Review Summary: A fine collection of music from one of country music's most decorated acts.
Vince Gill is one of country music's most venerated interpreters and guitarists. With a microphone raised to his chin and a Tele in his hands, he can turn anything from a maudlin weeper to an uptempo stomper into gold. To date, his albums have moved in excess of 25 million copies worldwide, and he's put roughly three dozen hits on country radio, including ten number-ones and a batch of others that became part of the genre's all-time canon (e.g. the classic "When I Call Your Name"), even if they didn't top a
Billboard tally. Recently, he's embarked on a year-long project entitled
50 Years From Home, and this latest EP
Brown's Diner Bar is the third in a string of previous or forthcoming releases from the prolific icon. I'll have to check out the preceding material when I'm done here, but for now, let's stop into the EP's eponymous hub of hospitality and see what we have.
Kicking things off with the title track, Gill is ostensibly one of the best at breathing life into a tune in a way that's plaintive but purposeful. The pub and its patrons feel so real and familiar, and Gill spares no expense to highlight every important detail; from the friendly faces and the live music, all the way down to the "greasy burgers" and humorous bathroom graffiti, the setting sounds so lived in, because it is. The lyrics reference a real-life Nashville burger joint that Gill discovered in the 1970s, and now he's crystallized its legacy with a simple yet stirring stanza defined primarily by a deliberate intimacy that only Gill can sell so well, and a glassy, shimmering serving of his signature guitar playing. Moving along to "Not Having You Around," we trade the feel-good for a different kind of warmth, this time one built on brevity and gratitude. Gill's protagonist is expressing thankfulness to his partner for not only standing by him through a journey towards sobriety, but for being the reason he was finally able to "put the bottle down." "You put my feet back on the ground," he gratefully exhales. Crooning steel guitars gently crash into a soft bevy of acoustic plucks on the track's brief but pleasant bridge.
Right on its heels is "This Lonesome Old Cowboy," which tethers itself to about the same thematic chassis. Gill again speaks to a stillness and relief his muse has brought to his previously reckless life, and asks for her continued support while he assures her that he's "rode his last rodeo." Just a bit later on, we reach the last new recording "I'm Selling All My Memories," which oscillates to a distinctly more crestfallen territory. Gill is lamenting lost companionship, though it doesn't necessarily have to be a romantic muse, which would certainly fly in the face of the earlier tracks we discussed, but the lyrics are just open-ended enough that one could use them for a wide berth of applications. It's a sensitive piece, but a solemnly quaint one, so much so in fact that the solemnity kind of cuts into the tenderness. It ends up sort of stewing in the sadness, but without really describing it, much less transcending it. Gill's hurt is palpable, but it might be too wistful for some. The aforementioned all-timer "When I Call Your Name", Gill's legendary 1990 career record, closes us out. I was initially expecting, and was excited for, a re-recording of this timeless beauty, but sadly, it's just the original tacked onto the EP. That's too bad, because I'd love to hear what Gill could do now with this track three and a half decades later, and how his age and subtle differences in inflection and phrasing could color a revisit.
As I alluded to earlier, I will have to check out the songs already put out as part of Gill's
50 Years From Home project, and I will definitely be interested in what further material he's got planned for this series. These seven songs are a nice sample size, and a great reminder of what Gill is capable of as both a musician and a vocalist. He is one of his genre's most decorated acts and for good reason. It still stings, though, that we couldn't get a re-tread of "When I Call Your Name," seeing as he and his team were willing to include the original. Perhaps we can lobby him to do that whenever he rounds out this slew of releases, if he hasn't already finished them and scheduled them for deployment. Jesting aside,
Brown's Diner Bar is a fine collection of music that doesn't overstay its welcome and plays to Gill's prime strengths well. I think it's pretty darn
excellent.
