Vince Gill, Guitar Slinger (2011)

aka Nashville artist #2

Vince Gill makes me happy in the face. This album is the Nashville of my dreams. Although he was actually born in Oklahoma (I'm forgiving him this because there happens to be another Oklahomeboy of whom I'm pretty fond) he's been in Nashville since '83 and while we're there he'll be playing the Ryman. (No, I can not afford to go.) 

This album opens with a huge blast of energy before bringing it down a notch or four (perhaps something Sarah Siskind could learn from...) And while it's country music, it's also a 1950s rock n roll bar (see 'All Nighter Comin''), it's jazz and soul and gospel ('Buttermilk John') and blues ('When The Lady Sings the Blues'). There's ballads ('Threaten Me With Heaven',) and there's honky tonk (the title track.) And while the album is cohesive and unified it initially moved so quickly and diversely that I barely had time to keep up. I lovedit. 

I read one review which stated "this album shows the grey in his hair" - and perhaps that's exactly what I liked it about. This was classic and yea, I could hear '90s influences (such as in 'Tell Me Fool', 'Who Wouldn't Fall in Love with You' - incidentally what drew me the most about this was the beautiful delicate female vocals by Ashley Monroe - and 'Threaten Me') which I'm pretty sure weren't ironic. I'm not saying I didn't get a bit bored in the latter example, and I wouldn't want to listen to an entire album of '90s ballads, but thankfully this wasn't; it had opened with such energy and continued with enough diversity that it kept me interested. The album is called "Guitar Slinger", and it's the work of an enormously talented guitarist - most often those quieter ballads give way to face-melting guitar solos, and that kind of makes them worthwhile. 

It was, evidently, five years in the making, and it is a big album - not just in epicness, but also in length; it's over an hour comprised of 15 big tracks. Once I'd settled into it - about track 7 - it became a very easy album to listen to. It is a classic country album; it was an easy listen, and I really enjoyed it.