Vince Gill Mixes Surprises With Familiar Sound On New Album
Those who thought they were thoroughly familiar with Vince Gill’s signature vocals and award-winning sound can expect a few surprises on Gill’s new album, “High Lonesome Sound,” set for release Tuesday.
“I think the music is going to generate excitement for Vince, because the album is so different,” says Dave Weigand, MCA Nashville vice president of sales and marketing. “It’s also been a long time since Vince’s last studio album, and there are a lot of people waiting to get this.”
MCA released Gill’s greatest-hits package, “Souvenirs,” Nov. 21, 1995. His last studio album, “When Love Finds You,” was released June 7, 1994.
“I’ve been telling people that it’s been so long in between because I didn’t have enough hair to shoot an album-cover picture,” Gill says, referring to the buzz cut and goatee he sported last fall.
“I got the weirdest mail. People were mad, mad, mad at me (about the haircut). One lady’s letter started out, ‘Why?’ I’ve been teasing people. I said, ‘All this time, I thought you liked me for my singing, and all I was was a pretty haircut. I’m crushed.’ It just goes to prove that people still want to judge the book by its cover.”
The new album cover may show the more traditionally coiffed Gill that people expect to see, but the five-time CMA male vocalist of the year says his new set’s contents are a little different.
“If people had criticism of my records, it’s that they weren’t what we were live,” Gill says of the shift in sound. “There’s a lot of playing and a lot of energy, a lot of things live that are sometimes hard to translate to a record. Plus, (Tony Brown and I) made four records together, and I think we improved each record, which is obviously what you’re trying to accomplish, but then it’s like, OK, let’s do something different than we’ve ever done.”
Brown, Gill’s producer and MCA Nashville president, says the goal on this project was to stretch boundaries without alienating Gill’s fan base. “We tried to be a little different, without changing the sound too much,” he says. “Everybody likes the comfort zone of Vince sounding like Vince, but at the same time, everybody wants (the new album) to up those sounds a little.”
Gill is pleased with the result. “I had a bunch of different musical ideas,” he says of the album, for which he wrote or co-wrote all 11 cuts. “The first tune, for instance, ‘One Dance With You,’ is kind of a roadhouse blues shuffle, not unlike Stevie Ray Vaughan or B.B. King, that kind of blues styling in the guitar playing. Some of these songs were written (with) those feelings in mind.”
Gill says another cut that has a different sound for him is “Tell Me Lover,” which was influenced by Sonny Landreth. “I love his guitar playing,” Gill says. “He makes music that has a ton of feel.”
On “High Lonesome Sound,” Gill recorded two versions of the title cut, and Brown describes one as a hybrid bluegrass number (which went to country radio as the first single) and the other as a straight-ahead bluegrass tune, with Alison Krauss on fiddle and harmony vocals.
Another interesting cut is “Jenny Dreamed Of Trains,” which Gill wrote 10 years ago with Guy Clark for his daughter Jenny, now 14. The song has been recorded by Mary Chapin Carpenter and Sweethearts Of The Rodeo, but this marks the first time Gill has recorded it.
MCA Nashville chairman Bruce Hinton is enthusiastic about Gill’s new release and his new direction. “It’s still Vince,” he says. “It’s still the great music you expect from him, but it has evolved. It’s a fresh sound.”