Aside from being an award-winning country artist, to his two young kids, Dierks Bentley is simply 'Dad.' On his forthcoming record, 'Home,' Bentley included a little surprise -- at the end of the last song, 'Thinking of You,' the guitars come back in and Bentley's 3-year-old daughter, Evie, sings her own version of the song, showing how much she actually does think of her dad while he's away.

As touching as the song is, Bentley didn't enter the studio with the thought of including an emotional solo by little Evie on his new project. The clip's genesis was much more organic than that, surprising and deeply moving Bentley as much as anyone.

"I'd been gone for about eight days on the road and had an opportunity to play at the White House," he told The Boot. "I couldn't pass it up, even though it was on my birthday. I don't really care about my birthday that much but my wife does. She likes celebrating stuff together as a family. But what can you do?" After performing at the White House, Bentley says he spent a rather lonely birthday in his hotel room, until he got an e-mail from his wife.

"My wife and one of my producers had teamed together to get Evie singing this song, 'Thinking of You,' on video and sent it to me as a birthday present," he says, adding that it was "the saddest birthday present of all time. It just killed me. It just hurt. I loved it, as painful as it was. They had a recorded version of it, which I assume they thought I wouldn't go for [as far as actually putting it on the new album] because I've never really sung songs about kids or any of that stuff."

But Bentley loved the song so much, and he loved how the last word she sang was 'home' -- the title of the album -- so he couldn't resist including it on the final project.

Another guest vocal heard on the new record features Little Big Town's Karen Fairchild singing a duet on 'When You Gonna Come Around.' Bentley's 'Home' will be available Feb. 7.

More From Taste of Country