Vince Gill finds truth, offers healing on new album 'Okie'

Vince Gill has made a career out of wearing his emotions on his sleeve — and in his hit songs. Grief courses through "Go Rest High on That Mountain." Gill's ache is palpable in "When I Call Your Name." Yearning, helplessness and adoration characterize "Whenever You Come Around." 

Three decades since Gill notched his country music breakthrough, he's won 21 Grammy Awards, sold more than 26 million albums, and is a member of the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame and the Country Music Hall of Fame. Yet, he struggles with insecurity. Gill knows his voice is a gift — he can hear it. His songwriting, however, is another story. 

"I've always probably had a little bit of an inferiority complex about my songwriting," he explained. "I know that sounds silly because I've written a whole bunch of hit songs and Songs of the Year. Everybody says, 'Hey, you could sing the phone book, and it would sound pretty good.' I'm like, 'Yeah, but it wouldn't be very interesting as a song.' "

In stores Friday, Gill's new album, "Okie," tightens the focus on his songwriting. There's not a lot of guitar licks, big choruses or harmonies on the record by design — he wanted to minimize distractions from the lyrics. Through songs about his wife, Amy Grant, his precious mother, his heroes and hot-button issues including sexual abuse and teen pregnancy, Gill's ability to connect, reflect and provide an empathetic place for listeners to cocoon is at its peak. 

"It's a cheap way of getting therapy," Gill quipped, before explaining that writing the album was "extremely emotional." 

"What I wanted more than anything is to really cut to the chase with truth and be honest because I crave it," Gill continued. "Its intent is really unjudgmental, so that's what I think I'm proudest of is that you can have these conversations, but it's not me preaching to you. I'm not telling you how you should feel or what you should do, ever."

Gill wrote or co-wrote all 12 songs on the album — nine by himself, including "Forever Changed," which confronts sexual abuse. He debuted the song more than one year ago at a music industry event in Nashville to a rousing standing ovation from more than 3,000 people.

Lyrics include: "You put your hands where they don't belong/ And now her innocence is dead and gone/ She feels dirty, she feels ashamed/ Because of you, she's forever changed."

"Trust me, I'm well aware of the slings and arrows that very easily could come my way, but in my heart, I know my intent," Gill said. "I know my truth, so you can't change me, you can't shake me. If … I've offended you … that's not my intent."

Gill said he was in the seventh grade when his basketball coach, the man he thought was the greatest guy in the whole world, ran his hand too far up the singer's leg. Gill didn't understand what was happening, he recalled. He didn't know anything about sex. He was alone with the coach in his office, and it scared him.

"I jumped up, and I ran," Gill said. "I ran out of that office, and I never told anybody. If I had told my dad, I know what would have happened," he said with a laugh. "My dad would still be in jail. But I didn't know any better. Once again, I think, 'Man, tell somebody.' We have a long history of a lot of the worst things that happen to us as people; we shove way down inside ourselves somewhere."

Gill tackled race in "The Price of Regret" with the lyrics "You're black and I'm white, we're blinded by sight." 

When he sang about teen pregnancy in "What Choice Will You Make," he purposefully left the lyrics open-ended so listeners could imagine their own resolution.

"Sittin' on the edge of town/ All packed up to run away/ You're too young for a wedding gown/ There's voices begging you, stay."

"It puts you in that moment and never takes you out of it," Gill said of the song, which he wrote with Leslie Satcher. "She's just sitting there on the edge of town not knowing what she should or shouldn't do."

The father of four adult daughters, the country singer knows what it's like to watch children struggle with tough choices. Through "Okie," he hopes to step in the gap for young people in need of support.  

"Sometimes you can see a kid get overwhelmed and then maybe make a decision that will haunt them for the rest of their lives or make them take their life," he said. "There's all kinds of things that happen because folks aren't able to deal with everything. If you feel like somebody kind of has your back and is sticking up for you … if you're a voice for the innocent … (it helps)."

"Okie" is the kind of album, said Jody Williams, BMI's vice president of creative in Nashville, that could be written only by someone who has experienced life, survived its obstacles and processed its stories to the point of understanding. While some of the songs are driven by polarizing day-to-day conflicts, Gill recounts them with effortless objectivity.

"They are his observations about certain relational things in life, and you can't write a record like this without having lived a life like Vince has lived and learned the lessons Vince has learned," Williams said. "This record says something none of his other records have been able to say because of the stage in his life."

Country Music Hall of Fame songwriter Don Schlitz said "Okie" is Gill's finest effort to date.

"It's the best-written collection of original songs I've heard in a long time," he explained. "I've been waiting for everyone else to get a chance to hear it."

"Okie" is the album Gill longed to record for decades, but success got in the way. He fought for years to get noticed as a singer before his 1989 breakthrough with "When I Call Your Name." When country radio finally bought in, he didn't want to do anything to jeopardize that relationship.

Looking back on his career, Gill realized that he found a formula that worked and stuff with it. When a waltz won him favor, he released six more of them.

Now with the slog for country radio airplay behind him, Gill can expand his catalog in ways that feed his soul — and he prides himself in never doing it the same way twice. He wanted to laud traditional country music, so he made "Bakersfield" with Paul Franklin, which is a collection of Merle Haggard and Buck Owens songs. "Down to My Last Bad Habit" was Gill's return to emotionally driven guitar songs, and "Okie" is his thesis on meaningful storytelling.

He said he's using Willie Nelson as his guide in that Nelson has released more albums in the last decade of his career than he did in his first 50-year run.

"I realize I'm on the shorter side of what's left of what I've been given," Gill said. "I feel really compelled to be as creative as I can before my gifts don't show up, before my hands are not nimble and my voice is not strong. It happens to everybody, and it will happen to me."

Gill's 2007 induction into the Country Music Hall of Fame pushed him even harder. Not content to coast after receiving country music's highest honor, Gill knew he needed to earn his keep.

"That's my point and what I'm trying to do," he said. "I want to be a place for others to find. I hope (listeners) find something that strikes a chord in them, feel something. That's always been my only goal, really … (make) something they can relate to. That's the beauty to me of great songs."

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