If anyone ever warned a young Vince Gill about the dangers of meeting his heroes when he was first starting out in the music business, he obviously didn’t listen one fateful night in 1981, when he willingly boarded the tour bus of the man whom Gill considered to be the “pinnacle” of country music: Merle Haggard.
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Gill was on the road as a member of Emmylou Harris’ backing band when the group learned that Haggard was playing at a nearby honky tonk. At that point in Gill’s career, he had yet to meet Haggard. Harris offered to introduce him, and Gill agreed, blowing past any cautionary tales of idols inevitably disappointing those who idolize them.
But that wasn’t the case for Gill. Speaking at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum shortly after Haggard’s passing, Gill called the night he met Haggard “the greatest night of my whole life.” The fact that Haggard recognized Gill for having written a song that Haggard’s then-wife, Leona Williams, had recently cut made it even better.
How a Chance Meeting Turned Into a Decades-Long Friendship
Vince Gill and Merle Haggard’s coincidental meeting in 1981 led to a decades-long friendship that spawned multiple musical collaborations, all of which Gill holds in high regard to this day. Gill and Haggard had been working together on a handful of songs before the latter country star’s death in April 2016. While speaking to the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, Gill acknowledged how everyone he knew, including himself, was still trying to cope with the pain of the great loss.
Gill said that he had plans to call Haggard on the day he died, but that the call never panned out. At the very least, Gill had a sweet voicemail to hold on to now that his favorite country singer of all time was gone. “He called me really late one night,” Gill recalled. “I’d already gone to bed. It’s like one in the morning. I’d been to bed for a couple hours. I woke up and the next morning, I saw a voicemail from Merle Haggard. I said, ‘You’ve got to be kidding me. How did I miss that one?’”
The “Go Rest High on That Mountain” singer said the voicemail was short, but it meant the world. Haggard thanked Gill for working with him on his most recent sessions and told his younger counterpart that he loved him. With a smile, Gill added that he’ll sometimes play the voicemail into the microphone during his live shows. “I say, ‘I’m not here to name drop, but check this out, you know?’”
Frankly, if we had a voicemail from the late, great Merle Haggard telling us he loved us, we’d be showing it to everyone we see, too.
Photo by Rick Diamond/Getty Images for ACM
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