How Vince Gill was in Over His Head - Talking about Sting & Brian Wilson

hi this is joe chambers welcome to musicians hall of fame backstage today's clip is part two of a three-part interview we did with the great vent skill hope you enjoy it if you do be sure to hit like subscribe and the notification bell so you don't miss any of our new content once again vince gill welcome back to musicians hall of fame with vince gill um i was talking to barry beckett he was talking about you i interviewed barry years ago and he said i remember vince laying on the couch in my office and going i don't know what to do man i can't get arrested in this town because i didn't drink much [Laughter] you're one of the few and um then yeah all of a sudden yeah well barry and i got to be great friends uh through rodney uh playing and singing on rodney's records barry was always around that that crew of people and we traveled some together and and and also barry was producing other acts and getting me to play and sing on some of that stuff and so we've become very close and i'd you know i've had several things happen with the records i'd made at rca nothing happened you know we kept trying something different trying something different different producer and and then barry and i were great friends they suggested why don't you go in with barry and i said okay you know so what happened was i was going in and playing barry's songs and he wasn't responding to them you know and and i finally after a few meetings i said barry i said i said i'm puzzled i said i'm playing you some songs you know and um and i you don't respond you know i don't know and i don't know if you're if you don't like them and you don't want to say you don't like them i can take it if you don't and he said well he said that's the problem i do like them i said well i don't understand he said well i wasn't supposed to tell you this but rca said because of your past with none of your songs really cracking the code they said i couldn't record any of your songs and he says that's my problem um i like your songs way better than than this stuff that we're getting and and whatever we're getting is and he says so i don't know what to do i said whoa so i don't either you know i sure don't and he he looked at me and said you know what the hell i'm gonna cut your songs because they're better and uh when i when i call your name was in that batch never knew lonely was in that batch and so i had some good songs and um uh so we we cut five or six things and and rca didn't respond and said we nothing's really floating our body they passed on when i call your name no they didn't i didn't get to when i call your name but never do lonely was one of the hits that i'd had from that first record and um they just said it just sounds like what what we're used to from you and so i said them well let me go i said let me go try something else and joe was one of my best friends and still is kalani to this day he said i don't want to let you go he said i believe in you i said i know you do you're my friend and this isn't about any of that i said well let me try something else you know he said okay and he did and so then the lucky thing was when i call your name was was on that next record i made with tony tony brown and here's the best part about when i call your name being such a big hit was we called beckett you know late at night said hey will you come we need a piano intro you know we need something cool on this this this song we're working on he said okay so he comes over at one or two in the morning and plays this completely uh just identifiable intro to when i call your name it's like when you hear be cut behind closed doors or something like that you you know what pig played was something that that really identifies a record and he did that and the song all of a sudden had had that identity right off the bat and so fast forward a while later that song had become a hit and we had a big party for it and we invited barry and barry came came up to me with a big bear hug like you know only barry could do and he said man he said congratulations i've we've all believed in you for so long it's so cool to finally see and blah blah blah i said by the way because who's playing piano on when i call your name and i said are you serious because yeah i said well you are he goes i am i said yeah you came in about two in the morning and played that solo in the intro and does that he goes oh no wonder i liked it and you know what he was telling the truth he was he didn't remember it he's doing you know producing all day long and all night long and mixing and doing sessions in between totally fine i know i interviewed so many guys i said did you play on i don't know i don't remember they don't when you play i mean you know you know i remember when i first started doing this i was talking to the original 18 guys i thought maybe i thought they were kind of kind of pulling my leg well i played on about ten thousand sessions and you multiply and they were doing three or four songs a session thirty to forty thousand songs in a lifetime kind of unreal unreal so how did you learn how to write just trial and error you know and and it took a while that was that's kind of the last thing to come along did you have a mentor that kind of well i had a lot of mentors you know i mean that taught you how to write not so much taught me but just by by example you know and i think that it it's it's like anything else it takes repetition it takes writing a hundred bad songs to get a good one and writing another 100 songs to get a second good one and and the ratio of great songs is is is pretty small you know and and i was i was just you know people were would respond to my singing people will respond to my playing but the songs weren't as good you know that's a fair assessment and i agree with them and it took a long time for those to kind of find their way through and it was kind of the last thing in line that that that got going you know and then started to work and uh i was just quick to settle i was quick to um you know not dig a little bit deeper and and now i'm all i'm just editing all the time you know and finding that word you know guy clark was a great example of every word matters and the uh well you know it does and and you kind of go if it's not telling this story and it's not helping get it out you know it's the same thing with playing it's the same thing with singing when you're young you're you're like a rabbit you know you just i gotta show you all this stuff i know you know and i got that lesson early on as a player you know one of the first sessions was sat down played my part and played my solo and somebody done the talk back i said that was good let's try it again this time just play me half of what you know yeah i said okay point taken and it's interesting over the last 45 years you know i've worked on a thousand artists records in my career and something i'm proud of because that's what i wanted to do more way more so than be an artist i wanted to be the session guy i wanted to be somebody that they called to sing on the records play on the records and all those kinds of things i studied the backs of records and and just knew the musician's name and i would buy a record if a great guitar player i knew played on it or what have you and so that was if i had a dream it was to to do that so it was important to me to continue to do that throughout my career even when i started hitting a lick you know started to do well because well you don't have to do that anymore i go i'm doing it because i love it yeah and so i still do it i do it all the time you know james panko lives here now oh yeah and uh we were walking through the museum and we went past this piano i got from caribou and he goes you know elton john really really liked our horn section actually he asked me to write the horns to one of the songs and then they didn't put my name on it but he wrote the horns for don't let the sun go down on me oh really yeah you know amy recorded a bunch of records out of caribou yeah but a lot of her records were used that piano too yeah it was a well i got one that was in the studio and i got one that was in the chief oo-ray cabin which was that's where the their stars i never got to go there how did your life change when i called your name came out because that was a huge huge huge record yeah i don't you know some of the year wasn't it yeah it won everything you know it did great but i don't know that um i don't know that anything about it changed me you know all the everything around it changed because of it everything was was then you know you're welcomed into the club so to speak radio was more willing to play your next record and it started a nice uh long bunch of years of having a bunch of really successful records and sell a bunch of records and the best time in life you could have ever hoped to have had a had a hot hot streak you know but it it it's still it all it's all felt the same and every point when i was making the first record in 1974 i was trying to do just do the best that i had at the time and and to this day i'm still trying to sing the best that i can play the best that i can write the best song that i can so i don't uh i've never i never let the results kind of be the end all to what i think i've accomplished you know because even in all that stretch of of amazing success i feel better about my artistry now than i then i did that yeah well you feel like you've improved i do i feel like i'm a better player a better singer and a better songwriter i love that about you when you they asked you why'd you join the time jumpers you said i want to be a better musician i was like wow more well-rounded learned something yeah you know i never some advice i got early on was never be the best musician in the band you'll never learn anything yeah and and that's proven to be true you know in that you're getting a situation i've been in a few situations where i was in over my head you know and and it it forced me to really to bear down you know and a few things that i thought i don't know if i could hang you know and just be patient enough and work hard enough to find your way in and it all worked out but it's just you know i got to know what possible situation can you have been in plenty really plenty sure i wouldn't have thought that yeah i um two that come to mind one was playing with sting they had a tv show for a while where two artists would get together it's called crossroads and and you'd sing each other's songs and so they they asked me to do it a lot of times but the artist they always asked me to pair up with never made enough sense yeah and they said sting i go that sounds great he's a musician he sings hi writes his own songs that's that could be something then i started going oh his music's pretty complicated you know it's a little over my head but it made me bear down and go down in there and find a way to contribute you know maybe not note for note or any of that kind of stuff but found my way that i play and sing to interpret what he had done and it forced me to to go down a road that i hadn't really been down you know was a great uh example of that and then another example that i always talk about was i was asked to be a part of a brian wilson tribute about 18 years ago in new york city and so they said we'd like you to sing warmth of the sun which i kind of knew a little bit beautiful song and then they said we'd also like you to sing surfs up and so i like the beach boys but i'm not an aficionado of the beach boys i didn't know that song and i said okay thinking it was surf's up baby everybody's you know something like that i figured they'd want you to do something up tempo with the ballad you know and then i got surfs up and i put it on my eyes got really big i said what this is like a classical piece yeah this is deep this is this is way it's all the way over my head yeah i can't even touch the bottom here i called my manager larry and i said man i can't do this song it's it's way out i said no just just take some time with it you know i called uh who was doing the phil ramone maybe doing the head of the music for it i called him and said dude i i don't know if i cut this you know because it's got stupid range and melodic and all this stuff and and he said man just live with a little bit see if you can do it it'd be cool and so part of it was uh done with david crosby and jimmy webb so the three of us were going to do this and i of course had all the falsetto stupid crazy you know they they had this little these little parts in the middle that didn't test them too hard so i remember going into rehearsal i was i was scared to death you know i'm in there with david crosby and jimmy webb and we're at rehearsal and and i nailed it i just nailed it the first time through david crosby looks at me yeah i mean he's one of the greatest singers i mean one of my all-time favorites mine too so so it it came off and i walked off stage doing it that night at wherever we did it i think it was radio city and and brian was on the side of the stage and i walked by him and he shook my hand because that was really beautiful yeah he was as uh that's i no we never did we never did that song live it was too hard man i said thanks a lot i saw him sitting at the piano in the sand at his house just him by himself it was great just that yeah his stuff's so haunting you know it's genius you know all that to say was yeah there's plenty of times where you know i may not look like it because i'm you know pretty you know i like to be funny off the cuff and kind of silly sometimes and all that but there are times that i'm petrified you know have you ever felt like you made it you made it yeah yeah i felt like i made it when i could pay the rent i was 18 years old yeah that's a great answer you know i did you know and and it it it was more about the caliber of people i was playing with that was more of how i would choose to define making it you know because i was in the world of bluegrass and i was playing with some of the very best musicians that bluegrass has ever produced you know and so as as each step unfolded i felt you know everybody said you know why'd you quit pure prairie league and start playing with rodney i know the band was better with larry london emery gordy tony brown hank and albert and guys like that and richard bennett and i said this is a caliber of musician that is i'm gonna i'm gonna benefit from this because they're better there's nothing wrong with somebody being better than you you know i'm used to it i am too you know and it's it's a it's a great thing yeah because if you take it in the right light then you can you really learn a lot i tell you what you you you destroyed me when you so kindly anytime we've asked you you're at our first award show you sang a lot of stuff for us you did uh scottie moore wanted you to induct him out of everybody who do you want us to call i'd like vince gill uh that's sweet i'll call him and see you know and you did and then and um we had the wrecking crew that you're in you got up and sang with larry nectal i need to bridge over trouble with the thrills of my life one of them and that was that was the original that was the guy that played on it you know yeah crazy fun and you nailed it and i mean it was great i kept i was like he's got to release this as a single you know and so and some people we didn't do it because we didn't have the rights to it you know yeah um we did a five-camera shoot on it but but we never have released any of it because we can't afford to sure you know yeah all the publishing rights and all that stuff but somebody put it on youtube and every time i say it i'm like man that's just yeah that that was a that's a that's a highlight you know there are times that you just kind of go that was a that was a great moment in time right there getting to do that you know and anytime you know anytime you're around the the great heroes of this music you know and that's that's how i am i feel like a musician i don't feel like a star i never felt like a star felt like i wanted to be thought of as a fellow musician and so to get to do some of those things with the people that created them uh once in a while was pretty awesome you did it again for us this past in 19 you came out the same with the with the nashville i call the new a-team i know some people like that term but the players yeah they played on some of your records and everybody else's too and that was great yeah i mean so many of those guys go so far back with me you know i mean i met hobbs when i moved when i was 19 in california right playing my first sessions with john yeah and and uh and then michael was in uh rodney's band early eighties had the band called the nerve and eddie eddie bears you know all of them were he's at the bottom also yeah i tell you what man when you when you did the one of my favorite things you ever did oh like when you call my name stuff like that was i went i went to see you and paul franklin at the ramen and you know y'all you did the um stuff i mean when you were doing together again about flips it was just like i was like why can't we have music like that again uh we've still got it not on radio yeah i know but it's getting played every now and then somewhere that was that was tremendous that was fun for me you know i was for a long time i was it's interesting how i've been you mentioned scottie moore and i was just as drawn to scottie moore and his playing as i was elvis and i was just as drawn to don rich when i watched buck owens you know and it it's on down the line you know it's it's uh it's kind of how i've always been wired well you're saying the same thing that keith richards did he said everybody wanted to be elvis i wanted to be scottie yeah hey we're going to take a break and we'll be right back [Music]

Channel: Musicians Hall of Fame & Museum

Views: 275,431

Rating: 4.9380436 out of 5

Keywords: Musicians Hall of Fame, Joe Chambers, Vince Gill, Country Music, Country Music Hall of Fame, Rock and Roll, The Animals, House of the Rising Son, Violin, Piano, Musicians, Studio Musicians, Guitar, Singing, Singer, Bluegrass, Records, Radio, Mountain Smoke, Hit Records, That thing you do, Steve Wariner, Kentucky, Martin, Gibson, Glen Campbell, Ricky Skaggs, Session Musicians, The Wrecking Crew, Let me love you tonight, Rosanne Cash, Brian Wilson, Sting, When I call your name

Id: qbvpq3HDbIY

Length: 20min 3sec (1203 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 24 2020