Telecaster Heaven
It’s a few days since I watched it, but I can’t stop thinking about this long interview with Vince Gill about his latest EP, which is the sixth part of his year-long project celebrating his 50 years in the music biz.
First things first, here’s a link to the video. I won’t embed the whole thing, because it’s an hour and a quarter long. And here’s a link to the EP on Apple Music. It’s seven songs, 25 minutes, which if you ask me is almost a perfect length for an album. Of the six he’s released so far, this one is inevitably my favourite, since it is showcasing some of his incredibly smooth and appropriate playing. Yep, sometimes you want something rough and rowdy, sometimes a bit of a twang, sometimes some power chords. But when you want something soothing and tasteful, Vince Gill is always there. Of which more below.
A little bit of background here. Vince Gill is 69 years old. He started his musical career playing bluegrass (which is all about the pickin’) and then became guitarist and singer with Pure Prairie League before starting a solo career in 1984. Where I come in with him is at his commercial peak, when he was winning multiple industry awards, releasing Platinum albums, and even hosting the annual CMA Awards show. I think it’s fair to say that Gill is a Good Egg, popular with his peers, and you’d be hard-pushed to find anyone to say anything negative about him. He has often played and sung on other peoples’ records, and the list of his contributions is a huge chunk of his Wikipedia article. He was once asked to join Dire Straits, and did eventually join the Eagles.
In those 90s years, he was really known as a balladeer, and you wouldn’t associate him with guitar virtuosity but with his extraordinary high tenor voice. He’ll happily joke that they have to get women to cover his songs when they do tributes, and if you take a listen to his latest release, you will hear that the quality of his voice is undiminished.
But he can also play guitar, and I would set him alongside the likes of Mike Campbell and George Harrison as a guitarist who plays for the song rather than to show off, and that’s why I find this latest YouTube interview so fascinating. He talks about his philosophy of songwriting, playing, recording, collaborating, and he talks in detail about the care and attention that goes into his recordings. He remains humble throughout, naturally. He’s such an unassuming fellow, that you might be forgiven for thinking he was a relatively minor artist.
But you would be wrong. And you can tell you are wrong because you can see that Vince Gill’s home studio, where the video is recorded, is a palace of guitars. The wall is festooned with them. Many of us book lovers have double-stacked bookshelves, but Gill has double-stacked guitars on his walls. There’s a corner that just has what looks like about 10 or 12 Telecasters, four of which look like identical Blonde models with black scratchplates.
Telecaster Corner
There’s a matching Stratocaster Corner on the other side of the fireplace, and in front of the fireplace itself, there are at least a dozen acoustic guitars. Less visible is the Wall of Les Pauls, which are between the Strats and the ES335s that sit begind Gill’s left shoulder.
The man has GAS real bad. The most remarkable thing is that he talks about wanting to get hold of his first, four-string, guitar, that his parents traded in so they could get his first ES335. Vince really wants that guitar back. He even knows the serial number.
This is what it was like being successful in the music business before the internet and the Fraunhofer Society ruined everything.
Watching the video, you can see that Gill’s emotions are very close to the surface, which is possibly why he is such an expressive musician. But, as I said, there’s a whole musical philosophy here. About how to find space in the music while leaving space for everyone else. About asking bass players to “remove their G-strings”, ooh-er, about being influenced by the Eagles and the Beatles, about how to sing harmony, and so on. It’s really great to hear a master talking about his craft.
Each EP features new songs, plus one from his back catalogue, which is an excellent way of showcasing his career, and the different styles of music he has played.
One last thing: surrounded as he is by evidence of his success and status, the man is still clearly moved and chuffed by the fact that Paul McCartney once paid him a compliment.
#country #CountryMusic #guitar #Music #VinceGill
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