Each time country music singer-songwriter Brooks Herring enters a veteran’s hospital room to perform, he starts the same way. Before playing his guitar, Herring asks the patient which U.S. military branch they served in and shares that he served in the Navy.
“As soon as they know that I’m a veteran, too, something changes in the room,” Herring says. “They’re like, ‘Oh, he’s one of us.’“
Herring regularly plays at U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs hospitals, especially the hospital in Nashville where he launched his music career in 2023, and in nearby Murfreesboro, Tennessee. Herring plays as if the patient were a relative and thrives on the energy music brings to patients. “It’s like when the sun comes up and everything around you goes from dark to light,” he says.
“I’ve seen patients and family members singing along and dancing or bobbing back and forth,” he says. “Just seeing smiles happen where there weren’t smiles before — that’s a great feeling.”
Herring is one of many performers who volunteer with Musicians On Call, a nonprofit founded in 1999 to bring music to people who are ill or injured. Musicians with the group have played for 1.25 million people, including patients (veteran and nonveteran), their families and caregivers. The group’s musicians visit many patients in hospitals and also perform virtually.
This November, Musicians On Call is holding its monthlong Concert For Veterans , which will stream music to 77 veterans hospitals across the country. Available exclusively to veterans and their families, the concert features performances or messages of appreciation from country music stars including Lady A, Reba McEntire, Jo Dee Messina, Craig Morgan and Darius Rucker.
America will honor its heroes on Veterans Day, November 11, with a wreath-laying ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery. Musical tributes will include a Veterans Day Concert at Washington National Cathedral and a televised Salute to Service with a performance by the U.S. Army Field Band.
Musicians On Call performs for patients of all backgrounds, but especially focuses on veterans, says Chief Operating Officer Katy Epley. “People want to give back to those who have served our country,” she says. Founded in New York, the group moved its headquarters to Nashville, and its volunteers have played for nearly 110,000 veterans.
Herring, who has performed for hundreds of veteran patients and their caregivers, says he relishes the chance to help others through song. “Music saved my life and has helped me get through so many things,” he says. “I want to share that with other people.”
Perhaps Herring’s most memorable shift volunteering at a veterans hospital came when he learned he would be playing for John Frost, a patient who had performed at country’s music’s famed Grand Ole Opry as a member of the group The Four Guys. Herring changed up the plan so that he and Frost could perform, together, in the hospital cafeteria.
