Vince Gill Quotes (40 Quotes)


    I do not like being famous. I like being normal.

    I've always been more drawn to being normal than being famous.

    And just, once again, the connection there that was kind of rare was - it was - it felt - everything felt familiar, you know, when I met Amy.

    That's the one thing that is really timeless is the songs. The artistry, the popularity of the artistry, that's going to come and go.

    But you know the thing that I thing oftentimes gets ignored and neglected is there was 10 or 12 years of life before I met Amy and before she met me, where you know, whatever happened was probably going to happen some day.


    It is altogether fitting that we undertake this salute to Earl and Louise Scruggs. For decades, following in the tradition of Ralph Peer and Jimmie Rodgers, or Fred Rose and Hank Williams, they have formed one of country music's most productive musical and business partnerships. The path they have forged is very much in keeping with our Museum philosophy, which encourages an open-ended, broad-minded interpretation of the country music story.

    It's so hard to defeat perceptions. I feel like whenever you have the opportunity, you take it and show people what it is that you do.

    I can sit and analyze everything and beat myself up and say you don't quite sing as good as you used to, you're writing better songs maybe than you used to, but to me it's just the journey.

    Gill also related how, in a fit of anger against Gibson, Monroe took a pocketknife and gouged out the company's nameplate. That's the beauty of this mandolin, ... It's the Holy Grail. Most musicians think it's in the New Testament. And it ought to be.

    You learn a whole lot more about a person if they have bad breaks and all those kind of things.

    This is just strictly me wanting to make a record that is the real deal. It is all the stuff that I have learned and know that I remember. It's what I perceive as country music is about.

    My Dad says I've made a name for myself and now I can pull back and appreciate what I do instead of striving to get to my next gig.

    It really does take a lot of time to make records, to be in the studio and do all that stuff.

    The real amazing thing about all of this is I think I've maintained the mentality of a musician throughout it all, which I'm proudest of. And I'm still playing on people's records and singing on people's records.

    It is not that I don't like contemporary country music because I do. I love it. I have recorded a lot and have had great success recording records that have not been very traditional country records.

    I had just lost my dad and I remembered all the songs we used to go and hear at concerts, and the records around the house and sometimes we'd play together.

    With The Key, it was, I had gone through a divorce and losing my father, and just kinda really reminiscing about how much I loved the traditional side of country music, so I made a record that was really traditional from start to finish.

    The real beauty of it - key to my life was playing key chords on a banjo. For somebody else it may be a golf club that mom and dad put in their hands or a baseball or ballet lessons. Real gift to give to me and put it in writing.

    It is harder to fail than it is to succeed because most people are going to watch you do is to react to what you've accomplished.

    Well, more than me saying to the rest of the country music industry there is not enough traditional country music - that is not necessarily the statement in truth. I think more so that I, me, missed it more than anything else.

    Well I think in all the thirty years I've been doing this now and being gone from home and all that stuff it's really, it's not about what I've achieved and if I've become a better player, or played better ten years ago than I do today.

    Your talent level, as the years go by, you know, you're going to lose a little bit of what you used to be able to do, like an athlete.

    Success is always temporary. When all is said and one, the only thing you'll have left is your character.

    My last two records that I made were both quite pointed in one direction and I think I do my best stuff when it's all over the map, when there's a couple traditional things, a couple pretty rocking things.

    I made records in the past that are as traditional as any other country records that have been made, but at the same time the records have a contemporary slant on it too.

    And from my place, and from the time that I went through my divorce, I also had my father pass away in the middle of all that. And it kind of made everything else just kind of like the back burner, you know.

    I mean, look at her. Any idiot, you know, would quite taken with Amy.

    The funny thing is, people's perceptions of what a song is about is usually wrong a majority of the time. But they're still going to read what they want to into it.

    So I didn't have anything to do with picking the songs, but I got to musically take them in places I thought might be interesting, so it was a real neat collaboration among the three of us.

    Yes, the companionship is amazing. You know, you can get that physical attraction that happens is great, but then there's an awful lot of time and the rest of the day that you have to fill.

    I am responsible for me. I can kind of take care of what I need to do and should do what I like to do.

    I still have to play the solos and do the things that I do on my records, I still put in the work. I think that it's more lonely, and it's hard.

    I formally proposed. I'm a good Southern gentleman.

    It is not fun singing about losing somebody like that, but at the same time it was easy to write because the memories were so real and vivid and so much a part of who I am.

    Gill was the final inductee in an evening that ran long because of rambling introductions, excessive performances and pause-plagued acceptance remarks. I would like to keep this slightly brief, ... I'd like to have kept the whole evening briefer. Amy's going to be leaving town tonight for a week, and I thought I might get lucky before the bus left.

    It is easy to react if everything is going great.

    Whether it is successful or not is not the exercise for me. It is not up to me. It is out of my hands now. I am not going to in two years have hindsight and say I made a big mistake.

    This record for the first time - feels like a record that really represents my whole entire life and instead of just a period of my life. And it is really kind of eye opening and it makes me feel really good to hear this record and hear all the years.

    It blew my mind that nobody would come and see those kids play. One of the greatest attractions for me was the purity of the game they played. ... Guys who were just playing ball and having a good time before they go on to get jobs like the rest of us.

    I am not struggling. What I do, it is what I do.


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