Vince Gill will turn 68 in about three months. He’s won 22 Grammy Awards, sold 30 million albums, and is a member of The Grand Ole Opry and The Country Music Hall of Fame. He’s also been a member of his favorite rock band, The Eagles, for almost a decade.
Yet he said 2024 was one of his best years yet.
Gill got to play with a Beatle and a Rolling Stone in the last 12 months.
The Eagles backed up Paul McCartney when he performed “Let It Be” at Keep the Party Going: A Tribute to Jimmy Buffett at the Hollywood Bowl in April. Gill called McCartney a “giant hero.” While he’d met the Beatle a few times over the years, he still couldn’t believe that collaboration happened.
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Vince Gill: “You Have No Idea What This Means to Me”
“I said, ‘You have no idea what this means to me,’” Gill recalls. “I said, ‘That’s the song that was playing the first time I ever slow danced with a girl.’ He smiled and said, ‘Well, I hope it worked out for you.’ I said, ‘No, it was seventh grade, a little young for that.’ But it was really cool.’”
His McCartney experience didn’t end there. Gill sang “Let It Be” for The Eagles while they were learning the arrangement. They were having sound check before the show, and Gill asked the crew to let him know when McCartney showed up because he didn’t want McCartney to hear him sing his song.
“Sure as hell, he walked in, and they didn’t tell me,” Gill said. “I was singing, ‘Let It Be’ for all it was worth. He came over, gave me a giant hug, and said, ‘I’ll believe you sing that song better than all I do.’ I said, ‘Well, that’s not true, and you know it. But thank you.’ It was just cool that he got to hear me sing a little bit of it.”
“These are Kinds of Things You Couldn’t Dream Up”
A few months later, Gill performed with Keith Richards when they honored James Burton as the guitarist was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame.
“Then I’m playing with these Eagle boys,” Gill said. “These are the kinds of things you couldn’t dream up, you couldn’t think about, you couldn’t even put ’em on your radar. They just seem so not even possible. I just love when life does something to you that you never expected, and you’re just grateful.”
Gill is easily one of the most beloved artists of this generation. But he doesn’t believe the “nice guys finish first” mentality had anything to do with getting to play with his heroes.
“I’m sure there’s a lot of nice guys who don’t get to sing with Paul McCartney,” he said.
He joked about the Las Vegas Sphere being the most people he’d ever been ignored by – but the sound quality is so elevated he doesn’t care. In fact, Gill said, the whole point of the venue was for the crowd to get lost in the stunning visuals.
“The arena itself, it’s got 164,000 speakers in it,” Gill said. “It’s one of the greatest audio experiences people will ever, ever here. It’s remarkable … and what I get to be a part of. Just keeping these songs alive and singing them and playing them is powerful. These songs have 50 years of history with people.”
(Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images)
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