When Vince Gill comes to Memphis this week for a two-night stand at Downtown’s Orpheum, fans should expect to hear music — lots of it. Gill’s setlists on his current tour typically include 40-plus songs, with the concerts clocking in at more than 3 hours.
“I love to play a long time,” says Gill. “I spent too many years being the opening act, only getting to play 20 or 30 minutes. I said, 'Man, if I ever get a chance to [headline], I'm going to play as long as they'll let me.' I'm kind of the Bruce Springsteen of hillbilly music.”
A member of the Country Music Hall of Fame, the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame and the Musicians Hall of Fame, the 69-year-old Gill is one of the most respected and honored artists in American music. In addition to
a 40-year solo career, he has also played with a variety of notable groups including Pure Prairie League, The Notorious Cherry Bombs, The Time Jumpers and since 2017 has toured as a member of country-rock greats, the Eagles.
Gill’s current tour covers the width and breadth of his career, which launched in 1975, when he left his native Oklahoma to move to Kentucky to play bluegrass professionally. In 2025, Gill signed a lifetime contract with his record label MCA and has been releasing a new EP each month since then. He’s on the ninth volume of the planned 12-volume series, titled “50 Years From Home.”
A few years back, after signing a new publishing deal, Gill began writing and collaborating with a legion of new Nashville songwriters, turning out hundreds of songs. “I didn’t want to chuck all these songs in a desk drawer somewhere and never see the light of day,” he says. “Doing the EP series is just my way of being inspired and being creative. Truth is, I realize I don't have as many years left as I've had to this point, so it matters more now.”
Gill — who devotes a section of each performance to the “50 Years” material — also uses the concerts as a way of showcasing his remarkably talented backing band, which includes Bluff City native and vocalist Wendy Moten, guitarist Jedd Hughes, fiddler Stuart Duncan and multi-instrumentalist Charlie Worsham, with each getting a spotlight moment during the show.
For Gill, sharing the stage with talented musicians has always been the driving force in his career. “Even in my earliest days, I was playing with some of the best musicians there were,” he says. “So I felt, I felt successful at 17 and 18 and 19. And then I went out to California, followed Byron Berline out there, who was one of the greatest fiddle players to walk the earth. So I always felt like I was doing the right thing, just playing with such great, talented people.”
In 1979, Gill “stumbled into the Pure Prairie gig by accident and did that for three and a half years,” he says. “And then, I started doing session work for everybody [in Nashville] singing harmony on people's records. I worked with Rodney Crowell and Rosanne Cash and then got offered a record deal in ’83. I thought, 'OK, I'll make my own records. That sounds like fun.' But none of it was planned. I just was brave enough to try anything.”
Though he put out his first solo records for RCA in the mid-1980s, it would take several more years and a move to MCA before Gill finally broke through. “Most people don’t get that many chances to fail these days,” he notes.
Since then, Gill’s gone on to a legendary career, selling more than 30 million albums and charting 45 singles to go with 22 Grammy Awards, 18 Country Music Association Awards and eight Academy of Country Music Awards. But despite all his accolades, Gill notes it’s the musical experiences that he cherishes most.
“That's what's so cool about it,” says Gill of his half-century journey. “I got to do all of it. I got to produce records. I got to be a session guitar player. I got to be a harmony singer. I got to be a songwriter. And I got to be an artist. I couldn't have dreamt it any better.”
Bob Mehr is the music writer at The Commercial Appeal. Contact him at bob.mehr@commercialappeal.com.
Vince Gill: 50 Years From Home Tour
7:30 p.m. Aug. 29 and 7 p.m. Aug. 30 at the Orpheum, 203 S. Main St.
Tickets: $56.85. Go to Ticketmaster.com
This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: Vince Gill reflects on 50-year career before Memphis concerts
