#3   "Guitar Slinger" | Vince Gill

There have been a lot of talented artists to come down the pike the past five years, but there is only one Vince Gill. This album - his first during that time span - features a diverse mix of everything he does well. There's the bluesy side of "Tell Me Fool," the traditional stylings of "The Old Lucky Diamond Motel" and the beautiful "Threaten Me With Heaven," among many other great tracks! This is how it's done!

Vince Gill is not only one of country music's most accomplished artists, he's also one of the most beloved. His pursuit of musical excellence in all genres has delighted fans and inspired countless musicians for over 40 years. From his days in a small bluegrass band to front man of the 70's super group Pure Prairie League, Vince Gill paid his dues long before he ever reached the streets of Nashville.

In this episode of Backstory, friends and family share stories and talk about Vince's long career in country music, and what makes this Hall of Famer a legend in his own time.
Air Times (subject to change, so please check local listings)
Dec 1, 4PM (EST)
Dec 11, 8PM (EST)
Dec 12, 12AM (EST)
Dec 15, 10PM (EST)
Dec 16, 2AM (EST)

Check out a Sneak Peek HERE.

Sting and Vince Gill meet at 'Crossroads'
By MESFIN FEKADU, Associated Press

NEW YORK – If you ever see Vince Gill shirtless at one of his concerts, you can likely place the blame on Sting.
Bare-chested singing is a regular affair for the rocker, and when Gill was asked if he'd go shirtless for the pair's CMT Crossroads special, Sting chimed in: "He will tonight. I'm going to encourage him."
"What a thought. You know I haven't eaten in six weeks preparing for this gig because of this yardstick over here," said Gill, looking at Sting before laughing: "Going to look like Laurel and Hardy up there."
"I've never been described as a yardstick. Is that a compliment?" asked Sting, joining in the laughter.
The good vibes between the two translate onstage during the special, which will air on Thanksgiving at 8 p.m. and was pre-taped in September. The rock and country veterans had worked together once before, at the 2004 Grammy Awards in tribute to the Beatles. Both said linking up musically was easy because they have "similar registers.
"That's always appealing — to find guys with guts enough to sing like girls," said Gill, laughing again.
The Crossroads series has featured collaborations from James Taylor and the Dixie Chicks to John Mayer and Keith Urban. This one-hour concert will have Gill and Sting performing hits like Shape of My Heart, Every Breath You Take and Don't Let Our Love Start Slippin' Away.
While the singers — who own a combined 36 Grammy Awards — say the collaboration was a comfortable one, they admit there were some challenges, too, when it came to covering the other's songs.
"When you immerse yourself in somebody else's work and the more you get to know the song, you recognize these little inflections in the melody, which you hadn't noticed the first time," Sting said. "It demands a lot of respect, a lot of care and attention."
Gill knew it would be tough to cover Sting's material, and he told the rock singer he'd need him to step in during some moments.
"I'm meat and potatoes, you know, but once I . went in there and spent the time, I started to understand how it all worked," he said. "There's like a couple lines that I've tried to learn and I just said, 'Sting, you gotta sing these 'cause they're so off-the-hook great I don't want to screw them up.'"
They also said their temporary duo was drama-free.
"We haven't had a fight yet. Not one," said Sting.
Gill chimed in with a laugh: "If we get into a fight, I'll choke you with heel dust (and) run away. I'm not much of a fighter."

(Three and a half stars)

With 20 Grammys 18 CMA Awards, Gill could be forgiven for just admiring his trophy case after '06's four-disc opus These Days.  But the singer-guitarist brings an easy excellence to his latest. 

November 13, 2011

For Vince Gill, being inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2007 offered a challenge more than a segue into retirement. “It made me want to earn it even more,” says the 54-year-old singer-songwriter, who recently released his first new album in five years, Guitar Slinger. “Resting on your laurels is pointless.  You might as well go jump in the big pine box.” Mary Margaret caught up with Gill in the midst of touring—“a rough stretch,” he says, that will keep him apart from wife Amy Grant for 70 nights. “But we’re both working hard, and we talk two or three times a day.”

PARADE: Guitar Slinger is the first album you recorded in your home studio in Nashville. What was that like?

I got to take my time and do most of it barefoot.  I just found this bust of Elvis in storage, and I’m going to put it front and center so he can oversee the recording process from now on. I really like the guy, but I love the humor of it, too. I’ve also got a velvet painting of Elvis hanging in the garage.

Your oldest child, Jenny, got married last year. What advice did you give her?

If you can spend your life not worrying about who’s right, you’ll go a long way. You don’t always have to be right—it doesn’t really matter.

You and Amy have been married more than 11 years. How do you keep your love story going?

The bottom line is that we’re still absolutely nuts about each other. We were from the first time we met. It was just freakish—like nothing I’d ever seen or felt. It’s amazing how beautiful life can be when someone’s kind to you.

What’s your Sunday routine like?

I absolutely love breakfast and go to the same place, Noshville, every day. It gets busy on the weekends, so I wind up sitting at the counter. Amy’s not as big a breakfast eater as I am, so sometimes Corinna [the couple’s 10-year-old daughter] goes with me. I know all the servers, and it’s right across the street from the YMCA, where I work out with my trainer a few days a week. Then I go and eat and hope I broke even.

What made you start watching your weight?

I came to the realization that you don’t see a lot of really old heavy people. So my goal is to be a skinny old man. I’m down about 25 pounds this year.

Do you have a favorite diet breaker?

I love bad food, and pizza is about as good as it gets. It has to have meat on it; I think pizza with vegetables is kind of an oxymoron.

What makes you angry?

I really fire on somebody if they treat my friends wrong. I can have a pretty short fuse. But I’m hardest on myself—if I don’t get to the level [I’m capable of ].

 Are you still playing a lot of golf?

I’m crazy about it and shoot around par most of the time. It’s a game you can never get perfectly right—you could shoot the best round in your life and still go, “Well, if I’d made that putt, and that one, I’d have been even lower.”

If you had to choose: musician or pro golfer?

I had aspirations of being good enough to play golf professionally, but I’d rather be a musician. They get better-looking girls.

VINCE GILL
GUITAR SLINGER
(MCA NASHVILLE)

Vince Gill has honed his “high lonesome” tenor voice into an instrument of incredible power, beauty, and soulfulness.  On Guitar Slinger, he’s transcended the genre limitations of country (although there’s plenty of beautiful country-as-dirt tracks among these 12 gems) to put forth a kind of White Soul (as oxymoronic as that may sound).  Combine that with lead guitar chops that make the title of this album satisfyingly true and a compositional flair second-to-none in Nashville, and you’ve got one of the best albums of the year.  The inherent beauty of songs like “Threaten Me with Heaven,” “When the Lady Sings the Blues,” and “If I Die,” comes with the added dimension of a heartbreakingly profound ache.  His words have never been more poignant; his stories cut right to the meat of the matter.  His tale of a friend-gone-wrong, “Billy Paul,” is a haunting reminder of our human frailty.  A zesty good-timey honky-tonkin’ aesthetic informs the title track.  His duet with wife Amy Grant on “True Love” entwines their voices like spooning in bed.  I thought he’d never equal 2006’s These Days box.  I was wrong.  This dude just keeps getting better.

-Mike Greenblatt

Multiple Grammy Winner Vince Gill joins ‘Morning Drive’ to discuss his love of the game of golf and his work with the Folds of Honor Foundation which helps the military through the game of golf.

Click HERE to hear the interview!

NASHVILLE SKYLINE: Vince Gill: He's Country Music's MVP

Veteran Singer-Songwriter Brings His New Guitar Slinger to Town

(NASHVILLE SKYLINE is a column by CMT/CMT.com Editorial Director Chet Flippo.)

You only have to go back in recent history to the 1970s, when a young Vince Gill was a journeyman instrumentalist in such bluegrass bands as Mountain Smoke, Boone Creek and the group Byron Berline & Sundance, to catch a glimpse of the promise of the impact the young Oklahoman would one day have on the world of country music. He learned his chops on the road with such hustling groups and later as a member of the Eagle-esque group Pure Prairie League and Rodney Crowell's ace road band the Cherry Bombs.

I think that today Gill is overwhelmingly country music's most valuable player. In the overall scheme of things -- especially considering the many roles he has played in the music -- it would be hard to name anyone else more important to the music. As an artist, entertainer, songwriter, musician, sideman, show host, mentor to young artists and man-about-town Belmont University basketball fan. Currently, as a member of the Grand Ole Opry, he serves as oral historian, passing on the history and the biographies of past Opry members to upcoming new artists. He thinks teaching the music's history to new generations is important. And I applaud that.

As the affable, wisecracking longtime host of the CMA Awards show, Gill was invaluable for many years in promoting the image of country music around the world. And, I might add, a very positive image it was, indeed.

He also is one of the few artists in country music who can provide true show-stopping moments. If you've ever seen him performing live his spine-tingling "Go Rest High on That Mountain," then you know what I mean. I have seen entire arenas full of workers stop whatever they were doing at a rehearsal and just freeze at attention when Vince sang even snippets of that song or his great "When I Call Your Name." His producer, Tony Brown, once told me Vince's secret is that his voice floats above all the instruments. And above everything else. How do you do that? Ask God.

As for guitar-slinging, can you name anyone else in country music who would have been the first country guitar picker to be called by Eric Clapton to play at one of his legendary guitar jams? Who else among country pickers would have been invited to join the British group Dire Straits? Guess who, in both cases.

I still think his greatest accomplishment lies in successfully recording and releasing four wildly different albums at once in the same package. And then being awarded a Grammy for country album of the year as a reward for taking such a risk.

The work in question was These Days in 2006. Its music ranges from straight country to ballads to bluegrass to jazz to acoustic to honky-tonk. In other words, it contains a little bit of everything he's done throughout his long career. Gill can call upon almost any artist within or without country music for collaboration, and on These Days, there was a long list of guest artists, ranging from jazz stylist Diana Krall to Alison Krauss to Del McCoury and Sheryl Crow. The boxed set yielded three singles, two of which charted low and one of which didn't chart at all. The set sold slowly (to this date, its sales total is 380,000, according to Nielsen Soundscan).These days, that sort of commercial performance has usually resulted in country artists of a certain age and uncertain commercial viability being dropped from major Nashville record labels. To Universal Music Group Nashville's credit, it maintained and still maintains faith in Vince Gill and keeps him as a staunch member of its artist roster.

I still wonder how many people to this date have listened to every cut on These Days and how often they listen. Still, it worked. And it still works -- for the dedicated listener. And for the music seeker. It's a work that stands up to the test of time.

His latest album, Guitar Slinger, will, I hope, fare better. It's got no dirt road, beer-drinking, small town, pickup truck, beer joint, fishing hole, skanky chick, good-ol'-boy anthems. Thankfully. There's just some solid music there that is resonating with listeners, songs such as the poignant "Bread and Water."

Gill will join fellow guitar wizards Brad Paisley and Keith Urban in a salute to guitar pioneer Glen Campbell on the 45th annual CMA Awards show on Wednesday (Nov. 9).

He will be on CMT Crossroads with the British artist Sting on Thanksgiving Day (Nov. 24).

Vince Gill, 'Guitar Slinger'

Syndicated review (Philly Inquirer/Sacramento Bee)

VINCE GILL "Guitar Slinger" (MCA Nashville, 3 stars)

Although best known as a balladeer, Vince Gill really is quite the guitar slinger. "Yeah, I might have slowed down a little / But, buddy, I can still bring her," he boasts on the roadhouse romp of a title track.

That's for sure. The material on "Guitar Slinger" allows for some stretching out instrumentally to prove that point. As usual with Gill, however, the playing is in the service of the songs (probably one of the reasons he's not as well-known for his six-string prowess). And beyond that title track, which presents Gill at his loosest and funniest, most of these numbers find the writer and singer his usual soulful self.

If the first single, "Threaten Me With Heaven," doesn't achieve the stirring transcendence he's going for, he gets there with the more low-key "If I Die," which can best be described as a honky-tonk hymn. Other highlights range from the R&B-rooted "Tell Me Fool" (with Bekka Bramlett) to the Haggardesque twang of "Billy Paul" and the more pop-oriented "When Lonely Comes Around."

To drive home the point that Gill's focus is on the songs, "Guitar Slinger" closes not with the sound of the star's ax but with a long steel-guitar solo by Paul Franklin to end "Buttermilk John," a tender tribute to Gill's late steel player, John Hughey.

-Nick Cristiano

COUNTRY MUSIC’S TOP STARS TO SHARE CONVERSATIONS ABOUT

THEIR CAREERS AND PERSONAL LIVES

IN NEW INTERVIEW SHOW,

“REFLECTIONS FROM THE CIRCLE”, ON RFD-TV   

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (Oct. 28, 2011)  Country music fans and RFD-TV viewers are now able to get a lot closer to some of their favorite country music artists.  Reflections From The Circle, which premiered on the network on Sun., Nov. 6, is set to feature fan favorites including Trace Adkins, Dierks Bentley, Charlie Daniels, Vince Gill, Kellie Pickler, and Josh Turner reflecting on their personal lives and careers during intimate conversations on the stage of the Grand Ole Opry with TV and WSM radio personality Eddie Stubbs.

The premiere episode of Reflections From The Circle featured Opry and Country Music Hall of Fame member Vince Gill.  All shows are scheduled to air Sundays at 7:00 p.m. EST/6:00 p.m. CST. The show’s first season schedule follows:

Sunday, Nov. 6 – Vince Gill

Sunday, Nov. 13 – Trace Adkins

Sunday, Nov. 20 – Dierks Bentley

Sunday, Nov. 27 – Josh Turner

Sunday, Dec.  4 – Kellie Pickler

Sunday, Dec.  18 – Charlie Daniels

Each show emanates from the Opry stage within the famed six-foot circle of wood, which was moved from the Ryman Auditorium to center stage of the Grand Ole Opry House when the Opry took up residence in its new home in 1974. The circle holds personal significance on innumerable levels for all the artists appearing on the show. Turner was officially welcomed to the Opry family there by Vince Gill, who says he’ll always remember singing his career-making “When I Call Your Name” while the King of Country Music, Roy Acuff, looked on just a foot away. In addition to career highlights on the Opry stage, Adkins took time out from his Opry debut to propose marriage and years later announced from the circle that he and his wife were expecting a baby. Bentley celebrated his official Opry induction inside the circle with his beloved dog Jake. Daniels invited one of his favorite acts, Montgomery Gentry, to join the Opry family while they stood on the circle of wood, then returned with the duo to sing “The Devil Went Down to Georgia” on the night the Opry House re-opened following last year’s Nashville flood.

Host Stubbs is already familiar to many RFD-TV viewers, appearing as the on-camera announcer for the network’s “The Marty Stuart Show” the past three years. He’s a 16-year veteran of country station 650 AM-WSM and of the Grand Ole Opry announcer staff. He was this week named as a 2012 inductee into the Country Radio Hall of Fame.

About the Grand Ole Opry

The Grand Ole Opry presents the best in country music live every week from Nashville, Tenn.  Celebrating 85 years of entertainment, the Opry can be heard on 650 WSM-AM, SIRIUS XM Satellite Radio, and opry.com. The syndicated weekly program, America’s Opry Weekend, airs on country radio stations across America and on the Armed Forces Radio Network. The Grand Ole Opry is owned by Gaylord Entertainment (NYSE: GET), a Nashville-based hospitality and entertainment company that also owns and operates Gaylord Hotels.  For more information, visit opry.com or www.gaylordentertainment.com

About RFD-TV, LLC

Launched in December 2000 and now in its 10^th year of broadcasting, RFD-TV is the nation’s first 24-hour television channel dedicated to servicing the needs and interests of rural America with programming focused on agriculture, equine and rural lifestyle, along with traditional country music and entertainment. The channel is now distributed into more than 41 million homes worldwide by DBS and cable systems including DISH Network (231), DIRECTV^® (345), Comcast, Verizon FiOS TV (247), Mediacom, Charter, Optimum, Brighthouse, Suddenlink, Time Warner, Cox, and more than 600 independent rural cable systems. Production originates in studios located in Nashville, Tennessee, for RFD-TV, RFD HD, and RURAL TV, the company’s new international channel. RFD-TV The Magazine now has more than 180,000 paid subscribers for its bi-monthly publication, and the company continues to operate “RFD-TV The Theatre” in Branson, Missouri. For more information, visit www.rfdtv.com.

Maroon 5 with Travie McCoy on SNL, Plus Chatting with Vince Gill, Trombone Shorty and Paul Rodgers

A Conversation with Vince Gill

Mike Ragogna: Hiya, Vince. How are you, man?

Vince Gill: I'm doing good. I'm up in New York City working my tail off. I've just about lost my voice talking for about four days straight. I sound a little bit like Mr. Haney from Green Acres.

MR: Okay, Mr. Haney, let's talk about your new album, Guitar Slinger. What was the inspiration this time out?

VC: Well, I never grow tired of being creative. That never changes. Since I was a little boy, I've just pursued it so hard to get better at it, and I think I'm still doing that. My ears tell me that I'm still doing that. I really feel like the songs are a cut above the last record, and the record before that. My playing seems to be getting better in subtle ways--in ways maybe only a handful of folks are going to pick up on. I think that as you do this longer and longer, you really learn more about what not to do than what to do. It's a space that you leave that creates the real good stuff.

MR: You have an incredible career with a collection of industry awards and platinum records. Do you ever take a breath once in a while and go, "Man, I've had a pretty good career."

VG: It's shocking, it really is. It's almost uncomfortable, because I don't possess the personality that really tries to say, "Hey, notice me!" I'm not a good self-promoter. I like doing the work, and then I like people responding to it, and I'm okay if they don't like it. I think the reason I've done what I've done is because of my willingness to share--my willingness to be a collaborator with other people. I think I'm as proud of all the other people I've worked with on their records as I am of my own career. It's of equal importance to me to collaborate. When I was young, I think I probably aspired more to be someone who was a session musician that would be hired to play on records or get hired to sing on records, and then I'd develop into a songwriter who got better at it and hopefully people would think enough of my songs to record them. So, I never had to always be front and center with the attention because I've always been a musician and I probably have much more of a mindset of a musician than a country music star or artist or whatever. So, I come at it from maybe a little bit different of a place than most.

MR: Since you brought up "collaboration," let's talk about "Threaten Me With Heaven." You co-wrote that with your wife, Amy Grant, and also with Will Owsley and Dylan O'Brien.

VG: It's the first time I've gotten the opportunity to do anything with Dylan, and he's a ridiculously talented fellow. And my friend Will Owsley, who unfortunately took his own life after the recording of that particular song, was the one that put all of us together. He knew Dylan from the West Coast and it was a great collaboration and an awfully fine song.

MR: Were you and Will close?

VG: We were great friends. He actually played guitar with Amy for about ten or fifteen years off and on, and because of that, we became friends and wrote some songs together. We both were lovers of guitars and old guitars and collecting and trying to find them. He was a great pal and, unfortunately, the struggles in his life were too great; he couldn't quite get over the mountain. He was a really talented guy. He made two solo records of alternative and pop music. He was viciously talented. He had a great melodic mind and a great hook-y mind and was a unique guitar player. He was really talented.

MR: Let's talk about the title track of Guitar Slinger for a minute. It includes the line, "I married that contemporary Christian singer," which, of course, is about Amy.

VG: I know what you're talking about. The line before it sets it up just right too: "I was living it up as a guitar slinger, women and wine and whiskey for dinner, I knew I was in trouble the first time I'd seen her, I went and married that contemporary Christian singer."

MR: What did she say when she heard that?

VG: I sang it for her and she just hung her head and shook it and said, "You'll say anything, won't you?" (laughs) I said, "Sometimes I will." I just think that it has a great sense of humor to it, that song does. It's as much poking fun at myself as anything else. I've always been fairly good at being self-deprecating, and I think it makes people comfortable if you're willing to poke fun at yourself.

MR: When you're playing in the studio, how judgmental do you get of your own playing? How often do you go, "That sucks, I've gotta do that again."

VG: All the time. It's an interesting process, but I really believe that greatness is defined by the subtleties. It's all about the holes you leave--it's not about playing as much as you can. That's very uninteresting to me and always has been. I think, when it comes to guitar playing, it has to tell a story. It has to have a beginning, it has to have a middle, and it has to have an end. To me, great guitar playing and great soloing and all those kinds of things are still centered somewhat around a melody. There is a melody to these songs, and oftentimes, when it comes time for somebody to play, they just are going to go play you a bunch of stuff, but where's the melody in there? So, I always have a sense of where the melody is and I dance around it. If I play something and there's nine notes in it, I go, "Well, I wonder if I played seven notes if it would speak more?" It's just like a conversation. The guitar makes sounds just like your voice does. I try to play what I would sing, and I oftentimes try to sing what I might play. I hear it in my head, and it just comes out through my fingers.

MR: I also wanted to talk about "Tell Me, Fool," which you do with Bekka Bramlett. It reminds me of a couple of tracks you recorded with Amy. What was the experience like singing with Bekka again on this album?

VG: Well, I've been singing with Bekka for about fifteen years, off and on, on different records of mine. She's been in my band at different times, and I believe that she's one of the finest singers I've ever heard. She's just one of the most gifted voices I've ever heard. She brings an energy and a different thing to a record than just about anybody I know, and I adore singing with her. I always have and I always will. She just bumps it up a notch. That song's very much steeped in an R&B kind of song. It's soul music, and she's about as good as it gets. When being creative, you try to plug in people that do the things that not only enhance the record, but lets them shine too. Bekka shines as much as I do on that record. I don't look at things like, "You're the background singer and so you just stay in the background." I look at music and I look at records and I create a process that's very democratic. I want every note to speak and have a purpose. If it's something the bass player plays that inspires me to play something off of it, or something the piano player plays, it's the same thing. Everything has to work together or it doesn't work. It's amazing what musicians can accomplish when they listen to each other. You can't be a control freak, I don't think. I like everybody else's mind in there--what they do, what they contribute, what they think.

MR: In addition to having Bekka on the record, you have Ashley Monroe from Pistol Annies singing on "Who Wouldn't Fall In Love With You."

VG: We wrote that song together. She has one of the most captivating voices you'll ever hear. It's not a big voice--she's not a big singer--but she's just got this cool, quivering, haunting, beautiful-sounding voice. It's one of a kind. Her voice is so unique. I think with people like Dolly Parton, her voice is unique, it sounds only like Dolly. Nobody sounds like her. Alison Krauss, the same thing. I think Ashley possesses that and is somebody that's young--that's coming up--that I really champion. I wanted to write some songs with her. I think there's a chance that I might produce some music with her--for her--next year. I just think the sky's the limit for that kid.

MR: I'd love to talk about "True Love" as well. Amy wrote that about you, which I suppose is only fair since you wrote the line about marrying the Christian singer.

VG: (laughs) Yeah, Amy had written that song about me. We'd been playing it, and I made some suggestions to put a bridge in it and change the melody and the chords a little bit and she liked it. She said, "Well, let's say we wrote this together," and I said, "We don't have to, but I'm grateful." So, it really is her lyric and her story, but I might have a little bit to do with the music and she was kind enough to include me. That was the first song we recorded in the new studio at the house. That was important to me. I wanted to record that song first because it was hers and mine. It wasn't originally going to be a duet, but I said, "You really should sing on this with me," and she graciously agreed, Then, as we did it, there were those answers that I'd always heard in my head, as it went along. I asked our daughter Sarah if she would do those, and she did. Sarah has a really unique sounding voice. Once again, I'm not trying to go, "I want all of my family to sing on my records," but I just like the voice. (laughs) I just like the songs that they make. I said, "That would work here." It's really just trying to fit the right piece into the puzzle.

MR: There's something sweeter than that familial sound.

VG: There's no question about it. My daughter Jenny sings on a few things on this record, and I get to hear what it sounds like to be an Everly Brother.

MR: Let's talk about "Billy Paul."

VG: Well, it's a true story, unfortunately. I hate the fact that it is a true story. It was a friend of mine that caddied out at the golf club where I play golf, and we'd been buddies forever. He was everybody's favorite out there, and it just blew everybody's mind that he snapped and did what he did. He unfortunately took a woman's life and then took his own. I went to his funeral and I met his family. His mom was just the sweetest lady in the world, and I was compelled to write a song about it just to let her know that somebody cared about her son even though he did something horrible. I tried to tell the story with some sense of compassion and a little bit of forgiveness in there. Oftentimes, you can have this whole life you've lived, and the one or two mistakes that you've made are what everybody defines you by, and I don't think that's fair. So, there's a line in the song that goes, "I've seen you at your best and now your worst, but the best of you is what I'll remember first." It's a dark story, but I sure tried to tell it with a little bit of kindness. And then Corrina, my ten-year-old, is singing the high part on it, which is really unique. It makes it even more eerie because of what the song's about and all that. To have this little kid's voice--that little wispy voice up high--singing those words, "What made you go crazy Billy Paul?"

MR: Guitar Slinger seems like a more personal album than not.

VG: Well, there's an awful lot of real life in this record. Some of these songs, even as personal as they might be, they're inspired by the truth and it doesn't necessarily mean that every line is exactly the truth. You have to take the truth and massage it a little bit to make it interesting and make it a song and things like that. A bunch of years ago, when I first met Amy, I came home and just said, "I met Amy Grant this last weekend and she had the most beautiful smile. It just lit up the room. It was beautiful," and so I wrote this song, "Whenever You Come Around" that was basically inspired by her smile. Her smile was something that just completely bowled me over. I thought it was beautiful. I went home and a friend of mind, Pete Wasner, and I said, "I want to write a song strictly about the beauty of that smile." Then we had to obviously tell a story. It was inspired by Amy but it certainly didn't mean that every line was verbatim about my life. It's weird because when you're the songwriter and the artist, everybody assumes that most of this stuff is autobiographical. It can be, to a point, but not every ounce of it is because you've gotta make it interesting.

MR: When I think of you and Amy, I'm reminded of James Taylor and Carly Simon. Balancing a musical relationship must have challenges, how do you do it?

VG: Well, we found each other pretty late in life, which I think was probably a gift in itself. We'd lived a long life before we wound up together and I think that we were grateful for the kindness. It seems to be the first thing that you think of--to be kind to each other and to be respectful to each other. You learn from your mistakes. You should learn from your mistakes. So, I just think that we both have similar qualities. We're tender and friendly and easy going and all that, so it makes for a good relationship. And once again, our careers had twenty-five years invested in them before we got married, so there's not a competition issue at all. I think a lot of times, when you get together two people that do the same thing, it can get competitive or whatever. But we don't seem to have any of those issues. It's really pretty sweet.

MR: Making music and recording with Amy has to be such a cool experience.

VG: It is. I got to produce two records for Amy over the last few years. I got to sit in the chair where my job was to lift her up. It was a treat. It was easy to do, because I'm crazy about her. I didn't have to dance around or walk on eggshells or anything. Like I said, if you get respect, you have to give respect.

MR: Gong back to the title track, I wanted to ask you about the lyric in Guitar Slinger that goes, "There's a few licks left in this guitar slinger, even though half of my stuff's in the Cumberland River." Hopefully that's an exaggeration.

VG: No, it's not exactly. It's the truth. In the flood that came a year and a half ago, I lost a lot of stuff--I think forty or fifty guitars and thirty or forty amplifiers. I collect stuff. I'm not a buyer and a seller, but I just buy stuff that I find and love. Some of it was sentimental, some of it was great, some of it wasn't. It was painful...a pretty rough loss. But a lot of people went through it. A bunch of us went through it together, which made it easier. Keith Urban lost all his stuff and Brad Paisley lost all his stuff. All these different guitar players and musicians that housed their stuff at this place lost everything and so everybody just kind of banded together. Some guys said, "Here, borrow these for awhile if you need something." It was really neat to watch all of the musicians reach out to each other. We sold some of the stuff at auction that was trashed and gave it to the guys that needed to get some money to get some more stuff. It was pretty neat.

MR: It united Nashville, didn't it.

VG: In a big way. It was funny because at the time of the flood, the oil spill was going on in the gulf, and that took up all the national media attention, and so a lot of people never even really knew that that had happened in Nashville. But the people just all rallied around and took care of each other. It was really neat to see.

MR: Every once in awhile, do you think back to the days of Pure Prairie League?

VG: Oh, sure I do. It was a great experience for me. I was really young, and I got to go be in somewhat of a major rock band that had a couple of hits and me on American Bandstand and Solid Gold and all of these great music shows and tour in a bus. In a sense, it was the big time for me in that world. I was young and I paid attention. I tried to learn a lot; I learned a lot about the record business, I learned a lot about touring, about a little bit of everything. It was a great experience.

MR: And then there's your initial solo career afterward.

VG: I left Pure Prairie League in '81, and I went to work for Rodney Crowell and Rosanne Cash as their guitar player and did that off and on for several years and made several records but never really had any big hits. Those were some rough years, throughout '82 and '83 until '90, when "When I Call Your Name" came out. Everything changed quite dramatically then, but those were an interesting stretch of years. I worked a lot in the studio for other people in a lot of sessions and just kept after it. I was never going to quit.

MR: What advice do you have for new artists?

VG: Oh, gosh. Just remember why you wanted to do this in the first place. You gotta be extremely patient and you gotta have really thick skin, and understand that not everybody's going to love it. There'll be times that are the worst in your life and times that are the greatest in your life. I've always tried to ignore my success and ignore my failure, and just keep on an even keel and realize that I can't control any of the results. It's like the weather. You can't control the weather, so you can't get uptight about it. It's the same thing with your career. You make a record and whether they buy it or they don't, none of the notes change, if you sell a hundred million or a hundred.

MR: Is that what happened with you?

VG: Yeah, I think so. I think the results have not dictated to me whether I was successful or not. When I quit Pure Prairie League and went to work for Rodney, people said, "Why'd you do that? You were the front man of a big rock band," and I said, "Well, the musicianship and caliber of songs and all of that stuff that I went to was better. To me, it was a step up." Any time I got to be in an environment that I think made me better, then I felt that was success.

MR: Nicely said. And by the way, you have some nerve putting out a 43-song album. (laughs)

VG: I know. That's why I spent five years between records. It took five years for everybody to hear that whole record. (laughs)

MR: Are you on tour with this record?

VG: Yeah, I'm out playing. I'm in New York now doing a bunch of press stuff and all that, and I'll go home tomorrow. Then in three or four days I'll go back out on the road for a little bit.

MR: Which trusty guitar do you have by your side?

VG: Today, I just have an acoustic guitar with me. Everything we're doing up here is just me and a guitar.

MR: Well, I really appreciate your time, Vince.

VG: It was a great time, thanks. Good to talk to you.

Tracks:
1. Guitar Slinger
2. All Nighter Comin'
3. Tell Me Fool
4. Threaten Me With Heaven
5. When The Lady Sings The Blues
6. Who Wouldn't Fall In Love With You
7. When Lonely Comes Around
8. True Love
9. Bread And Water
10. Billy Paul
11. The Old Lucky Diamond Motel
12. Lipstick Everywhere
13. One More Thing I Wished I'd Said
14. If I Die
15. Buttermilk John

Four decades into Vince Gill's career, his new album, Guitar Slinger, represents as first for the veteran singer/songwriter, as it was recorded entirely at his newly built home studio in Nashville.

"I've always wondered what really bringing music into my home would do for me," Gill says. In part, it brought his family and music together, with Gill's wife, singer Amy Grant, as well as their daughters Corrina Gill, Jenny Gill and Sarah Chapman all guesting on the record.

Guitar Slinger comes five years after Gill's most ambitious recording project, These Days, a critically acclaimed four-CD, 43 song box set of new material. Despite the scope of that project, Gill says he had no problem coming up with the songs this time around. "The first thing I wrote after These Days was unlike anything on that record," he says. "It feels like I'm in a new place."

The 54 year-old says his work has long been a reflection of his life and its changes, from his time leading '70s country-rockers Pure Praire League, to his days as one of Nashville's most in-demand session players, to the launch of his solo career that has seen him sell 26 million albums, earn 20 Grammy awards and win him a spot in the Country Music hall of Fame. "I feel like getting inducted into the [Hall] has really lit a fire in me," he says. "I want to go earn it now. I want the next 10 or 15 years to be my most prolific."

True to his word. Gill hasn't been wasting any time. In addition to his solo work, he's been playing with western swing band the Time Jumpers. He's also been crossing genre boundaries, becoming a regular at Eric Claption's annual Crossroads Guitar Festival and working with a range of blues artists such as Joe Bonamassa, Johnny Winter and Sonny Landreth.

"I'm becoming seen now more in the vein of a musician, which I've always been, and not so much as country singer that plays a little bit," Gill says. "That's really gratifying, because it's the way I've always seen myself."

Vince Gill, musician’s musician, has a long future ahead of him
Don’t Stop Achievin’
by JEWLY HIGHT

Nobody seems less worried about Vince Gill's chances of continuing to chart country hits than Vince Gill. Which is pretty remarkable, considering that he's seen what big songs can do for a career, and that he knows he's still delivering high-quality performances. (In fact, there are some on his new album, Guitar Slinger.)

"Well, I'm not gonna go try to be what the [popular] thing is at current mainstream radio," says Gill good-naturedly. "I can't change what I am and how I do things just to try to accomplish that, because, you know, there's a whole lot of that that's not very appealing. So yeah, I am gonna be much further down on ... the totem pole of current radio airplay and things like that. ...I'm just doing what I feel like is some really fine work. Whether the results are No. 1 records and up the charts and those kinds of things, I don't think that's really the exercise. ... Whether everybody buys it or nobody buys it, none of the music changes. That's not why it's great, just because a lot of people bought it."

He adds, "I'm OK. I'm at a good place."

Not that being at a good place is new for Gill. Long before he hit the commercial sweet spot of the 1990s with country ballads like "I Still Believe in You," he'd already covered more territory than most people do in an entire career. He sang, he picked, he wrote, and he was in his element regardless of whether the setting was pop rock, California country rock, neotraditional country, bluegrass or something else besides.

There's visual proof of Gill cultivating camaraderie with music-makers of various styles, generations and levels of fame in the video he made for his first No. 1, "Don't Let Our Love Start Slipping Away." The camera spotlights a motley group of musicians backing him onstage, including — but by no means limited to — Delbert McClinton, Leon Russell, Pam Tillis, Kevin Welch, Kelly Willis, Little Jimmy Dickens and The Kentucky Headhunters.

Says Gill, "In all those heydays of massive hits and selling millions of records, I was part of the process — I wasn't the reason. I had a great steel guitar player in John Hughey, that made 'Look at Us' great. I had a great intro on 'When I Call Your Name' by Barry Beckett [and] Patty Loveless singing harmony, which made it great. So it's always been that kind of democratic mentality ... at the forefront of anything I've done. You ask anybody that has known me before. ...I think most people would tell you I'm pretty much the same guy."

They'd be telling the truth. Gill remains the rare country superstar in town who regularly shows appreciation for the sorts of musicians who sweat it out in clubs. And he is, in all likelihood, the only person on earth who's a natural fit for a Monday night Western swing gig at The Station Inn, an album by roots rocker Will Hoge (Gill contributed an acoustic guitar solo) and the job of CMA Awards host, which he held for a dozen years. Plus, in honor of the public role Gill has embraced over and above that of performer, Mayor Karl Dean recently declared a week in mid-October "Vince Gill Week."

Guitar Slinger happens to be the first album Gill has released since his induction into the Country Music Hall of Fame. Did that change anything? "I don't think so," he says. "I think more than anything, I feel compelled now to go earn it."

That Gill feels that way even after attaining country music's highest honor is as notable as his present peace of mind about radio. "I want to buckle down and do the majority of my work while I really still have my faculties in great shape," he says. "I don't think I've ever sung better, I don't think I've ever played better, and I know I've never written as good of songs as I am these days. So while maybe all those things go a little more unnoticed by the mainstream, it doesn't lessen the fact that I know I'm better than I have been. So that's motivation in itself, to know that you're getting better at what you're doing."

Gill's new album gives people no reason to pine for his good-old hit-making days. It's a pleasure hearing a multitalented musician, burnished singer and straight-to-the-heart songwriter like him doing everything he wants to do — be it mellow, modern R&B or a steel guitar-showcasing 3Ž4-time weeper — and nowadays, bringing a lot more life experience to bear. "I think you should write different songs at 54 than you did at 24 or 34 or whatever," he says with a chuckle. "I've been kicked in the head a few times over the years."

NASHVILLE -Former CMA Entertainers of the Year Vince Gill and Keith Urban and reigning CMA Entertainer of the Year Brad Paisley will pay tribute to Country Music Hall of Fame member and former CMA Entertainer of the Year Glen Campbell during "The 45^th Annual CMA Awards." The three guitar virtuosos' performance saluting the legendary singer/musician will be a highlight of "Country Music's Biggest Night(tm)." 

"The 45^th Annual CMA Awards," hosted by Paisley and Carrie Underwood, airs live from the Bridgestone Arena in Nashville, Wednesday, Nov. 9 (8:00-11:00 PM/ET) on the ABC Television Network. Previously announced performers include Jason Aldean, The Band Perry, Luke Bryan, Eric Church, Sara Evans, Faith Hill, Lady Antebellum, Miranda Lambert, Martina McBride, Scotty McCreery, Sugarland, Taylor Swift, Thompson Square, Keith Urban, Chris Young, and Zac Brown Band, plus Kenny Chesney and Grace Potter singing their hit collaboration "You and Tequila;" Rascal Flatts and Natasha Bedingfield singing their current hit duet "Easy;" Lionel Richie performing a medley of hits with Little Big Town, Rascal Flatts, and Darius Rucker; and co-hosts Paisley and Underwood in their first live televised-performance of their No. 1 song "Remind Me."    

Campbell was named both CMA Entertainer and Male Vocalist of the Year in 1968, and was nducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2005. The legendary performer has sold more than 45 million albums and recorded such classic hits as "Wichita Lineman," "Gentle On My Mind," "Galveston," "By the Time I Get to Phoenix," "Southern Nights," and "Rhinestone Cowboy." As a musician, Campbell was part of the much-heralded Wrecking Crew that performed on a variety of artists' albums. His guitar prowess is featured on the Beach Boys' seminal album Pet Sounds and on Frank Sinatra's megahit "Strangers in the Night," among others. He acted alongside John Wayne in the movie "True Grit," and hosted "The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour" on television from 1968-1972. Earlier this year, Campbell announced he had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. He is in the midst of his successful Goodbye Tour after releasing his final album, the critically-acclaimed Ghost on the Canvas. 

Gill is No. 3 on the list for the most career wins in CMA Award history, having won 18 CMA Awards thus far, including two Entertainer Awards (1993, 1994), five consecutive Male Vocalist Awards (1991-1995, tying him with George Strait for the most wins in that category), two Album Awards (1993 for I Still Believe in You and 1994 for Common Thread: The Songs of the Eagles), and a record-holding four Song of the Year Awards (1991 for "When I Call Your Name," 1992 for "Look at Us," 1993 for "I Still Believe In You," and 1996 for "Go Rest High On That Mountain"). Gill served as host of the CMA Awards for 12 consecutive years (1992-2003), a record for hosts of any nationally televised Awards show. He released his new album, Guitar Slinger, last week.

The 45^th Annual CMA Awards" is a production of the Country Music Association. Robert Deaton is the Executive Producer, Paul Miller is the Director, and David Wild is the writer. The special will be shot in high definition and broadcast in 720 Progressive (720P), ABC's selected HDTV format, with 5.1 channel surround sound.

Vince Gill's Yahoo Music 'Ram Country' performance is live today on Yahoo Music.  Vince performed 3 songs from Guitar Slinger in a semi-acoustic setup and taped an interview about the new album.

http://new.music.yahoo.com/

"Threaten Me With Heaven"

http://new.music.yahoo.com/programs/ram-country/?vid=223419628

"The Old Lucky Diamond Motel"

http://new.music.yahoo.com/programs/ram-country/?vid=223419626

"If I Die"

http://new.music.yahoo.com/programs/ram-country/?vid=223419630

Interview

http://new.music.yahoo.com/programs/ram-country/?vid=223420249

Blessed with singing
 

Vince Gill who in October released his 13th album ‘Guitar Slinger’ certainly has some formidable achievements to live up to, writes Gary Graff

In 2007 the 50-year-old Vince Gill became one of the youngest performers ever inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. Rather than rest on his laurels, however, Gill saw it as a challenge for the future.

‘’To me it’s the greatest thing you can ever hope to accomplish,’’ says Gill, now 54. ‘’Most people would think, ‘OK, you’ve done that. Now you can go fishing, you can play golf every day. You’ve accomplished a great deal.’ But what it did to me was pretty shocking. It made me say, ‘OK, now go earn it. Really go be what they think you have been to this point – and be more.’

‘’So I’ve been energised by the thought of this next stretch of my life.’’

The Oklahoma-born Gill, who in October released his 13th album, Guitar Slinger, certainly has some formidable achievements to live up to. Since going solo in 1983 after stints in Rodney Crowell’s The Cherry, in Ricky Skaggs’ Boone Creek and in Pure Prairie League, Gill has sold more than 26 million albums and won 20 Grammy Awards. He also has amassed an impressive session resume that ranges from fellow country luminaries to pop and rock stars such as Alice Cooper, Gladys Knight, Eddie Money, Barbra Streisand ... and the Muppets. His new episode of CMT Crossroads with Sting is further testament to the breadth of a career he started as a teenager.

‘’Getting Vince Gill to play guitar on a rock-’n’-roll song – how great is that,’’ says Cooper, who features Gill on his latest album, Welcome 2 My Nightmare, in a separate interview. ‘’The guy’s a genius and a legend, and a great player. Who wouldn’t jump at the chance to have him on their record?’’

‘’I do feel pretty blessed,’’ acknowledges Gill, who was encouraged toward music by parents who were both amateur musicians. ‘’I’ve been able to make music for a long time and make a good living and do some work people think is good. You can’t ask for more than that.’’

Guitar Slinger brought Gill to a new but very familiar place: home. He recorded the 12-track album in a studio at the Nashville home he shares with his wife, Christian singer Amy Grant, and their children. To hear Gill tell it, the locale made all the difference in the world.

‘’It was just a great environment,’’ says Gill, who co-produced Guitar Slinger with Justin Niebank and John Hobbs. ‘’When things come from home, they just feel different. I’m in there barefoot most of the time, maybe in a pair of gym shorts. I don’t have to doll up and leave town, so to speak. You walk down the hall and there’s the kitchen, and Amy’s in there knocking up some brownies or making some cookies or whatever the heck ... It doesn’t feel commercial. It feels like somebody’s home.

‘’The musicians who played on this record loved the vibe that went on in the process of recording these songs and spending time in the house,’’ he concludes. ‘’It doesn’t feel like work, in a really neat kind of way. There were times when I didn’t know if we were really working or just screwing off.’’

Guitar Slinger can’t help but confront the shadow of its immediate predecessor: These Days (2006) was a sprawling, ambitious, 43-song, four-disc set that won the Grammy as Best Country Album and was nominated as Album of the Year.

‘’Its success was in the diversity of its creativity,’’ Gill says. ‘’It could be authentic in the world of bluegrass and just as authentic in the world of jazz and everything in-between. That authenticity, across the board, is what made it special for me.’’

In country music it’s rare for an artist to wait more than a year or two between albums, so the five fallow years before Guitar Slinger represented a risk of sorts.

‘’I guess it feels like a long time ago I made (These Days),’’ Gill admits. ‘’But with the size and the magnitude of that last project, I didn’t feel pressured to hurry up and get something out. I think it might’ve taken five years for everybody to hear all of the music on it!

‘’But I keep telling people that, if you have an album out and you have three or four hits, that will cover a stretch of a couple years of time that record stays somewhat current,’’ he continues. ‘’And (These Days) did not have any singles, so to speak, that lasted on radio any length of time, so that creates what seems to be an even larger space between records than you’d normally have.’’

Building the home studio, a room whose wall of windows overlooks a grove of magnolia trees, also took longer than he had planned, Gill adds, and in any case he and his creative team were in no hurry.

‘’When we started (These Days),’’ he recalls, ‘’we said, ‘Let’s take our time not to leave any stones unturned and serve these songs until they feel like they’ve gotten their just due.’ That’s what time affords you the ability to do, and that’s the philosophy we applied to (Guitar Slinger) as well.

‘’All you have, at the end of the day, are your ears to really tell you whether you like it or whether you don’t,’’ Gill says. ‘’I think perfection is unattainable ... so it’s about finding a way to leave the rough edges in a way that still feels like you massaged them but didn’t screw them up. And to me what makes something great is really, really subtle stuff that I think only a handful of people are going to really comprehend.

‘’You try to subtly say the most with the least and not polish something so that it’s too smooth to really be inspiring.’’

While These Days offered the space for Gill to segment different styles, Guitar Slinger is a diverse set which remains country-based but also touches on rock and rhythm and blues.

‘’I think the only record I ever made that felt like a continuing kind of theme was The Key back in ‘98, where I felt like all the songs came from a real traditional country place,’’ Gill says. ‘’Every other record I’ve made has felt like all different places, chameleon-minded like I am.

‘’I guess that can be distracting to some degree, but it’s very natural and honest too.’’

Guitar Slinger is something of a family affair, with three songs co-written by Grant, who also duets with her husband on True Love. The backing vocals include daughters Jenny and Corrina Gill and Sarah Chapman.

‘’There’s no competition (with Grant) or anything weird like that,’’ Gill says. ‘’It’s awesome to have a great friend to bounce things off of. I find that process to be the most joyful thing ever. And the girls ... Well, it’s not like you’re going to come from the parents they have, and live in an environment like this, and not want to be part of it too, you know?’’

Even so, Gill and Grant hesitated before allowing 10-year-old Corrina to sing on ‘’Billy Paul,’’ which is based on a true story about a friend of Gill’s who committed murder and then suicide.

‘’She was 9 at the time, and just the thought of a 9-year-old girl singing a murder-suicide song ... it thrills me to no end,’’ Gill says ironically. ‘’We said, ‘We’ve had enough Disney Channel in this house to last a lifetime. We want her to know some of the dark side of stuff I like so much.’’’

That dark side also touched the album’s first single, Threaten Me With Heaven, when co-writer Will Owsley – who also collaborated on When Lonely Comes Around – committed suicide in April.

‘’That (song) has a totally different impact on me now that he’s gone,’’ Gill says. ‘’I’ve never confronted something quite like that in my life, write a song with somebody and have them do that before it came to fruition and all that. So it’s already had a profound impact on me. As bad as Will struggled in his personal life, I didn’t think he would ever do that.

‘’In my heart I just wish that he could’ve hung on and seen this (song) have an opportunity to have an impact on people’s lives,’’ he says. ‘’Maybe it would’ve changed things for him.’’

Gill originally wrote another of the album’s songs, ‘Buttermilk John, for steel guitarist John Hughey, a longtime friend and mentor who died in 2007 at 73.

IHT-NYT News Syndicate

October 25, 2011  -- Randy Lewis

Over his 30-plus year recording career, Vince Gill has proved himself a prolific and astute songwriter, a highly regarded guitarist and one of country music’s most award-laden singers. He’s landed multiple song-of-the-year honors from the Country Music Assn. and the Academy of Country Music, along with two Grammy Awards -- among his overall Grammy total of 20 -- for best country song for “I Still Believe in You” and “Go Rest High on That Mountain” in 1992 and 1995, respectively.

This week, the 54-year-old musician is releasing “Guitar Slinger,” his first studio album in five years. While he was in Los Angeles recently to host the annual Country Music Hall of Fame benefit concert, Calendar asked Gill, who also plays the Troubadour in West Hollywood on Nov. 16, to talk about how he writes songs, what characterizes his favorite songs by other writers and how the new album came together.

Musicians often say there are two kinds of songs: those they consider “gifts” that arrive virtually fully formed, and those that are carefully and sometimes laboriously crafted from the germ of an idea or a musical riff that springs to mind. Is there a common thread you see?

I think first lines of songs are immensely important. It’s your first chance to pull somebody in. Like [the George Jones classic] “He Stopped Loving Her Today”: The first line is, “He said, ‘I’ll love you till I die’.” I’m in. [He laughs] It never ceases to amaze me how many great first lines of songs there are.

What examples from the new album can you point to?

On “Bread and Water,” that’s what I did. I said that first line: “One night he wandered into that old mission” — and it hit me like a ton of bricks, because it reminded me of my brother. [His older brother, Bob, died of a heart attack in 1993 after spending the last years of his life struggling with homelessness and mental illness following a car accident.] Right off the bat, I knew I had a place to take that.
Another song on there, “If I Die,” to me is really a unique song, because in a sense it’s four different vignettes, and each verse is somewhat different. I remember singing the song at church. A friend of mine is pastor of a church in Nashville, and the first verse is about drinking: “If I die drinking….” The second verse is, “If I die cheating…,” and I was watching him, with humor, I was watching him squirm because he didn’t know where it was going, and I could see he was thinking, ‘What is he doing singing this in church?’

It ends with, “If I die praying, everyone I’ve ever loved will be there waiting for me.” It’s all about when we don’t see [death] coming. How that song came about was with Ashley [Monroe, with whom he co-wrote it]. She had that idea in the first bit, “If I die drinking.”

What about some of the other ways a song comes into being?

Certain songs are born out of a feel. On [the song] “Guitar Slinger,” it was a riff, I was just playing that groove. Certain things just point you where to go…. I’m sure that [Jimi Hendrix’s] “Purple Haze” was written around that guitar riff at the start. “Liza Jane,” an old song of mine, was written out of that groove, that little lick. Sometimes a lick can be the memorable thing, the hooky thing that defines something. I think most records are defined before the singer starts to sing. Musicians don’t get enough credit for making records definable.

You do a lot of guitar-playing on this record, which I suspect is the inspiration for the title. How did that come about?

There’s a song called “Guitar Slinger,” and actually, it was [his manager] Larry Fitzgerald’s idea to call it this. This record’s a little more free for me as a guitar player. I went ahead and played, maybe a lot more than I usually do. There are some two- and three-minute fades on the ends of songs [with extended guitar solos]. He heard that song and liked the humorous side of that song. Half the record’s pretty guitar-driven, half of it’s not.

I don’t know — I never know. It’s hard to describe this stuff. It’s hard to talk about what you mean or what you were thinking. I just try to do what I always do: I play something, then I try to see how can I massage that to say a little bit more or a little bit less. I experiment; go into the subtleties of the sound of the instrument, the tone of the guitar.

It’s been five years since you released “These Days,” your four-CD set with all new material, which was unprecedented, and which also earned you another Grammy Award for country album of the year. Did it take long after that outpouring to feel motivated to return to the recording studio again?

It was a lot of things. One of the biggest reasons was my dear friend John Hughey passed away, who’d been playing steel guitar on my records since 1990 until 2006. I knew it was going to be difficult to record without him there. It’s very sad. That was one reason. Also, I started to build a studio in my house, and it wound up taking so much longer than I thought. Once we eventually got started, we had more problems because [engineer] Justin Niebank, who is one of the busiest guys in town, was mixing our record. I want him to be a part of everything I do. So it just took a long time to get it finished.

Are you a perfectionist — someone who can never stop tinkering with a track until somebody rips it out of your hands?

It’s so funny -- you can have a record from so many years ago and you’ll go, “I wish I could go in and sing it today, because now I could sing it better.” I don’t think you can ever really let go.

The country veteran discusses his track record, work ethic and the family affair behind his new music

By Phyllis Stark
Special to MSN Music

Vince Gill is doing his best to earn his place in the Country Music Hall of Fame, never mind that he's already a member.

Inducted in 2007, at age 50, Gill still admits to feeling a bit unworthy, despite his numerous career accomplishments, which include winning a whopping 20 Grammy Awards and selling more than 26 million records.

"I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that I'm so young," says Gill, now 54, who has been making music professionally since the 1970s. "And I can't help but look [at other stars] and go, 'Well, I think THAT person should be in this hall long before I should.' That's just because of my respect for what's come before me.

"The other side of it is I do want to go earn it," he continues, describing what he calls his "workingman's mentality."

"I want people to say 'We chose well,' so from this point on, let me earn it and do as much as I've done to this point [all over] again."

His new album, "Guitar Slinger," is a big step in that direction, even though by now nobody but Gill thinks he still has anything left to prove. The Oct. 24 release is his first new project since 2006, when he released an ambitious, four-CD boxed set of all-new material titled "These Days."

Gill wrote or co-wrote the dozen songs on the new album, which manages to largely maintain an upbeat tone despite the fact that three songs are about death. Two are based on friends of Gill's who died, including one in a tragic murder-suicide. The third, "Threaten Me With Heaven," was co-written with Gill's friend Will Owsley, who later took his own life. That poignant song is the new album's leadoff single. It's currently in the mid-40s and still climbing the country radio airplay charts, although not swiftly. Gill's previous track record at country radio boasts 27 top 10 hits to date, including five No. 1s.

As the title would suggest, "Guitar Slinger" showcases Gill's celebrated guitar playing much more than most of his previous releases. For years, Gill says, his guitar skills were eclipsed by the critical acclaim for his voice.

"My singing has probably always overshadowed my guitar playing to some degree," he says. "It's been more attention getting, I guess." But thanks, in part, to his frequent appearances at Eric Clapton's annual Crossroads Guitar Festival, which brings together the world's best players, Gill says, "people are more drawn to my guitar playing than they may have ever been.

"I think I'm just finally being seen in my entirety, not so much as a country music star," he adds. "People [at the festival hear] I'm a country music star and they're surprised I don't have a hat."

"Guitar Slinger" was the first album Gill recorded at his newly built home studio, which lent a casual feel to the recording process, since Gill says he could work barefoot and pad into the kitchen for a sandwich during breaks.

Recording at his Nashville home also made it easy for Gill to make the album a family affair. Not only does the set feature the vocal and songwriting talents of wife and fellow music star Amy Grant, but also Gill's daughters Jenny and Corrina, and Grant's daughter Sarah Chapman.

In an odd but effective choice, Gill had Corrina, who was 9 years old at the time, sing on one the album's darkest tracks, the murder-suicide song "Billy Paul," after the child took a liking to the song.

"She grasped what it was about and it wasn't traumatic for her," Gill says, which hatched a plan he thought could be "the worst idea I ever had or the coolest." But first he had to run it by Corrina's mother, Grant, who understandably needed some convincing.

Once he got Corrina in the studio, he says, "She just killed it. Her pitch was good and she could match the phrasing, which was remarkable to me. I think it adds a really eerie quality to [the song]."

Having older daughter Jenny on the album was a treat for Gill as well, as it helped fulfill a long-held Everly Brothers fantasy.

"Jenny happens to be a viciously great singer, so when I sing with her, I get to have a real DNA blood/Everly Brothers thing," Gill says. "You can't imagine what that feels like. I went my whole life trying to be Phil Everly or Don Rich or whoever the great harmony singer was, for hundreds and hundreds of [my] records over the last 35 years. For me to finally get to call on somebody that can give me that sound, that perfect family blend, it's unbelievable."

Teenage stepdaughter Sarah lends backing vocals to an album cut on which Gill and Grant duet, "True Love," and Gill says, "She has a really unique voice. It has a really cool texture to it that I think is fantastic."

On the title cut, one of the album's most humorous songs, Gill lightheartedly references losing more than 30 guitars and 30 amps last year when the Cumberland River overflowed and flooded Nashville, including the Soundcheck storage facility where Gill and many other musicians kept their precious gear. And while he can joke about it now, there was no humor in the situation at the time, especially coming as it did the day after Owsley's death.

"That Saturday I came home from Canada and was devastated by that news [about Owsley]," he recalls. "Then the flood started. We watched the weather for two days alarmed at what was going to happen [as the river rose.] Somebody called and said, 'Hey, have you heard about Soundcheck? It's completely under water.' My heart sank."

But when Gill told Grant the news, her reaction was pragmatic. She said, "'That's going to be devastating, but you can make a living with one guitar if you had to,'" he recalls. That comment inspired the song's lyrics "Even though half of my stuff's in the Cumberland River/Well, now all I really need is just one six stringer."

"Still, the hardest part for me was looking at all those [ruined] things and going 'Well, that guitar played the solo on that record' and 'That guitar played the solo on this record.' Those guitars had lives and they made memories," Gill says. "To a musician, those instruments are like your photographs. So in a sense, all those instruments took my pictures."

Gill says he's always been motivated by nothing more than a pure desire to make music. But in a way, his Hall of Fame induction is driving him to create that music with a bit more urgency.

"I'm 54," he says, "I don't know how long my voice will hold out. I don't know what's going to happen to my hands, if they'll stay nimble. In most cases, it doesn't happen. Once you get some years on you, stuff starts failing," he adds with a hearty laugh. "They say you get the first 50 for free, and that's the truth."

Veteran entertainment journalist Phyllis Stark has been reporting extensively on the music industry for two decades. As a freelance writer, her work appears regularly in numerous publications and sites including Radio-Info.com, where she authors the newsletter Stark Country. She was previously the Nashville bureau chief at Billboard magazine.

By MICHAEL McCALL, For The Associated Press

Monday, October 24, 2011

Vince Gill, "Guitar Slinger" (MCA)

The title of Vince Gill's new album focuses on his instrumental skills. But the music more intently highlights another talent: songwriting. On "Guitar Slinger," Gill concentrates on lyrics about friends and issues, turning out stories that are sometimes entertaining and often touching.

Some draw on his sense of humor: The title is a roadhouse rocker inspired by Gill's catastrophic loss of musical equipment in Nashville's 2010 flood. Others confront tragedy: "Bread and Water" is based on the death of Gill's older brother, who struggled with daily existence after suffering a severe head injury. "Billy Paul" questions why a close friend took such a deadly turn, while "Buttermilk John" honors the late steel guitarist John Hughey, who worked with Gill for many years.

As usual, Gill's guitar playing adds color to his songs, and he balances the difficult stories with those of love and faith: "Who Wouldn't Fall In Love With You" is a beautiful love song to his wife Amy Grant, and "Threaten Me With Heaven" explores his religious beliefs.

Altogether, "Guitar Slinger" shows Gill utilizing a veteran's craft to delve into truths essential to who he is. It shows how a superstar can age gracefully while continuing to sharpen his talents.

CHECK OUT THIS TRACK: "If I Die," written with Ashley Monroe of the Pistol Annies, is an emotionally resonant prayer that balances sin and salvation in beautiful terms.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2011/10/24/entertainment/e123645D16.DTL#ixzz1boXEx7IT

Album Review: Vince Gill - "Guitar Slinger"
By: Dan MacIntosh

Vince Gill’s Guitar Slinger is a good old fashioned country album. (That’s a compliment, by the way). Its songs address a lot the biggest questions in life, such as heaven, hell, sin, salvation and all that sorta messy stuff. In the wrong hands, such subject matter might come off preachy. In Gill’s capable guitar slinging hands, though, it’s never less than beautifully touching.

There a few truly pitiful characters studied during this thoughtful work. One poor soul named Billy Paul – in a song of the same name – chronicles the life of a man who ends up committing murder, and the narrator wonders why it all went so wrong. Then with “Bread and Water,” Gill sings about the essentials of life through the story of a homeless man. “Threaten Me With Heaven,” one of this album’s most touching songs, speaks frankly about death and how the afterlife is not a future to be feared. One of its four songwriters was Will Owsley, who later committed suicide. One has to wonder if he was contemplating this final act while he was writing the lyric. It’s simply chilling.

Although this album gets deadly serious during its many sobering moments, it’s also a whole lot of fun in a few places, and sincerely romantic in others. The title track is clearly autobiographical. Before we had Brad Paisley and Keith Urban, Vince Gill proved that some extremely talented guys can bend strings amazingly, in addition to singing equally well. It’s obvious he’s talking about his equally famous wife, Amy Grant, when he tells how he “went and married that contemporary Christian singer” during the album’s hard-charging, guitar strumming and piano pounding title track. That well known “contemporary Christian singer” also joins Gill on the romantic ballad, “True Love.” Its lyric is all about being patient and persistent when it comes to finding Mr. or Mrs. Right. Another happier song is “Who Wouldn’t Fall In Love With You.” This is one of those ‘love at first site’ songs. The moment this angel walks in the room, Gill suggests at one point, he’s helplessly smitten by her. (However, when it comes to Amy Grant, haven’t we all been similarly smitten)?

Oddly enough, Gill doesn’t necessarily sling his guitar around all that much on this new CD. Sure, he shows off a tad on the title track and channels the blues during “When the Lady Sings the Blues.” However, for the most part this is a songs album. Had he called it ‘Story Slinger,’ in fact, he would not have stretched the truth in the least.

Country music fans are proud to talk about the style’s historic emphasis on story songs. Sadly, however, one doesn’t hear nearly enough tales-put-to-twangy-melodies on the radio these days, though. If there’s any justice in the music world, many short story songs from Guitar Slinger will make it onto playlists around the country.

In addition to the high quality songwriting found throughout this new disc, Gill’s high and lonesome singing voice has also never sounded better. Furthermore, traditionalists will find plenty of real country playing on this CD -- not at all the slick Southern pop we’ve come to expect from typical radio songs. For example, “Buttermilk John,” which also features The Jumpers, has a bluesy sadness that leaves it sounding like an undiscovered Hank Williams, Sr. gem. It lyric is about a steel guitar player, and this track is simply saturated in weeping steel guitar work.

Vince Gill refers to himself as a real guitar slinger on this album’s title track. Without question, he has good reason to brag.

Never has there been and never will there likely be a voice like Vince Gill's. His unparalleled range and captivating delivery, coupled with his sublime songwriting skills, have made the Oklahoma native an unmistakable staple on country radio since the early '80s. They've also earned him a trophy case full of Grammys (20, the most of any male country artist), CMA awards (18) and many, many other honors, including immortalization in the Country Music and Nashville Songwriters Halls of Fame.

See Vince play live in concert, and you'll realize that just as uniquely strong of an instrument as his voice is his guitar. Often called the Eric Clapton of country music, the 54-year-old guitar virtuoso can mesmerize an audience with his instrumental jams as much as he can with his vocals. So while Vince doesn't have a self-titled album anywhere to be found in his bustling discography, his latest comes close: 'Guitar Slinger.'

On what is his first studio album in five years, Vince finds the perfect balance of guitar-driven tunes that also showcase his incredible knack for driving emotion through lyrics, whether it be the tears that fall with 'Threaten Me With Heaven' or the toes that tap along to the uptempo title cut. The project tackles subjects ranging from suicide to love, with a common thread among all 12 tracks: authenticity, as the singer/songwriter draws from either his own life experiences or the true stories of those close to him.

Vince visited our studios in New York to perform several new songs from 'Guitar Slinger.' We sat down after his performance to talk about the new project, which includes guest appearances by some very special ladies and stories about some very special friends.

Your two daughters and step-daughter all sing on the album, as does your wife, Amy Grant, who also co-wrote three of the tracks. Was it always your intention to make this album a family affair?

Not so much. I don't think that I ever set out to cast a record with anything in my mind other than what sound will be there. I really try to hear the voices. So even though it's a 9-year-old kid [daughter Corrina, who sings on 'Billy Paul'], I knew what I wanted that to sound like. Corrina was really compelled by that song. It's a very dark song about murder and suicide. I went to Amy and said, "This is either the worst idea I ever had or it might be really eerie and cool." She said, "Let's try it." Just hearing a little girl's voice singing those words, 'What made you go crazy, Billy Paul?,' is pretty haunting. It was the right voice. Not the fact that it was my kid.

Your oldest daughter, Jenny, is also on a few songs. She's really developed an amazing voice, as has your step-daughter, Sarah Chapman.

Jenny's voice blends with mine because our blood line is the same; I get that family harmony I never got to have until she got old enough to really sing and sing well. So I feel like I've got an Everly Brother there in my daughter. [laughs]

With Amy, the duet that we do, 'True Love,' was a song that she wrote about me, so I suggested we do it as a duet. She said, "I don't know if I can sing it. You do things so much slower. I love tempos." I said, "We can do it, I know we can." And that was actually the first song we recorded in the studio. I think the uniqueness of that song is even more so because of the guitar playing that I did. It's almost a duet of Amy's voice and my guitar playing as much as me singing with her.

Then I thought how neat it would be to have Sarah on there. She's 18, and she's really showing a great interest in singing. She has a really compelling and unique sounding voice. The bottom line every time is that it's about the sound of what I'm looking for more than the person I'm looking for. It just turned out that several of those people were my family.

Would you and Amy ever consider doing a whole album of duets?

We found each other very late in life and very late in our careers. We both felt the thingnot to do was to try to become Sonny and Cher. We do it in small doses, but I don't know if we'd ever do a whole record of duets. We might, I never say never. But I got to produce those two hymns records that she did ['Legacy ... Hymns & Faith,' 'Rock of Ages ... Hymns & Faith'] and got to take these old hymns and make them musically different than probably anyone would expect, and I sang and played on them. So there are so many instances of us doing that, but it's much more subtle than both of us out front sharing the spotlight.

'Threaten Me With Heaven' has a true story behind it, but then it took on a whole new meaning after your co-writer's passing.

The original phrase came from my step-kids' grandfather. He had received bad news about his health, and that was his response: "What are they going to do? Threaten me with heaven?" How very profound ... I think this song honors him in a really great way. Then, after I recorded it, Will Owsley [Vince & Amy's co-writer on the song] took his life. He actually played some of the guitar on that record, and then I had to finish it without him. But it's great -- I'll always have that little piece of him playing on that record and the song we wrote together. I'll always have a soft spot for that song, and every time I sing it, I think about him.

There are so many different characters on this album, in story songs like 'Buttermilk John,' 'Billy Paul' and 'Bread and Water.' Are they fictional characters or based on people you know?

'Bread and Water' was a song I wrote with Leslie Satcher. I threw out this line: "One night, he wandered into that old mission." The first lines of songs are the most important part of the songs. If you really want to tell a story, that first line has to capture you. I said that line and then got a big lump in my throat and almost teared up. It reminded me of my brother. My brother had a rough stretch of life. He had a car wreck at age 21 and was almost killed. He was in a coma for many months and wasn't expected to live, and he never really fully recovered. He did pretty great considering the depth of the injuries and as a result of it, he would spend some time kinda hobo-ing around and not checking in with us. We didn't know where he was for periods of time and found out he's been down in the mission, or working at the Salvation Army or out picking fruit somewhere. So the song is loosely based on my brother.

Is 'Buttermilk John' also someone you know?

'Buttermilk John' was a song I wrote in tribute to John Hughey. John was a steel guitar player who played on my records for nearly 20 years. Everything that you heard me do after 'When I Call Your Name' was John -- he really gave my music great definition. He was probably even more known in the days he played with Conway Twitty in the '60s and '70s. He was a world class musician, and we were great friends. I wanted to honor him with a song, and his nickname was Buttermilk John because he loved buttermilk and cornbread. His wife, Miss Jean, is one of the dearest souls that ever lived, and it was that love that they had for each other ... They stayed sweethearts their whole marriage, and they held hands everywhere they went. If John wanted to go to Walmart, Jean went with him. If Jean wanted to go somewhere, John would go with her. They were a beautiful couple. And she struggles everyday since he's been gone. There hasn't been one day that she doesn't go visit his grave. So I wrote that about them, to let her know that I loved John like she did.

Other than being a track on the album, what's the significance of the title, 'Guitar Slinger'?

'Guitar Slinger' wasn't going to be on the record. I never thought of that title. My manager, Larry Fitzgerald, came up with that title because he listened to the record and said, "You're playing so much more guitar. Something's different about you and the way that you're playing. I think you ought to call it 'Guitar Slinger.'" And I said, "Well, that song is not on the record, so let's put it on the record!" So we found a slot for it.

Besides working in your pajamas, what was the biggest advantage to recording this album in your home studio?

There's no place that feels as comfortable as home, and to have the creative side of my life finally within those walls was more gratifying, more peaceful and content than anything I could have imagined. I felt for a long time I was just screwing around; I didn't think we were really recording or if it really mattered because of the relaxed atmosphere. There was a great spirit when we were playing music because it's not a commercial building, it's not a place that's out there trying to make money being a recording studio. It's just a place where I felt I could do what I wanted to do at the time I wanted to do it in. There was no pressure.

Congrats on 20 years as a Grand Ole Opry member. Do you think younger country singers today have as healthy of a respect as you do for coveted institutions like the Opry?

I think they do. As time goes on, you lose sight of history. It's going to take someone like me to teach a new artist who Roy Acuff was, who Bill Monroe was and who Minnie Pearlwas -- all the great stars of the early days of the Opry -- and that's my job. I'm supposed to do that, and they're not supposed to know it all. I never look down at them for not knowing the history, because I didn't either. When I was younger, I wanted to learn it and I still want to learn it. Those people drove the dirt roads with everybody piled in a couple of cars. They traveled tough, and we get to cruise around in big buses -- much more luxurious than they had it. I want them to know I respect them and am grateful for what I've learned from them, because I wouldn't know how to play this music if there hadn't been great mentors like that.

Country is such a producer's medium these days that somebody like Gill needs to come along and remind folks what can happen when you let the musicians loose. The joy of playing is apparent in every song on this picker's paradise, and the songs aren't bad either, from Threaten Me With Heaven, a soulful meditation on mortality, to the title track, on which Gill chuckles as he sings about marrying "that contemporary Christian singer." — Mansfield

>Download:Threaten Me With Heaven,Guitar Slinger

Return to Form: Vince Gill breaks five- year hiatus with home-cooked new album ‘Guitar Slinger’

October 29, 2011

It’s been five years since Vince Gill released his ambitious four-Cd, Grammy Award-winning MCA Nashville collection These Days.  The Country Music Hall of Famer will return Oct. 24 with Guitar Slinger, a home-cooked effort filled with slice-of-life songs.

“The feeling of being home is pretty wonderful for someone who travels all the time,” Gill says of recording in the home studio that he and wife Amy Grany built in Nashville.  “When you start being creative and comfortable, you really stand a chance to win.”

Gill has been a consisten winner in the country arean.  During the Nielsen SoundScan era, the singer/songwriter has sold 18.9 million units on the strength of best sellers like 1994’s When Love Finds You (3.1 million), 1992’s I Still Believe in You (2.9 million), and 1995’s Souvenirs (2.2 million).  These Days has sold 380,000.  He has also won 20 Grammys and 18 Country Music Assn. Awards, including five consecutive wins for male vocalist of the year.

Guitar Slinger gets personal on several tracks, including Gill’s “True Love” duet with Grant, who wrote the song about her husband.  “It took a while to convince her to do a duet with me,” Gill says, “because she thinks she can’t sing songs as slow as I do.  I really like a very laid-back tempo more often than not.  I had a drummer once that said, ‘Your songs are so slow I have to count them off with a calendar.’”

The album is somewhat of a family affiar with daughters Jenny, Sarah, and Corrina also contributing background vocals.  Gill decided to include 9-year-0ld Corrina when he was taking her to school one morning and her her singing along to “Billy Paul,” a song he wrote about a friend who killed a woman and then killed himself.  Gill says, “[I thought] this could be hauntingly beautiful if a little girl’s voice was singing, ‘What made you go crazy, Billy Paul?’ Why wouldn’t a kid ask that question? A kid might be the first to ask  that question.”

Another Gill-penned track, “Buttermilk John,” was written in honor of the late John Hughey, who had played steel guitar with Gill on records and on the road since 1990.  Lead single, “Threaten Me With Heaven”- No. 46 with a bullet on Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart- is a tune Gill wrote with Grant, Dillon O’Brien and the late Will Owsley.  While not all of the songs on Guitar Slinger deal with somber subjects, Gill has never been one to shy away from songs of substance.  “Music should have emotion in it,” he says.  “I’m not afraid of emotion on any level, so it’s not hard.”

Gill will promote the album through numerous media appearances, including “Today” (October 26), “Early  Show” (October 29), “The Tonight Show With Jay Leno” (November 16), “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” (November 17), and “CMT Crossroads” with Sting (November 25).  GAC will premiere “Backstory: Vince Gill” in November.  Gill will also perform on Yahoo’s “Ram Country,” “AOL Sessions,” QVC and MLB.com’s “Major League Artist.”

“Vince always excels through this live performances, so we took every marketing opportunity we could to do that,” Universal Music Group Nashville VP of marketing Tom Lord says.  “And because of Vince’s stature as an artist, there are doors open to him that aren’t available to newer artists, like the ‘CMT Crossroads’ program with Sting.”

Gill’s versatility as a guitarist and vocalist also keep him in demand.  He has recently sung or played on projects by Alice Cooper, jazz trumpeter Chris Botti, Australian act the Greencards and Irish group Cherish the Ladies.  “It never ceases to amaze me sometimes who is on the other end of a song,” Gill says. “I did something with Tom Hank’s wife, Rita Wilson, the other day.  She’s a really great singer; just completely knocked me out.  I like all things and never say ‘no.’ You never know what you’re going to miss.”

By Nancy Dunham
October 24th, 2011  

Vince Gills’ The Guitar Slinger is his first album since These Days, a four-CD box set that was released in 2006 and won a Grammy Award for Best Country Album.

Since his last release, Gill built a recording studio and the Nashville home he shares with his wife Amy Grant and their children. The much-honored artist -– who has 20 Grammy Awards and 18 Country Music Association Awards — recently took some time off to chat a bit about what inspired some of the songs on Guitar Slinger and what he hopes to bring fans in the not-too-distant future.

So we have to ask, why did it take five years to put out a new album?

I never felt the urge to have a new record out every year. I don’t know if there’s any reason for that. This time I wound up putting a studio in my house and it took more time than I ever anticipated. I wanted to make the record here at my house and I was patient enough to wait.

You’ve had some pretty big losses in the past few years, too. I know your steel guitar player John Hughley died, and you wrote “Buttermilk John” as a tribute to him.

Yes, John played on the road with me for 14, 15 years. I knew this would be the first record I’d make without him in a long, long time and it was really tough. He left a very big footprint on my music. We have Paul Franklin, he played on this record and he’s started playing with me live. He’s world class. There’s probably nobody better on this planet. There’s a great feeling to have that kind of musicianship right to your left.

Although some of your songs are about tragedies, you seem to always try to put a positive spin on them, for lack of a better term.

I know we all go through this and we’re all going to leave this parade sometime but it’s been tough. What I want to do is celebrate life. There’s a song on this record called “Billy Paul,” too, about a caddy at a golf course where I played every year. We got to be good friends. It was very tragic because he took a woman’s life and then a couple days later, took his own life. There’s a line in the song about seeing you at your best and at your worst but the best of you is what I’ll remember first. I’ve made enough mistakes in my own life that I’ve been forgive for…. That feeling of forgiveness and that feeling of loving someone at their worst is powerful. You have to find the positive spin on everything if you can. It’s the only thing to do, I guess.

I hear that unlike some other writers you have a treasure trove of songs that you haven’t recorded or published.

I have a ton of songs that haven’t seen the light of day. I’m in the process of really trying to organization them with this computerization and flexibility we have now. I’m so excited about finding what I have in my treasure trove. There are a ton of songs… I’ve never been one to actively push my songs toward anything or anybody. I am at an age and place where I should do that now. I’m going to embark on a pretty extensive songwriting place whether I find my songs a home with other people or just find out what the heck I have got. That is what I am falling into. I have a lot of songs sitting around stockpiled, some in desk drawers, some half finished on cassettes. My kids are helping get that all organized.

Do you think you’ll ever record any of those songs yourself?

Well, it’s a new world out there. We will probably find a day when the 10, 11, 12 song record may become obsolete but if you have got 3-4 songs laying around you can record them and say “Here’s something for you.’” I don’t have any idea what this future is going to hold.

The standard and deluxe editions of Guitar Slinger are available to purchase now!

AMAZON CUSTOMERS:
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CLICK HERE to purchase the album download (standard edition) at Amazon.MP3


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iTUNES CUSTOMERS:
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To read The Oklahoiman's “Guitar Slinger” review, click here.

“Guitar Slinger” Vince Gills returns with first album in five years
Column: The new record marks the Oklahoma native’s first release since he was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2007 and follows his 2006 Grammy-winning box set “These Days.”

“It wasn’t hard for me to see all I was ever gonna be was a Guitar Slinger,” Vince Gill declares in the boogie-woogie title track to his new album.

While it’s true he hasn’t stopped making music since second grade, when he made his public singing debut crooning “The House of the Rising Sun at Oklahoma City’s Cleveland Elementary School, it’s a bit of self-deprecating creative license for Gill to even jokingly declare himself just a “Guitar Slinger.”

After all, the new album, due out Monday, is the follow-up to the superstar’s four-CD box set “These Days,” which earned the Norman native his 20^th Grammy when it was named the best country album of 2006. “Guitar Slinger” also marks Gill’s first record since he was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2007.

“When I left home in ’75 — I grew up there in Oklahoma and I was the kind of kid that studied the back of records and knew who played on stuff and who sang on stuff —I think in all honesty what I aspired to do was that. If I aspired to do something, it was not to be a country star, it was not to be a pop star, it was ‘I want to be part of that process.’ I like how this works. I like how a record is put together and all the pieces and parts,” Gill said in a phone interview earlier this year from his adopted hometown of Nashville, Tenn., where Vince Gill Week kicked off last Thursday, Oct. 13.

Although five years have passed since Gill, 54, released “These Days,” the singer/songwriter/guitarist has hardly been resting on his laurels. He has been touring, writing and especially performing with an array of other musicians, from fellow Oklahoma native Jimmy Webb and rock band Daughtry to actress-turned-singer Gwyneth Paltrow and Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Alice Cooper. He recently teamed Sting, another legendary multi-hyphenate musician, to tape an episode of the acclaimed cable series “CMT Crossroads” that will premiere in November.

In addition, Gill and Carrie Underwood, who hails from Checotah, performed in April a duet of “How Great Thou Art” during the televised concert special “Girls’ Night Out: Superstar Women of Country” that has viewed more than 8.5 million times on YouTube.

“If it’s Vince Gill, it’s gonna be awesome,” Underwood said last week during a homecoming trip about his new album. “He’s such a great man first and foremost. You know, in a hundred years, nobody’s gonna care what we sang, I’m sure. But somebody like Vince, he spreads good stuff everywhere he goes.”

Homemade album

Gill didn’t go far to make “Guitar Slinger,” the first album he recorded in his home studio. In fact, he made music for the new disc throughout his house.

While “These Days” featured an array of guest stars, including Sheryl Crow, Diana Krall, Bonnie Raitt, along with fellow Oklahomans Trisha Yearwood and Katrina Elam, Gill kept the new album strictly a family affair. He and his wife Amy Grant, who gets a shout-out on the title track, swap verses on the unabashedly romantic “True Love,” with their daughter Sarah Chapman, 18, backing her mother.

His daughters Jenny Gill, 29, and Corrina Grant Gill, 10, sing with him on one of the album’s most haunting songs, “Billy Paul,” about a golf buddy of Gill’s who killed a woman and then committed suicide last year. While Jenny has recorded with her dad many times before, the dark country-blues ode marks Corrina’s singing debut.

“I played it in the car one morning taking Corinna to school, and it finished and she goes ‘Dad, play that again.’ … I played it again, and by the time it was finished, she was back there just singing like a bird,” he said.

“I took her into the studio, and she sang along with me, and it’s really haunting. So, I wanted to get just a little bit of Disney Channel out of her brain, and now to have her first song be a murder-suicide ballad in the great tradition of country music,” he added with a laugh.

Personal songs

Like “Billy Paul,” many of the songs on “Guitar Slinger” are deeply personal for Gill. He co-wrote two — the first single “Threaten Me with Heaven” and the mournful “When Lonely Comes Around” — with his wife and songsmith/guitarist Will Owsley, who committed suicide last year.

“Now they have flipped and morphed into a totally different feeling for me ’cause he’s gone,” Gill said. “The running gag was she (Grant) employed him and I inherited him, and we were great friends. … He was a really gifted musician and I learned a lot from him. But he was a real troubled soul and checked out.”

“Bread and Water,” a story-song of a homeless man seeking comfort, is loosely based on Gill’s late brother, while the old-timey album closer “Buttermilk John” memorializes steel guitar great John Hughey, who died in 2007.

“This is the first project that I’ve done in 20 years that didn’t have him on it … so it was hard to go in there and play and not hear him,” Gill said.

Gill pays tribute to his home state with the fictionalized tale of “The Old Lucky Diamond Motel” with its references to El Reno, Ted’s Escondido and Route 66.

“It’s the first song that I wrote after I finished the ‘These Days’ record, and it’s totally different than anything I did on that whole record. So I went ‘Oh, neat. You didn’t go back and repeat yourself, you did something different like you’ve never done before,’” he said.

“I really love the story and there’s a whole bunch of history in it for me ’cause I spent a whole lot of my childhood right there on Route 66.”

-BAM

Nashville Mayor Karl Dean, the Nashville Predators, the Nashville hospitality industry and MCA Nashville were among those honoring Vince Gill today during the kick-off celebration of Vince Gill Week at the Visitor Center in Bridgestone Arena.

Before Gill releases his new album, Guitar Slinger, on Oct. 24, MCA Nashville and city leaders wanted to take a moment to celebrate his achievements and thank him for his dedication and generosity to Music City.

“I’m grateful that people are saying, ‘Well done,’” Gill says.

Mayor Dean presented a proclamation honoring Gill ‘s “extraordinary talent and contributions” and recognizing Vince Gill Week. He also announced that Gill will serve as grand marshal of the 59^th annual Nashville Christmas Parade, which will be held Dec. 2 and starts at Public Square Plaza.

“Vince Gill is a great musician, a great humanitarian and a great Nashvillian,” Mayor Dean says. “If there is a need in our community, Vince is always eager to step up and help. He truly embodies the spirit of generosity and charity that Nashville is known for. I am grateful for his many contributions and am pleased to recognize Vince Gill Week.”

Butch Spyridon, president of the Nashville Convention and Visitors Bureau, presented Gill with a pair of turntable-shaped cuff links on behalf of the hospitality industry. He says that Gill’s music is now being played in the traffic signal boxes at the Music Row Roundabout, which are wrapped with Gill’s image. The NCVB will also purchase copies of Guitar Slinger to use as part of gifts for clients.

  “We wanted to celebrate Vince Gill Week because one day isn't enough to honor a man who has done so much for Nashville. He represents all that is good about this city,” Spyridon says.

Nashville Predators and Bridgestone Arena CEO Jeff Cogen unveiled a special hockey-themed Vince Gill bobblehead that will be given away at a future Predators home game. The Predators will honor Gill during their home game tonight, where he will be presented with a Predators jersey.

“Since the Predators’ arrival, Vince Gill has been one of the team’s most recognizable and passionate fans,” Cogen says. “His support has benefitted the Predators and Nashville in so many ways, both locally and nationally, as he has converted many of his music and entertainment friends into Predators’ fans along with inviting some to perform with him on our bandstage, making great music and enhancing the game experience for our fans. We are proud to call him a friend and he is one of Nashville’s true treasures.”

Fender’s James Pennebaker presented Gill with one of the new Eric Clapton-series Tweed Tremolux amplifiers, a point-to-point hand-wired amplifier made at Fender’s custom amp shop in Corona, Calif. Gill is only the second person to possess this amplifier, behind Clapton himself.

“Vince is the real deal; he’s the whole package: a world-class songwriter and singer with that incredible tenor voice and above all, truly a ‘Guitar Slinger,’” Pennebaker says.

“Vince has always played a particular 1953 Fender Telecaster,” Pennebaker says. “I assume Vince sought out the Telecaster because it’s the guitar so many of his heroes played, like James Burton, Clarence White, Jimmy Bryant and on and on. Most of those heroes are now good friends of his, and believe me, Vince can hang with any and all of them. So now for many guitarists all over the world, Vince has become the hero.” 

The Loveless Café’s Jesse Goldstein told the crowd that Loveless will feature Gill as its Artist of the Month for November, when it kicks off the Loveless Café’s Year of Music. The restaurant will play a custom playlist of Gill’s songs with personal introductions in the Cafe and Hams & Jams store, carry his music in Hams & Jams and its online store and create contests and other activities surrounding his music.

MCA Nashville’s Beverly Keel and Tom Lord presented Gill with a plaque commemorating 26 million albums sold, 24 No. 1 singles, 20 Grammy Awards and 18 Country Music Association Awards, as well his 20^th anniversary at the Grand Ole Opry and inductions into the Country Music Hall of Fame and Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame.

Vince Gill and Sting Team Up for “Ultimate” CMT Crossroads

By Allen Morrison September 22nd, 2011 at 5:56 pm

Vince Gill to play at MGM Grand at Foxwoods: Singer wanders into the gloom on long-awaited CD

BY Phil Roura
SPECIAL TO THE DAILY NEWS

Saturday, September 17th 2011, 4:00 AM

There is sunshine in Vince Gill's eyes and gray clouds in his voice.

The normally bubbly country superstar is in a surprisingly somber mood on his new record, "Guitar Slinger," singing about lost horizons, homelessness, alcoholism and death.

Due out next month, Gill's first album in five years has already scored a hit single, "Threaten Me With Heaven." His tour comes to the MGM Grand at Foxwoods in Connecticut on Friday.

This is a different side of Vince Gill, although there were hints of what was to come on 2006's 43-track set "These Days," which had more than a few thought-provoking moments. While his picking is as good as ever, the focus here is on storytelling.

"Threaten Me With Heaven" - which he co-wrote with his wife, singer Amy Grant, and their friend Will Owsley - is a gorgeous ballad that Gill calls "one of the best songs I've ever done." It has the faith-healing suggestions encountered in 1995's "Go Rest High on That Mountain."

"It took on much more meaning when Owsley later took his own life," says Gill. "He was a troubled soul and you feel responsible in some way. You say to yourself you should have noticed that he needed help, that you could have picked up the phone and just talked. I had to convince myself that I did the best that I could and that it wasn't my fault."

On "Bread and Water," Gill sings about a homeless man "who finds a kind face and a place to help soothe his aching soul. I loosely based it on my brother, Bob," he says. "He hurt his head in a car wreck when he was young and never fully recovered." Bob died in 1989.

"Billy Paul" is an old-fashioned country song that stays with you. "He was a caddie at my golf club. He had a woman for a time but there were some problems. About a year ago he took her life, and then his own. But even as dark as [the song] is, there is a spiritual side to it."

Hearing Gill describe the tracks makes it sound as if the CD is too gloomy, too wrenching to listen to. But the way he weaves the stories, the power of his playing and the richness of his voice make this one of the more important of the 12 albums he has made.

There are several tracks that make a listener smile because, when all is said and done, Gill simply can't help himself. Examples: "If I Die A-Drinkin'," "Buttermilk John," an ode to a steel guitarist who loved buttemilk and cornbread, and "The Old Lucky Diamond Motel" - on which you may use your own imagination. There is also a beautiful tribute to Billie Holiday. "I heard one of her songs as a boy and fell in love with her voice," he says.

The CD's different hues are intentional, the Country Music Hall of Famer admits. "It is kind of in two halves. That's more interesting for people to listen to."

A native of Norman, Okla., the 54-year-old singer is the son of an administrative law judge who played in a country band, in which his mother played harmonica. Gill was in a bluegrass band in high school, and after graduation, he moved to Nashville, eventually becoming lead singer of the country-rock group Pure Prairie League.

He married Janis Oliver of Sweethearts of the Rodeo in 1980. The union produced a daughter, Jennifer, in 1982, but they parted in 1997. Gill married Christian/pop singer Grant in 2000.

Their daughter, Corina, was born in 2001. Grant and both daughters are all on the new CD.

"I love playing guitar for them," Gill says. "I feel that my playing has taken another step forward. You have to have the passion in order to do that and I've always been passionate about the guitar.

"This is as much a guitar record as it is a singing record," says Gill upon reflection. "But honestly, I think people finally see me as a singer and not just another guitar player."

Vince Gill and Sting Unite for 'CMT Crossroads'

A living legend in country music meets a living legend in pop in the next installment of 'CMT Crossroads.' Vince Gill and Sting will perform in front of an invitation-only audience, with an anticipated November televised date.

Each episode of 'Crossroads' matches a country star with an artist from another genre, featuring them collaborating on each other's most popular tunes. Past pairings have included Brooks & Dunn with ZZ Top, Dolly Parton with Melissa Etheridge, Brad Paisley with John Mayer, Sugarland with Bon Jovi and Taylor Swift with Def Leppard. Vince and Sting's episode marks the first to be filmed in New York City in five years.

On October 25, Vince will release his 13th studio album, 'Guitar Slinger.' The project's first single, 'Threaten Me With Heaven,' co-written by wife Amy Grant, Dillon O'Brian and Will Owsley, was inspired by a true story about a devout Christian man who was given some bad news after visiting the doctor but joked, "Well, what are they going to do? Threaten me with heaven?"

The song took on a whole new meaning after one of Vince's co-writers passed away. "Since the song was recorded, my friend Will Owsley took his own life, so the song has a profound impact on me now," says the Country Music Hall of Famer. "In my lifetime, 'Go Rest High on That Mountain' has been the song that helped a lot of people through their grief. I think this one will, in turn, hopefully do the same thing. It's a powerful, powerful song. I feel like it's the crown jewel of the new record."

With regard to the rest of the new collection, Vince, who recently celebrated his 20th anniversary as a Grand Ole Opry member, explains, "The emphasis has been on the songs, and the songs have gotten better. They really run the gamut of what they are about, how they feel, how they sound. It's not an all-traditional record, it's not an all-contemporary record; it's all over the map, like I kind of have always been. But it doesn't feel out of step with anything I've done previously."

For Vince Gill, there's no place like home -- especially for recording his upcoming album, "Guitar Slinger."

Gill made the set -- due out Oct. 25 and his follow-up to 2006's Grammy Award-winning four-CD epic "These Days" -- at the studio he built in the Nashville home he shares with his wife, Amy Grant, and their children. And during the process home and studio became interchangeable, he notes.

"It was just a great environment," Gill, who co-produced "Guitar Slinger" with Justin Niebank and John Hobbs, tells Billboard.com. "When things come from home, they just feel different. I'm in there barefoot most of the time, maybe in a pair of gym shorts. I don't have to doll up and leave town, so to speak. You walk down the hall and there's the kitchen and Amy's in there knockin' up some brownies or making some cookies or whatever the heck...It doesn't feel commercial. It feels like somebody's home. The musicians who played on this record loved the vibe that went on in the process of recording these songs an spending time in the house. It doesn't feel like work, in a really neat kind of way. There were times where I didn't know if we were really working or just screwing off."

While "These Days" had the space for Gill to segment different styles, "Guitar Slinger" is a diverse set which remains country based but also touches on rock and Rhythm & Blues. "I think the only record I ever made that felt like a continuing kind of theme was 'The Key' back in '98, where I felt like all the songs came from a real traditional country place," Gill notes. "Every other record I've made has felt like all different places. chameleon-minded like I am. I guess that can be distracting to some degree, but it's very natural and honest, too."

"Guitar Slinger" is also something of a family affair, with three co-writes by Grant, who also duets on "True Love," and backing vocal appearances by  daughters Jenny and Corrina Gill and Sarah Chapman. One of Grant's contributions, the set's first single "Threaten Me With Heaven," which has taken on a weighty touch since the April 2010 suicide of Will Owsley, who collaborated on that song and one other, "When Lonely Comes Around." Gill acknowledges that "Threaten Me With Heaven" "has a totally different impact on me now that (Owsley is) gone. I've never confronted something quite like that in my life, write a song with somebody and have them do that before it came to fruition and all that. So it's already had a profound impact on me.

"As bad as Will struggled in his personal life, I didn't think he would ever do that. In my heart, I just wish he could've hung on and seen this (song) have an opportunity to have an impact on people's lives. Maybe it would've changed things for him."

Gill, meanwhile, has plenty of other projects on his plate even as he prepares to bring out "Guitar Slinger." He guests on new albums by Alice Cooper's ("Welcome 2 My Nightmare") and Johnny Winter ("Roots"). He'll be taping a "CMT Crossroads" episode with Sting that will air in November -- "I need to lose 60 pounds before we get in front of the cameras," he jokes -- as well as playing at the former Police man's 60th birthday benefit concert on Oct. 1 at New York's Beacon Theatre. And Gill is getting ready to record the first album by the Time Jumpers, an all-star Western swing band that includes first-call Nashville players such as Paul Franklin, Jeff Taylor, Douglas B. Green from Riders in the Sky and more.

"I've kind of been energized by the thought of this next stretch of my life with the studio in my house," Gill explains. "I'm really motivated to spend a lot of time making some music and doing a tremendous amount of stuff because I know that I won't have that many years left to have all my faculties. I feel like I'm singing the best now that I ever have in my life, playing the best I ever have, writing the best I ever have. So I'm really motivated in this stretch of my life to be musical and creative and busy."

Amy Grant and Vince Gill

Vince Gill and Jenny Gill

Vince Gill and Emmylou Harris

Photo By: Chris Hollo