VINCE GILL PACKS 16 SONGS IN TO GUITAR SLINGER

Posted by admincw on Apr 27, 2012 in News | Comments Off

The title character on Vince Gill’s latest album, “Guitar Slinger,” is one of those fast-fingered, heavy-drinking cowboys you hear about in a million country songs. But in the middle of writing the song, Gill realized the title rhymed with something impossible for him to resist. So he threw in this lyric in the third verse: “Oh, I knew I was in trouble the first time I seen her / I went and married that contemporary Christian singer.”

The line, of course, is a reference to the contemporary Christian singer — Amy Grant, whom Gill married in 2000. “I thought, ‘If I can get that in there, this’ll be hysterical,’ ” says Gill, 55, by phone from his Nashville home. “Amy all but doubled over. She said, ‘You’ll say anything, won’t you?’ Yeah, pretty much.”

Gill’s approach these days is, in fact, to toss just about every idea he can think of into a song, then put it on a record. The Norman, Okla., country superstar has sold 26 million albums in his solo career, and, for the first time in years, he’s free. After Nashville label MCA Records signed him in 1989, Gill spent the next few years putting out a string of smash albums with a strict 10 songs apiece, including the No. 1 singles “One More Last Chance,” “The Heart Won’t Lie” and “Tryin’ to Get Over You,” and the Grammy-winning “When I Call Your Name.” All this time, he was feeling a bit repressed, so in 2006, he spewed out four discs’ worth of material called “These Days.”

POP MATTERS REVIEWS GUITAR SLINGER

Posted by admincw on Oct 31, 2011 in News | 2 comments

By Philip Majorins – Pop Matters

Vince Gill has earned a lot of respect over the course of his illustrious Nashville career. An exemplar of the country gentleman, his sweet tones and tasteful pickings have attracted fans from both sides of the modern/classic country divide. As a session player and solo artist his credentials proceed him in the soon to be released album Guitar Slinger. His first release since 2006’s These Days, a four-CD (43-song) box set that garnered much deserved critical acclaim. The thematic and rootsy These Days is an intimidating opus to follow, but one gets the sense that Vince Gill feels no pressure to repeat the artistic success of that formidable batch of tunes.

ROUGHSTOCK: ‘GUITAR SLINGER’ IS A GOOD OLD FASHIONED COUNTRY ALBUM

Posted by admincw on Oct 25, 2011 in News | 2 comments

Dan MacIntosh – Roughstock

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.

REVIEW: VINCE GILL SHOWCASES SONGWRITING STRENGTHS

Posted by admincw on Oct 25, 2011 in News | Comments Off

By MICHAEL McCALL – The Associated Press

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.

VINCE GILL’S ‘GUITAR SLINGER’ HONORS FRIENDS AND FAMILY

Posted by admincw on Oct 25, 2011 in News | 1 comment

Beville Darden – The Boot

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.

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