For Lorrie Morgan, it was love at first listen when she heard Keith Whitley. The 63-year-old recalled how she met her late husband, while accepting his medallion as he was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame.

“I was on my way to sing the Saturday Night Opry,” Morgan recalled. “I heard this song come on the radio and this voice singing ‘Miami, My Amy,’ and I pulled my car off of Briley Parkway and I sat there and I thought, ‘I’m in love with that man.’ I didn’t know who it was at the time. And right when he was done singing, Keith Bilbrey said, “That is the great Keith Whitley with No. 15 in the nation this week with ‘Miami. My Amy.’ And he’s coming up on the 8:30 spot of the Grand Ole Opry.’ And I floored my car.”

“I said, ‘I am gonna get a chance to meet this man tonight,'” she added with a laugh. “I did, and he asked me out that night. And of course, the rest is history,”

Morgan and Whitley married in 1986, and were married when he passed away from alcohol poisoning in 1989. She previously reflected on their relationship, when it was announced that he would be inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame.

“I heard Keith Whitley sing for the first time in 1982,” Morgan recounted. “I was on my way to the Grand Ole Opry, and he introduced himself to me, and from that day on, we were together. We married and had two beautiful children. Keith never knew how loved he was. He never accepted that he could have a great record deal, or he could have as much as anybody else had in this industry.

“He would be absolutely blown away if he were here today,” she continued. “He would be saying, ‘Surely they got it wrong.’ That’s how humble he was. … He deserves to be here. He’s deserved to be here for quite some time.”

Whitley was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame, along with Jerry Lee Lewis and Joe Galante, on Sunday, October 16.

“I thought about this all day today, and there are no words,” Morgan said during the Country Music Hall of Fame induction ceremony. “I’ve gone through everything that Keith would be feeling that I feel like I knew pretty well. He would feel so undeserving. That was a wonderful thing about Keith. He was so one of us. He loved all these Hall of Fame members. He was such fans of everybody, the musicians he loved, the musicians, the songwriters.”

Morgan also praised Whitley’s music, and the impact it had on country music, even in his absence.

“Keith was three weeks away from being made a member of the Grand Ole Opry when he passed away,” Morgan shared. “He didn’t know it and he would have never suspected this in his life. This is the greatest honor for me to accept this along with my children,, Jesse Keith Whitley and Morgan Whitley. We have been through a lot together in remembering Keith and loving Keith and missing Keith and my whole family. We’ve all missed him together.”