During the past few years, Country singer Vince Gill has experienced many changes in his life. His marriage to Country singer Janis Gill ended, and his father passed away. Better times followed with his marriage to pop singer Amy Grant and the birth of their first child last year. Vince Gill's latest album reflects the contentment in his life.
Gill is the first to admit that he has his sense of humor back, and that's reflected in many songs on his new album. In its title track, Next Big Thing, he sings about the fleeting nature of stardom in the music business. And he should know. Although his latest album is receiving a lot of critical praise, his past two efforts went almost unnoticed.
Vince wrote or co-wrote all of the songs on Next Big Thing, and he feels the collection offers something for everybody.
"The beauty, I think, of this record is there are 17 songs on it, all new songs, and it kind of runs the gamut, it's all over the map and I think I've done my best work that way," he says. "Not trying to just do one thing. So, what's fun is that I'm so at peace and so calm that I felt that I could get my sense of humor back. It's real traditional and it's real rowdy, it's contemporary and it's fun and it's poignant it's a lot of different things."
From Next Big Thing, a Cajun-flavored track called Old Time Fiddle, that Vince Gill wrote with noted Nashville songwriter Leslie Satcher.
For the first time in his career, Vince produced the album himself. He tells us why.
"I'm not a control freak. It was just the process of elimination," he says. " The guy I had been making records with for the last 13 years is no longer with the record company that I record for. So I just kind of said, 'Well, I'll just do it myself.'"
Vince says he missed having his longtime producer Tony Brown with him in the recording studio. But, he also admits that it gave him the opportunity to be more creative.
Next Big Thing features several guest vocalists, including Lee Ann Womack, Michael McDonald, Emmylou Harris and Vince's 20-year-old daughter Jenny Gill.
Vince is currently performing a U.S. club tour in support of his latest album. That will be followed by a summer outing of larger venues.
The new single from Next Big Thing is a track Vince co-wrote with pop singer-songwriter Richard Marx, called Someday.
