Many of Blake Shelton's longtime fans know that the singer's early life war marked by tragedy when his older brother, Richie, died in a car accident. The accident occurred in November of 1990 in rural Oklahoma, and killed 24-year-old Richie along with two other people riding in the car -- one of them a 3-year-old boy.

Shelton, who was just 14 at the time, was devastated by the tragedy. After all, he had thought of his older brother as a hero growing up, and Richie even taught him some formative lessons about music.

"His bedroom was right across the hallway from mine when I was little," the singer recalled in a 2014 interview with 60 Minutes. "And he was listening to Hank Williams Jr., or Waylon, Lynyrd Skynyrd or Bob Seger....whatever was popular, really, Richie loved all music. And I would be sitting there going, 'Man, that guy's my hero. That's the coolest guy. He's my big brother.'"

It was years into Shelton's career before he publicly opened up about the loss of his brother, but he eventually co-wrote an award-winning song, "Over You," about the loss with the help of then-girlfriend Miranda Lambert. The ballad was a hit for Lambert after she released it in 2011, but the inspiration from the track comes from Richie's death.

To learn more about the history of the song, and to go more in depth about Shelton's experience losing his brother, press play above to watch this week's episode of The Secret History of Country Music, from The Boot's partner site, Taste of Country.

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