For over 40 years now, Vince Gill has been a major presence in country music. He has more Grammy Awards (22) than any other male performer in the genre, put 30 songs in the Top Ten and sold somewhere in the neighborhood of 26 million albums.
The Oklahoma native with the high tenor voice, who’s also renowned as an electric guitar player, is in performance Friday at Ruth Eckerd Hall with a crackerjack, handpicked band (tickets at this link).
Gill’s career actually kick-started in the mid 1970s (he was a late addition to Pure Prairie League), which is why he’s calling his recent series of extended play (EP) recordings Fifty Years From Home. Eight of the collections (with seven or eight songs each) are now available; the plan is to string them out through the end of this year.
The EPs include brand-new songs along with a few earlier favorites from his illustrious career.
In this exclusive Catalyst interview, Gill talks the whys, hows and wherefores of the new series of recordings, about his most famous song “Go Rest High on That Mountain” and his nearly 10-year “guest” membership in the Eagles and their residency in Las Vegas’ super high-tech showroom The Sphere … along with a few surprises along the way.
St. Pete Catalyst: It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that the music business has changed from what it was 40 years ago. How do you adapt? Was that the reason for this series of EPs? Because of the way people get their music?
Vince Gill: I guess it’s partly that, but it’s also that I never get tired of, hopefully, singing a great song. I think that’s the one thing that stays constant. A great singer singing a great song is kinda timeless, and you never know when you’re gonna strike a nerve with folks, and sing something they like.
And part of it is, also, I’m 69 and I’ve more than acknowledged the fact that I don’t have as much time left to be creative as I’ve had to this point. So it has a much deeper connection and a much deeper meaning, and it’s just so ingrained in me from my whole life that I’m so compelled to do as much as I can with the time that I have left. That’s big part of it.
As for the EPs … are people buying records any more? I don’t know.
You know, I’m not sure I do either! I know my way that I grew up in, and I know it pretty well, but the new way I don’t. I always tell people, look, if American Idol or The Voice had been around in 1948, Little Jimmy Dickens would have been on them. You just gotta find a way to, y’know, find your way in. However the wave of it is, it’s always gonna change, the format’s gonna change, whether it’s an LP, a 78, a 45, an 8-track, a cassette or a CD … that’s all evolved and changed and been different throughout the whole time.
So you just kinda go with what the majority rules is and do the best you can.
All I’m trying to do is get better. I’m trying to write a better song, I’m trying to sing a better song, and play a better song. So my agenda has not changed in all these years. It’s really about improving, and my ears – in so many ways – never lie to me. They tell me that I’m maybe writing the best songs I’ve ever written, I’m singing better than I’ve ever sung and playing better than I’ve ever played. That’s real positive, so I’m leaning on that in a big way.
It reminded me of the box you put out with four CDs of new material. That was a new format.
Yeah, These Days, in 2007. This (the EP project) came from me coming up with a whole lot of songs. I wrote a boatload of songs. I was getting together with these young, cool songwriters and I said well, I don’t want to see these songs just never see the light of day.
I don’t know if you knew who Roy Book Binder was …
Oh, yeah.
He passed away this year, here in St. Petersburg. One of your new songs is called “Goin’ to Tampa.” Roy had a tune called “Going Down to Tampa.”
Oh really?! I never knew that.
They’re very different songs. Roy wrote in that old-timey style and your song, of course, is a rockin’ blues …
Well, glad I didn’t steal something! [Laughter] That song came from an old joke I remembered from my Pure Prairie League days: “I didn’t say was going to take you to Florida, I said I was goin’ to Tampa witcha.” It always struck me as funny. And I though well, someday maybe it’ll make a song. And it finally did, 40 years later.
I watched the NPR Tiny Desk Concert you guys did recently, and you played a song you’d just written called “Heroes.” And it’s not on any of the EPs.
Yeah, it’s gonna wind up in here somewhere. I cut it, and I wasn’t crazy about the version I cut, so I think I’m going to re-cut it.
But it’s one of my favorite songs, of all these songs that I’ve come up with.
Who were you thinking about when you wrote that?
All of ‘em. And there’s so many. You know, it doesn’t matter if it’s music or sports, or it’s whatever it is, you’ve gotta have people you looked up to and learned what you’ve learned to be able to do what you do. It’s a tune about pretty much everybody that comes to this town (Nashville). Everybody comes here with dreams, and a suitcase full of songs, hopes they hit a lick. And it’s kinda all about that.
People that taught me how to write songs, people that taught me how to play the guitar, people that taught me how to sing, and the records I love and the people I looked up to. It’s all that.
The funny thing, to me, is a lot of these songs reflect the entirety of my life, the entirety of my career. The whole project’s called Fifty Years From Home, and it’s been amazing how many of these things turning up in these songs have a 50-year connection. Whether it’s a guitar I got, or whether it’s some guys I played with, or somebody that just recently passed … it’s almost eerie how many of these things are turning up that have that 50-year kind of connection.
Your song “Go Rest High on That Mountain” was recently added to the Library of Congress. Can you reflect on that song a little bit, and why that was an honor? That’s a big deal.
It is a really big deal. I’ve written songs my whole life. And if you write a handful of songs in your life, in your career, that really strike a chord, you’ve done well, I think. Not every song is “Yesterday”; not every song is gonna trip the switch in a big way. So to have one that I think I’ll be remembered for, that’d be the song. Without a doubt.
When my brother died, I had no intention of even recording the song. I just wanted to write a song and grieve the loss of my big brother. He was such a good big brother, y’know, and always sweet to me.
Just to have something that people go to when they’re really struggling is powerful. It’s different than a hit song. This is a connection that’s deep, and is really about people in their hardest of times.
You’ve sung that song at a lot of services. How do you keep it together?
I have to go somewhere else. I have to kinda disengage and do my best to get through it. Sometimes I can get through it, and sometimes I fall apart. As you know from over the years, it’s not hard for me to fall apart, and I’ve done it plenty of times. So it’s nothing new.
Do you still enjoy touring? You’ve always struck me as a people person, so I wondered if it was rewarding to get out there and re-connect with fans all over the country? Like “You’re still here. I’m still here. Great to see you again.”
Yeah! I’m just grateful people still show up. And I love doing it. It’s all I’ve ever known, so it’s familiar like breathing is.
And doing the Eagles gig for the last 10 years has given me less and less opportunities to go out with my own band and my own songs. So it’s even more special at this juncture.
I’ve got a killer band put together, great players, great singers – it’s gonna be a blast.
I do still love it. The real fix, and the real pull, is that immediate response of a conversation. And there’s nothing like it in the world when you do something and people respond. You can’t describe the feeling.
What’s it like to have a residency in Las Vegas? It must be nice not to have to get back on the bus after every show? Do they treat you like kings at The Sphere?
Well, I have a running gag that people hear me say and they go “What a prima donna,” but I only mean it humorously. If they say “What’s it like playing at The Sphere?” I say, it’s the most people I’ve ever been ignored by.
[Laughter] Because they’re all watching all the stuff, all the bells and whistles … and really, it’s astounding to see it. People are gobsmacked when they walk in there and see the magnitude, the size and the scope of it all. And I get it, you know, I would be the same way.
What I think is so cool about it is the music is so familiar to people, and has been for 50-plus years, that they can sit back and watch the thing. And be entranced by it. We’ve done close to 60 shows in there now, something like that.
We play Friday and Saturday night, and the Friday and Saturday night after that. And we don’t stay; the guys let me go back home for five days, then come back out for two days. Then off for three or four weeks and then go back out, so it’s totally do-able. And pretty cool.
So, are you filling in for both Glenn Frey and Don Felder, at the same time?
Kinda, but not too much Felder, really. Chris Holt has taken over the guitar duties that Steuart Smith had been (doing) there for close to 25 years. If I had to do that as well, I think my head would explode.
It’s not as much of a guitar gig as it is a singing gig. They didn’t need the guitar playing as much as they needed a singer, so that’s really my role.
And I sing as many songs as Don (Henley) does, so I’m featured and out front and it’s been an unbelievable experience, that I was the guy that they thought enough of to call and come do that.
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