Say What? – Vince Gill

Vince Gill 2In a long, fascinating interview with the Houston Press, Vince Gill was asked about the recent controversy involving female artists and country radio.

Here’s what he had to say:

“That’s one of the greatest tragedies in this stretch of life for me,” Gill says. “Because I’ve been inspired as much or more by women artists, equally, than I have as men. So if there’s only a couple that are getting the opportunity to really knock it out of the park at radio, then you just go, “What about Patsy Cline/Kitty Wells/Tammy Wynette/Loretta Lynn?’

“I could go on and on and on and on and name you about 50 great female artists,” Gill continues. “And I don’t know why that is. To me, they’re making much more…interesting records. They’re saying more things I’d prefer to hear, lyrically and song-wise, and that’s compelling. This Ashley Monroe kid, she writes songs like she’s 80 years old. It’s remarkable, and it’s not dumbing it down. It’s not going for the lowest common denominator. It’s so refreshing, you know?”

We know, Vince.  We definitely know!

Bonus quote on his duet partners Dolly Parton, Alison Krauss, and Patty Loveless:

Dolly would be a great one; getting to do “I Will Always Love You” with her. Anything I’ve ever done with Alison Krauss has been pretty magical. To me one of the most seamless-sounding partners has been Patty Loveless. I think we only maybe did one “real” duet together over all these years, but we both sang on each other’s first hit records.

I’ve been singing with her since, gosh, the mid-’80s, when she made her first record and we sang together. There’s something magical about our voices together that I was always drawn to. She sang on “When I Call Your Name,” “Pocket Full of Gold,” and I sang on a bunch of her hits — “If My Heart Had Windows” and then backgrounds on probably 15 or 20 of her records over the years.

I remember an ill-informed journalist reviewing a Patty Loveless album in the mid-nineties and suggesting Loveless get Gill to sing on some of her songs as payback for the harmony she did on his, completely oblivious to the fact that it was Loveless returning the favor for Gill’s work on her eighties hits.

That guy’s probably a radio consultant now.

2 Comments

  1. While this article was published after Keith Hill’s comments/controversy, as I understood this interview, Vince’s comments were actually given to this author before the big SaladGate controversy erupted, which is even better because it shows that he wasn’t just reacting to a movement, but stating how he truly felt.

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