★★★★★
For quite some time, it was the custom in country music for artists to record and release semi-regular covers projects. The purpose served was two-fold. First off, because tradition is paramount in country music, such albums worked to establish continuity between the current artist and his or her forebears. Beyond that, a covers record quite simply constituted an easy way for the artist and label to get fresh product on the market. Today, these endeavors are anomalous...
- www.popmatters.com
2013-08-22
★★★★★
For much of the '60s, the town of Bakersfield, CA was the breeding ground for a new generation of country music heroes. What artists like Merle Haggard and Buck Owens shared was a raw, electrified style and songwriting skills that became admired not only by their peers in Nashville, but by the budding "country-rock" set as well...
- exclaim.ca
2013-07-30
★★★★★
Signed to MCA Nashville for many years, Vince Gill and the label briefly parted ways a few years back only to have Gill be invited to rejoin the label when the new management team took over. One of the most-awarded artists in Country Music history and a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame and The Grand Ole Opry, Vince Gill certainly didn't need to return to major label land in order to continue making records like he's done since 2011's mighty fine Guitar Slinger (he joined The Time...
- www.roughstock.com
2013-07-27
★★★★★
Vince Gill's voice often comes off as so polished and commercially suited to yet another ballad or background vocals project that it's easy to overlook his true abilities. But on Bakersfield, his new album of Buck Owens and Merle Haggard covers with pedal steel guitarist Paul Franklin, he lives up to his legendary status as one of the finest country singers in what is left of traditional Nashville...
- www.americansongwriter.com
2013-07-23
★★★★★
The title of Guitar Slinger suggests Vince Gill is looking to show off his considerable and underrated chops as a guitarist. But instead of a mostly instrumental project akin to Brad Paisley's Play: The Guitar Album, Gill's effort actually turns out to be a survey course of the types of country music he loves most. That may not make for the most ambitious or thematically cohesive album, but Guitar Slinger makes up for its lack of focus with some truly inspired songwriting and performances...
- www.slantmagazine.com
2011-11-07
★★★★★
Vince Gill has earned a lot of respect over the course of his illustrious Nashville career. An exemplar of the country gentleman, his sweet tones and tasteful pickings have attracted fans from both sides of the modern/classic country divide. As a session player and solo artist his credentials proceed him in the soon to be released album Guitar Slinger. His first release since 2006's These Days, a four-CD (43-song) box set that garnered much deserved critical acclaim...
- www.popmatters.com
2011-11-03
★★★★★
As bland as Nicolette Fogelberg, with Tony Brown running the broad-spectrum lyrics through his good-taste machine as if he wants to be Peter Asher when he grows up, Gill is the real country-hunk menace because he's so reproducible. I admit they pin a few classics--"Don't Let Our Love Start Slippin' Away" and "Say Hello" have the ring of general truth. But when they don't, it's '70s singer-songwriter all over again. Eddie Rabbitt just didn't know how to market himself.
- www.robertchristgau.com
2009-07-10
★★★★★
Singer-guitarist Vince Gill earned his stripes with a variety of bluegrass and country-rock outfits, notably Pure Prairie League and Ricky Skaggs' Boone Creek, before going out on his own in 1984. Forfar too long, though, Gill looked like a poor man's Rodney Crowell,his obvious hero, whom he emulated in almost every way. Then came last year's "When I Call Your Name," a duet with Patty Loveless that combined honky-tonk angst with a killer chorus in the high-lonesome bluegrass style...
- ew.com
2009-06-12
★★★★★
Though Vince Gill'sfans would disagree, his voice, a sort of soupy high-tenor, canbe insufferably cloying. He's evidently trying for a hardersound on High Lonesome Sound than on his recent mega-hits, but he's tootame-hearted (or bottom-line conscious) to risk letting therough edges show. If Gill shut up and played his guitar, he'd bea lot poorer ? but the world wouldn't be. B-
- ew.com
2009-06-12
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