Vince Gill Interviews Chris Young
Grand Ole Flub
Young: Do you remember hanging me out to dry on stage at the Opry? It was Hank [Williams] Sr. night at the Ryman. I sang two songs and came off, and then you brought me back and asked if I knew “Hey Good Lookin’,” and I said sure. We got up there, you did a verse and I did a verse and we came back in, and I completely blanked on the lyric. So I pointed at you. And you just made up something on the spot.
Gill: I rewrote Hank Sr.? That takes nerves.
Young: If that had been me, people would’ve crushed me!
Gill: But it endears you to people to see you fallible, to see you mess up. It’s so much more interesting when you’re human. I hate making mistakes, but I’m not afraid of ’em.
Young: You just have to laugh at yourself.
Gill: I’ve always been the high harmony singer. It’s never my job to know the verses! But I know the chorus of every song ever made. [Laughs] But I’m getting to the age now where I’ll use a teleprompter.
Young: There’s one really sentimental song everybody always asks for and I can never remember it all, so I hang it on one of the guys on my band. I’ll say, “I don’t think Mason knows how to play that on keys, sorry.”
Gill: I had a woman request a song once and I said, “M’am, I know I wrote that song, but you could put a gun to my head right now and I wouldn’t know how it starts or even one word of it.”
Radio Roadblocks
Gill: It’s amazing to me how much power [radio programmers] have. The first time I went on one of those radio tours, I was going to meet this guy in Seattle who was known as one of the toughest guys in the industry. You can’t get him to play anything. I heard him on the phone with a guy from a label saying, “I hate that song. I’ll never play that guy.” And I’m sitting in his office in shock. It was life changing. He hung up and said, “What’s your story?” I said, “I’m a new artist on RCA and I made this record. I hope you’ll listen to it — and if you like it, play it. If you don’t, fine.” And I walked out. That guy played every record I ever made.
Young: A guy named Nate Deaton out in San Jose was notorious for being hard on new artists. They warned me, when another guy on my label played a song acoustic in his office he said, “I hate that; I’m not going to play that.” So I was nervous, but I was prepared. The first thing I played him was my third single because my first two didn’t work. [Laughs] This was my last shot at radio. We played him “Gettin’ You Home (The Black Dress Song),” and he goes, “I’ll be honest, I don’t like that. I’m not going to say I’m not going to play it, but if I do it’ll be late. I just don’t think it’s a hit.” Well, it goes Number One. And we went back and he said, “I just want to let you know, it’s the Number One testing song in our market. I was wrong.”
Gill: A lot of young artists get beaten because it doesn’t happen as quickly as they hope. But I figured when they did [play a song], I was grateful, and when they didn’t, I was OK. After 40 years of hoping you made a record that people enjoy, it never changes. You need them, and they need you. It’s neat to have so many relationships with those guys [in radio]. It’s pretty awesome with what they have the ability to do.