watching from the ground, he thought it was his partner trying to pull one over on him.

“We were there watching it,” he said. “To be honest with you, when they first come down through there I thought T-Roy was playing a joke on us and stuff. Then we found out the guys from the airport said we got to get the hell outta there because the throttle’s stuck on this thing. They’re having problems with it and had to make an emergency landing and they put us behind the hangar building.”

The pilot of the helicopter had shared interests with Gentry that made a trip in the air a must, Montgomery said.

“T-Roy was a big, big, big Batman freak,” he said. “And this guy on the helicopter had the Batmobile that was on TV and the Batcycle.”

Indeed, a life-size Batman mannequin was on stage alongside Gentry’s casket during the memorial service at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville later that month.

Montgomery said Gentry’s death hit him doubly as losing both his best friend and musical partner.

“We done a lot of living together, I’ll put it that way,” he said. “We knew each other longer than we knew our wives.”

A barroom promise kept

When deciding what to do after Gentry’s death, Montgomery said, he recalled a barroom promise the two had made to each other.

“Me and T-Roy, way back when – and I’m not gonna lie about it, it was over a few shots of Jim Beam – told each other that if something happens to one of us, the other one is gonna keep rockin’ the MG name,” he said. “And that’s what I decided to do. I know exactly that’s what he’ll want.”

Now billed as Montgomery Gentry featuring Eddie Montgomery, the 61-year-old takes the stage at Intrust Bank Arena on Sunday night as an opening act for Alabama.

The set includes most of the 16 songs Montgomery Gentry earned on the top-10 country charts from 1999 to 2011, including “My Town,” “Hell Yeah,” “Lucky Man” and “Something to be Proud Of.”

Rather than one person replacing Gentry’s vocals, Montgomery said he and the other band members switch off singing his parts.

“I think the way T would want it was to kinda split up and pass it around,” Montgomery said from a tour stop in Pittsburg.

‘Hits you in the heart’

Montgomery said it’s hard to sing some of the duo’s hits -- particularly its breakthrough, “Hillbilly Shoes” or the ballad “Roll with Me” – without thinking of his partner.

“That one really hits you in the heart,” he said of the latter.

Vocals on the MG hit “Gone” are split among the band, Montgomery said, but “the crowd mainly sings it.”

“It’s still unreal when we kick into a song and all at once the audience takes over,” he said.

As Montgomery Gentry, he released an EP last year and is at work on an album scheduled to be released before the end of 2025.

“There’s not a day that don’t go by that we don’t miss him. Most all of us guys have been together 26, 27 years. Brother T-Roy, man, he was something else and still is,” he said. “I still think he’s playing jokes on us all the time.”

Alabama with Montgomery Gentry featuring Eddie Montgomery

When: 7 p.m. Sunday, April 27

Where: Intrust Bank Arena

Tickets: $25-$168, from the Intrust Bank Arena box office, selectaseat.com or 316-755-7328