Vince Gill | Academy of Achievement

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earning 20 Grammy Awards in only 18 years, for his singing and songwriting, and for his many collaborations with the elite of country music, bluegrass, rock and pop. He won his 21st Grammy in 2016, the all-time record for a country music artist. His 2006 collection, These Days, is a four-disc, 43-song set showcasing his versatility in country, folk and contemporary styles. His sweet tenor voice has made him a favorite collaborator with the biggest names in American music. He has sung with everyone from Dolly Parton to Barbra Streisand, but his favorite duet partner is his wife, singer Amy Grant. His authoritative guitar picking has made him a sought-after guest artist with six-string heroes such as Mark Knopfler and Eric Clapton. He is celebrated in the country music world for his dedication to humanitarian causes, playing hundreds of benefit concerts, and sponsoring the Vince Gill Pro-Celebrity Invitational Golf Tournament. In 2007, he was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame, and has become a pillar of the organization, dedicated to the recognition and preservation of America's musical heritage."/> <meta name="robots" content="index, follow"/> <meta name="googlebot" content="index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1"/> <meta name="bingbot" content="index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1"/> <link rel="canonical" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/vince-gill/"/> <meta property="og:locale" content="en_US"/> <meta property="og:type" content="article"/> <meta property="og:title" content="Vince Gill | Academy of Achievement"/> <meta property="og:description" content="<p class="inputTextFirst">Since the release of his breakthrough album, <i>When I Call Your Name</i>, in 1990, Vince Gill has been a dominant figure in the world of country music, earning 20 Grammy Awards in only 18 years, for his singing and songwriting, and for his many collaborations with the elite of country music, bluegrass, rock and pop. He won his 21st Grammy in 2016, the all-time record for a country music artist.</p> <p class="inputText">His 2006 collection, <i>These Days,</i> is a four-disc, 43-song set showcasing his versatility in country, folk and contemporary styles. His sweet tenor voice has made him a favorite collaborator with the biggest names in American music. He has sung with everyone from Dolly Parton to Barbra Streisand, but his favorite duet partner is his wife, singer Amy Grant. His authoritative guitar picking has made him a sought-after guest artist with six-string heroes such as Mark Knopfler and Eric Clapton.</p> <p class="inputText">He is celebrated in the country music world for his dedication to humanitarian causes, playing hundreds of benefit concerts, and sponsoring the Vince Gill Pro-Celebrity Invitational Golf Tournament. In 2007, he was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame, and has become a pillar of the organization, dedicated to the recognition and preservation of America's musical heritage.</p>"/> <meta property="og:url" content="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/vince-gill/"/> <meta property="og:site_name" content="Academy of Achievement"/> <meta property="article:modified_time" content="2019-12-30T08:04:29+00:00"/> <meta property="og:image" content="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235227im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gill-Feature-Image.jpg"/> <meta property="og:image:width" content="2800"/> <meta property="og:image:height" content="1120"/> <meta name="twitter:card" content="summary"/> <meta name="twitter:creator" content="@achievers1961"/> <meta name="twitter:site" content="@achievers1961"/> <script type="application/ld+json" class="yoast-schema-graph">{"@context":"https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235227/https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/#organization","name":"Academy of Achievement","url":"https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/","sameAs":["https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235227/https://www.linkedin.com/company/american-academy-of-achievement","https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235227/https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChe_87uh1H-NIMf3ndTjPFw","https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235227/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academy_of_Achievement","https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235227/https://twitter.com/achievers1961"],"logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/#logo","inLanguage":"en-US","url":"/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/12.png","width":1200,"height":630,"caption":"Academy of Achievement"},"image":{"@id":"https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/#logo"}},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/#website","url":"https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/","name":"Academy of Achievement","description":"A museum of living history","publisher":{"@id":"https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":"https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/search/{search_term_string}","query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/vince-gill/#primaryimage","inLanguage":"en-US","url":"/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gill-Feature-Image.jpg","width":2800,"height":1120},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/vince-gill/#webpage","url":"https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/vince-gill/","name":"Vince Gill | Academy of Achievement","isPartOf":{"@id":"https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/vince-gill/#primaryimage"},"datePublished":"2016-05-16T07:21:25+00:00","dateModified":"2019-12-30T08:04:29+00:00","description":"Since the release of his breakthrough album, When I Call Your Name, in 1990, Vince Gill has been a dominant figure in the world of country music, earning 20 Grammy Awards in only 18 years, for his singing and songwriting, and for his many collaborations with the elite of country music, bluegrass, rock and pop. He won his 21st Grammy in 2016, the all-time record for a country music artist. His 2006 collection,\u00a0These Days, is a four-disc, 43-song set showcasing his versatility in country, folk and contemporary styles. His sweet tenor voice has made him a favorite collaborator with the biggest names in American music. He has sung with everyone from Dolly Parton to Barbra Streisand, but his favorite duet partner is his wife, singer Amy Grant. His authoritative guitar picking has made him a sought-after guest artist with six-string heroes such as Mark Knopfler and Eric Clapton. He is celebrated in the country music world for his dedication to humanitarian causes, playing hundreds of benefit concerts, and sponsoring the Vince Gill Pro-Celebrity Invitational Golf Tournament. 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</div> </figcaption> </div> </div> </figure> </header> </div>  <nav class="in-page-nav row fixedsticky"> <ul class="nav text-xs-center clearfix" role="tablist"> <li class="nav-item col-xs-3"> <a class="nav-link active" data-toggle="tab" href="#biography" role="tab" data-gtm-category="tab" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever Biography">Biography</a> </li> <li class="nav-item col-xs-3"> <a class="nav-link" data-toggle="tab" href="#profile" role="tab" data-gtm-category="tab" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever Profile">Profile</a> </li> <li class="nav-item col-xs-3"> <a class="nav-link" data-toggle="tab" href="#interview" role="tab" data-gtm-category="tab" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever Interview">Interview</a> </li> <li class="nav-item col-xs-3"> <a class="nav-link" data-toggle="tab" href="#gallery" role="tab" data-gtm-category="tab" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever Gallery">Gallery</a> </li> </ul> </nav> <article class="post-2394 achiever type-achiever status-publish has-post-thumbnail hentry careers-musician careers-singer careers-songwriter"> <div class="entry-content container clearfix">  <div class="tab-content"> <div class="tab-pane active" id="biography" role="tabpanel"> <section class="achiever--biography"> <div class="banner clearfix"> <div class="banner--single clearfix"> <div class="col-lg-8 col-lg-offset-2"> <div class="banner__image__container"> <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235227/https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/what-it-takes/id1025864075?mt=2" target="_blank"> <figure class="ratio-container ratio-container--square bg-black"> <img class="lazyload banner__image" data-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/WhatItTakes_gill-256-190x190.jpg" alt=""/> </figure> </a> </div> <div class="banner__text__container"> <h3 class="serif-3 banner__headline"> <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235227/https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/what-it-takes/id1025864075?mt=2" target="_blank"> Listen to this achiever on <i>What It Takes</i> </a> </h3> <p class="sans-6 banner__text m-b-0"><i>What It Takes</i> is an audio podcast produced by the American Academy of Achievement featuring intimate, revealing conversations with influential leaders in the diverse fields of endeavor: public service, science and exploration, sports, technology, business, arts and humanities, and justice.</p> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="row"> <header class="editorial-article__header col-md-8 col-md-offset-2 text-xs-center"> <i class="icon-icon_bio text-brand-primary"></i> <h3 class="serif-3 quote-marks">Songwriters are like painters. They paint pictures in their words and in their songs.</h3> </header> </div> <div class="row"> <aside class="col-md-4 sidebar clearfix"> <h2 class="serif-3 p-b-1">21 Grammy Awards</h2> <div class="col-xs-12 sidebar--chunk p-b-2"> <dt class="serif-7">Date of Birth</dt> <dd class="sans-2"> April 12, 1957 </dd> </div> </aside> <article class="editorial-article col-md-8"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <html><body data-rsssl="1"><figure id="attachment_10088" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-10088" style="width: 1273px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><noscript><img class="wp-image-10088 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235227im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-008.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="wp-image-10088 size-full lazyload" alt="For Christmas 1967, Vince Gill's parents gave him his first professional instrument, a Gibson ES335 electric guitar. He still has it. (Courtesy of Vince Gill)" width="1273" height="866" data-sizes="(max-width: 1273px) 100vw, 1273px" data-srcset="/web/20200917235227im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-008.jpg 1273w, /web/20200917235227im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-008-380x259.jpg 380w, /web/20200917235227im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-008-760x517.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235227/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-008.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-10088" class="wp-caption-text">For Christmas 1967, Vince Gill’s parents gave him his first professional instrument, a Gibson ES-335 electric guitar.</figcaption></figure> <p>Vince Gill was born in Norman, Oklahoma, just south of Oklahoma City, where his family moved when he was four years old. His father, a lawyer and administrative law judge, was a lover of country music who played guitar and banjo with friends at parties and dances. Vince Gill began playing guitar as a very small child, progressing quickly from the four-string tenor guitar to a full-size six-string. His parents recognized and supported his passion for music, buying him a professional instrument — a Gibson ES-335 semi-hollow electric guitar — when he was only ten years old. Vince Gill progressed rapidly in music, taking up the mandolin, banjo and fiddle while concentrating on the guitar. Forgoing formal instruction, he learned songs and licks off of records, absorbing everything from folk music and bluegrass to rock and jazz.</p> <p>In his teens, Vince Gill played with a series of local bluegrass bands, performing in Oklahoma City bars with the local favorite Mountain Smoke. One night, they opened for the country rock band Pure Prairie League, a group that would play a substantial role in Gill’s future. His parents insisted he keep up his grades in high school, and he enjoyed outdoor sports, particularly golf, but there was no doubt that after graduation, he would pursue music full-time.</p> <figure id="attachment_10086" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-10086" style="width: 1030px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><noscript><img class="wp-image-10086 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235227im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-006.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="wp-image-10086 size-full lazyload" alt="Vince Gill began his career as a teenager, playing with bluegrass bands in Oklahoma City and the surrounding area. (Courtesy of Vince Gill)" width="1030" height="713" data-sizes="(max-width: 1030px) 100vw, 1030px" data-srcset="/web/20200917235227im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-006.jpg 1030w, /web/20200917235227im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-006-380x263.jpg 380w, /web/20200917235227im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-006-760x526.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235227/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-006.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-10086" class="wp-caption-text">Vince Gill began his career as a teenager, playing with bluegrass bands in Oklahoma City and surrounding area.</figcaption></figure> <p>At age 18, Gill moved on his own to Louisville, Kentucky to join the band Bluegrass Alliance. After a few tours with the group, he joined the Boone Creek Band, led by mandolin virtuoso Ricky Skaggs. Although Gill’s tenure with the band was brief, Gill and Skaggs would work together often in the years ahead. Always on the lookout for more challenging musical collaborations, Gill moved to Los Angeles, joining a bluegrass group led by the esteemed session fiddler Byron Berline. He also began to do session work as a guitarist and harmony vocalist for other artists.</p> <p>In 1979, only four years after leaving home, Vince Gill was hired as lead vocalist for Pure Prairie League. With his eclectic musical background, Gill moved easily from the acoustic bluegrass of his earlier bands to the electric country rock sound of his new group. Over the next two years, he toured the country with the band and recorded three albums. A single, “Let Me Love You Tonight,” made the Top 10 on the pop music charts. While playing with the band, Gill met singer Janis Oliver, of the country music duo Sweethearts of the Rodeo. Gill and Oliver were married in 1980. Their daughter, Jenny, was born in 1982.</p> <figure id="attachment_10100" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-10100" style="width: 3900px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><noscript><img class="wp-image-10100 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235227im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-021-crowellBgPetillo300-credit-Thomas-Petillo.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="wp-image-10100 size-full lazyload" alt="Singer and sogngwriter Rodney Crowell. Vince Gill played in Crowell's band, The Cherry Bombs in the 1980s. (© Thomas Petillo 2009)" width="3900" height="2590" data-sizes="(max-width: 3900px) 100vw, 3900px" data-srcset="/web/20200917235227im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-021-crowellBgPetillo300-credit-Thomas-Petillo.jpg 3900w, /web/20200917235227im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-021-crowellBgPetillo300-credit-Thomas-Petillo-380x252.jpg 380w, /web/20200917235227im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-021-crowellBgPetillo300-credit-Thomas-Petillo-760x505.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235227/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-021-crowellBgPetillo300-credit-Thomas-Petillo.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-10100" class="wp-caption-text">Singer and songwriter Rodney Crowell. Vince Gill played in Crowell’s band, The Cherry Bombs, in the 1980s.</figcaption></figure> <p>Despite his success with Pure Prairie League, Gill jumped at the chance to join The Cherry Bombs, led by singer and songwriter Rodney Crowell. Gill loved Crowell’s traditional approach to country music and felt this was an opportunity for him to grow as a musician. In The Cherry Bombs, Gill first worked with two Nashville veterans, pianist Tony Brown and bass player Emory Gordy, Jr., who would both play a large role in his subsequent solo career. His work with Crowell led to a job as lead guitarist with Rosanne Cash.</p> <p>Gill settled in Nashville, where there were many opportunities for him to work as a session guitarist and harmony vocalist, but he was eager to record as a solo artist. He signed a contract with RCA Records in 1983 and released three albums showcasing his talents as a singer and songwriter. The first, <em>Turn Me Loose</em>, was produced by his friend Emory Gordy. A single from this record, “Victim of Life’s Circumstance,” was his first song to reach the country music charts. His second album, <em>The Things That Matter</em>, had two Top 10 hits, a duet with Rosanne Cash, “If It Weren’t for Him,” and “Oklahoma Borderline.” His third album for RCA, <em>The Way Back Home</em>, included the song “Cinderella,” his first number to reach the Top 5 on the country charts.</p> <p>By this time, other artists were beginning to record Vince Gill’s songs; he was in constant demand as a session musician, and was appearing with stars such as Emmylou Harris, who had introduced Rodney Crowell and Ricky Skaggs to a national audience. He had won an enviable reputation in country music circles, but his albums enjoyed only moderate sales, and he was still largely unknown to the general public.</p> <figure id="attachment_10101" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-10101" style="width: 2107px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="wp-image-10101 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235227im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-022-Gill-young.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="wp-image-10101 size-full lazyload" alt="March 18, 1989: Singer Vince Gill in Press Room at Academy of Country Music Awards. (Photo by Time Life Pictures/DMI/Time Life Pictures/Getty Images)" width="2107" height="3157" data-sizes="(max-width: 2107px) 100vw, 2107px" data-srcset="/web/20200917235227im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-022-Gill-young.jpg 2107w, /web/20200917235227im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-022-Gill-young-254x380.jpg 254w, /web/20200917235227im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-022-Gill-young-507x760.jpg 507w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235227/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-022-Gill-young.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-10101" class="wp-caption-text">March 18, 1989: Singer Vince Gill in the press room at the Academy of Country Music Awards. (Getty Images)</figcaption></figure> <p>As his career in country music stalled, Gill received a surprising invitation from one of the world’s most popular rock bands. Mark Knopfler, of the British band Dire Straits, asked Gill to join the band as second guitarist, a tempting offer from one of the biggest international touring attractions of the era. The offer was also a considerable professional honor, as Knopfler himself was one of the most admired guitarists in rock. Gill was tempted, but he was not ready to give up on his struggle for recognition in country music. He resolved to continue pursuing his solo career, although he has remained friends with Knopfler and later played on a Dire Straits record as a guest guitarist.</p> <p>Determined to make a change, Gill moved from RCA to MCA Records and began work on a new record, with his friend Tony Brown producing. The resulting album, <em>When I Call Your Name</em>, proved to be the career turning point Gill was looking for. The title song went to Number 2 on the country charts and won Gill the 1990 Grammy for Best Male Vocal Country Performance. The album was certified platinum for selling over a million copies and established Vince Gill as a bona fide country music star.</p> <figure id="attachment_30479" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-30479" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="wp-image-30479 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235227im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Gill-Vince-and-Amy-Grant-on-stage-with-Military-Choir-behind-them.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="wp-image-30479 size-full lazyload" alt="gill-vince-and-amy-grant-on-stage-with-military-choir-behind-them" width="2280" height="1825" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20200917235227im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Gill-Vince-and-Amy-Grant-on-stage-with-Military-Choir-behind-them.jpg 2280w, /web/20200917235227im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Gill-Vince-and-Amy-Grant-on-stage-with-Military-Choir-behind-them-380x304.jpg 380w, /web/20200917235227im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Gill-Vince-and-Amy-Grant-on-stage-with-Military-Choir-behind-them-760x608.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235227/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Gill-Vince-and-Amy-Grant-on-stage-with-Military-Choir-behind-them.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-30479" class="wp-caption-text">Vince Gill and Amy Grant perform for the American Academy of Achievement members and student delegates at an evening outing and symposium at Fort McHenry during the 1997 “Salute to Excellence” program in Baltimore.</figcaption></figure> <p>Gill’s second album with MCA, <em>Pocket Full of Gold</em>, also went platinum. Four singles from the album reached the Top 10, “Liza Jane,” “Look at Us,” “Take Your Memory With You” and the title song. His 1992 collection, <em>I Still Believe in You</em>, was his biggest yet, selling over four million copies. The album featured five hit singles, “Don’t Let Our Love Start Slippin’ Away,” “One More Last Chance,” “Tryin’ to Get Over You,” “No Future in the Past,” and the title song, which became Gill’s first Number 1 single and won two Grammy Awards for Gill as the song’s writer and as singer. Vince Gill had a second Number 1 single when he sang the duet “The Heart Won’t Lie” with Reba McEntire.</p> <p>As a top star in country music, Gill was asked to host the 1992 Country Music Awards broadcast. With his quick humor, warm presence and obvious affection for his colleagues and their music, Gill was an immediate hit with television audiences. He hosted the show for 12 consecutive seasons, a record for hosting a television awards show.</p> <figure id="attachment_10097" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-10097" style="width: 3000px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="wp-image-10097 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235227im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-018-GettyImages_78879767.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="wp-image-10097 size-full lazyload" alt="Vince Gill and Reba McEntire co-host the 38th annual CMA awards in 2003. (© Getty Images) " width="3000" height="2150" data-sizes="(max-width: 3000px) 100vw, 3000px" data-srcset="/web/20200917235227im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-018-GettyImages_78879767.jpg 3000w, /web/20200917235227im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-018-GettyImages_78879767-380x272.jpg 380w, /web/20200917235227im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-018-GettyImages_78879767-760x545.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235227/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-018-GettyImages_78879767.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-10097" class="wp-caption-text">Vince Gill and Reba McEntire co-host the 38th annual Country Music Association (CMA) Awards in 2003. (Getty)</figcaption></figure> <p>In 1993, Vince Gill released his first Christmas album, <em>Let There Be Peace on Earth</em>. He followed this with <em>When Love Finds You</em>. This too sold more than four million copies and scored six hit singles: “What Cowgirls Do,” “Whenever You Come Around,” “Which Bridge to Cross (Which Bridge to Burn),” “You Better Think Twice,” and “Go Rest High on That Mountain,” which won 1995 Grammy honors Best Song and Best Male Vocal Performance in the Country genre.</p> <p>In addition to his solo work, Gill remained in constant demand as a duet partner, joining Dolly Parton in a remake of her signature song, “I Will Always Love You.” Gill also sang the duet “House of Love” with Amy Grant on her album of the same name. At the time, Grant was best known as a Christian music artist; her duet with Gill scored a hit on the pop charts. Although there was no immediate follow-up recording, Gill and Grant were to record more duets in the future.</p> <figure id="attachment_10095" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-10095" style="width: 3000px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="wp-image-10095 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235227im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-016-GettyImages_74177666.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="wp-image-10095 size-full lazyload" alt="LAS VEGAS - MAY 15: Musician Vince Gill performs onstage during the 42nd Annual Academy Of Country Music Awards held at the MGM Grand Garden Arena on May 15, 2007 in Las Vegas, Nevada." width="3000" height="2239" data-sizes="(max-width: 3000px) 100vw, 3000px" data-srcset="/web/20200917235227im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-016-GettyImages_74177666.jpg 3000w, /web/20200917235227im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-016-GettyImages_74177666-380x284.jpg 380w, /web/20200917235227im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-016-GettyImages_74177666-760x567.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235227/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-016-GettyImages_74177666.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-10095" class="wp-caption-text">Vince Gill performs at the 42nd annual CMA Awards. Gill hosted the event for 12 consecutive years, 1992 to 2003.</figcaption></figure> <p>Gill’s 1996 album,<em> High Lonesome Sound,</em> yielded a diverse selection of hit singles: “My Pretty Little Adriana,” Worlds Apart,” “You and You Alone,” “A Little More Love” and the title song. Released nearly a year apart, the singles “Worlds Apart” and “Pretty Little Adriana “ won consecutive Grammy awards for Gill’s vocal performance.</p> <p>In spite of his sustained success, the late 1990s were difficult years for Vince Gill. His father died in 1997, and the following year, his marriage to singer Janis Oliver came to an end. As always, Gill found solace in music. His 1998 album, <em>The Key,</em> marked a return to a traditional country sound. It was the bestselling country album of the year, with the Grammy-winning hit, “If You Have Forever in Mind,” and a duet with Patty Loveless, “My Kind of Woman, My Kind of Man.” In 1999, he stepped outside the country mainstream once again, singing the duet “If You Ever Leave Me” with Barbra Streisand on her album <em>A Love Like Ours</em>.</p> <figure id="attachment_10096" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-10096" style="width: 2000px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="wp-image-10096 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235227im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-017-GettyImages_75952533.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="wp-image-10096 size-full lazyload" alt="Vince Gill performs with his wife, gospel star, Amy Grant on NBC's 'Today Show' in 2003. (© Getty Images)" width="2000" height="3000" data-sizes="(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px" data-srcset="/web/20200917235227im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-017-GettyImages_75952533.jpg 2000w, /web/20200917235227im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-017-GettyImages_75952533-253x380.jpg 253w, /web/20200917235227im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-017-GettyImages_75952533-507x760.jpg 507w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235227/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-017-GettyImages_75952533.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-10096" class="wp-caption-text">Vince Gill performs with his wife, gospel star Amy Grant, on NBC’s <em>Today Show</em> in 2003. (© Getty Images)</figcaption></figure> <p>Gill’s life took a positive turn in 2000 when he married singer Amy Grant. Their daughter, Corrina, was born the following year. A new stability in his home life prompted a renewal in his music as well. Gill celebrated his new happiness in the album <em>Let’s Make Sure We Kiss Goodbye,</em> with the hit single “Feels Like Love.” In 2003, Gill produced the album <em>Next Big Thing</em>, functioning as his own producer for the first time. The title song won Gill another Grammy for his vocal performance. He revisited his roots as well, re-uniting with Rodney Crowell to record an album as The Notorious Cherry Bombs.</p> <p>In 2006, Gill produced his most ambitious project to date. <em>These Days</em> was a four-disc set, with 43 original songs in styles ranging from acoustic folk and bluegrass to sophisticated contemporary pop, rock and jazz. An all-star team of guest artists joined with Gill on <em>These Days</em>, including Sheryl Crow, Emmylou Harris, Diana Krall, Trisha Yearwood, Bonnie Raitt, Gill’s wife Amy Grant, and his daughter Jenny Gill. The massive collection won widespread critical acclaim and received the year’s Grammy Award for Best Country Album of the Year.</p> <figure id="attachment_47579" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-47579" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="wp-image-47579 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235227im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/WP-2280-et-IMG_3999-1.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="wp-image-47579 size-full lazyload" alt="" width="2280" height="1520" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20200917235227im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/WP-2280-et-IMG_3999-1.jpg 2280w, /web/20200917235227im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/WP-2280-et-IMG_3999-1-380x253.jpg 380w, /web/20200917235227im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/WP-2280-et-IMG_3999-1-760x507.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235227/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/WP-2280-et-IMG_3999-1.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-47579" class="wp-caption-text">2009: Awards Council members Amy Grant and Vince Gill perform “El Shaddai” with 300 members of South Africa’s best children’s choirs — the internationally renowned Tygerberg children’s choir, the Kenmere Primary School Choir, the Kensington Chorale, the South African Youth Choir and the elite Voices of Angels group — seated in the background at St. George’s Cathedral in Cape Town during the 48th annual International Achievement Summit.</figcaption></figure> <p>In 2007, Vince Gill was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. He has since served as President of the Board, instituting a series of benefit concerts to raise funds for the recognition and preservation of America’s musical heritage in the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum.</p> <p>In addition to his many honors for solo singing and songwriting, Gill has been recognized as a guitarist for his contributions to the instrumental recordings “Red Wing” and “Bob’s Breakdowns,” and for a 2001 supergroup rendition of “Foggy Mountain Breakdown.” In 2008, he shared another Grammy with a supergroup of country guitar pickers for their performance on the instrumental “Cluster Pluck.” Gill won 20 Grammy Awards between 1990 and 2008, the most awards ever given to a male artist in country music, but there were more honors yet to come.</p> <figure id="attachment_5234" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-5234" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="wp-image-5234 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235227im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/wordpress_IMG_6476.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="wp-image-5234 size-full lazyload" alt="Academy members Vince Gill and his wife Amy Grant share the gift of music with the children of Ntshuxekani Preschool during the 2009 International Achievement Summit in South Africa." width="2280" height="1520" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20200917235227im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/wordpress_IMG_6476.jpg 2280w, /web/20200917235227im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/wordpress_IMG_6476-380x253.jpg 380w, /web/20200917235227im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/wordpress_IMG_6476-760x507.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235227/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/wordpress_IMG_6476.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-5234" class="wp-caption-text">Academy members Vince Gill and his wife, Amy Grant, share the gift of music with the children of Ntshuxekani Preschool during the 2009 International Achievement Summit in South Africa’s Singita Sabi Sand Game Reserve.</figcaption></figure> <p>In a single week of November 2014, Vince Gill received two awards for lifetime achievement from major music industry organizations: the Icon Award of the Broadcast Music Association (BMI) and the Country Music Association’s Irving Waugh Award of Excellence. Gill is only the fourth person to receive the latter award since its inception in 1983; the last musician to be so honored was Johnny Cash.  In 2016, Vince Gill received his 21st Grammy Award for the song “Kid Sister.”</p> <p>The following year he joined country rock legends The Eagles on their national tour, singing and playing many of the parts once performed by the late Glenn Frey.  He spent the next year writing the songs for a new record celebrating his roots in Oklahoma. Released in the summer of 2019, the album was titled <em>Okie.</em>  Once a derogatory epithet directed at the migrants who fled the state during the drought and dust storms of the 1930s, Gill sought to reclaim the word as a badge of pride, linked to values of faith and family embodied in the collection’s opening song, “A Letter to My Mama,” and in its last, inspired by his wife, “When Amy Prays.”</p> </body></html> <div class="clearfix"> <figure class="achiever__video-block"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235227if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/2F2_3fzmarc?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0&start=0&end=209&version=3" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Vince-Gill-and-Amy-Grant.00_00_50_26.Still001-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Vince-Gill-and-Amy-Grant.00_00_50_26.Still001-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> <figcaption class="achiever__interview-video__copy m-t-1"> <p>Golden Plate Awards Council members and singer/songwriters Vince Gill and Amy Grant perform at the concluding dinner and symposium during the Academy’s 2009 International Achievement Summit in Singita Sabi Sand Game Reserve, South Africa.</p> </figcaption> </figure> </div> </article> </div> </section> </div> <div class="tab-pane" id="profile" role="tabpanel"> <section class="clearfix"> <header class="editorial-article__header"> <figure class="text-xs-center"> <img class="inductee-badge" src="/web/20200917235227im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/inducted-badge@2x.png" alt="Inducted Badge" width="120" height="120"/> <figcaption class="serif-3 text-brand-primary"> Inducted in 1997 </figcaption> </figure> </header> <div class="row"> <aside class="col-md-4 sidebar"> <dl class="clearfix m-b-0"> <div class="col-xs-12 sidebar--chunk p-b-2"> <dt class="serif-7">Career</dt> <dd class="sans-2"> <div><a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/#filter=.musician">Musician</a></div> <div><a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/#filter=.singer">Singer</a></div> <div><a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/#filter=.songwriter">Songwriter</a></div> </dd> </div> <div class="col-xs-12 sidebar--chunk p-b-2"> <dt class="serif-7">Date of Birth</dt> <dd class="sans-2"> April 12, 1957 </dd> </div> </dl> </aside> <article class="col-md-8 editorial-article clearfix"> <p class="inputTextFirst">Since the release of his breakthrough album, <i>When I Call Your Name</i>, in 1990, Vince Gill has been a dominant figure in the world of country music, earning 20 Grammy Awards in only 18 years, for his singing and songwriting, and for his many collaborations with the elite of country music, bluegrass, rock and pop. He won his 21st Grammy in 2016, the all-time record for a country music artist.</p> <p class="inputText">His 2006 collection, <i>These Days,</i> is a four-disc, 43-song set showcasing his versatility in country, folk and contemporary styles. His sweet tenor voice has made him a favorite collaborator with the biggest names in American music. He has sung with everyone from Dolly Parton to Barbra Streisand, but his favorite duet partner is his wife, singer Amy Grant. His authoritative guitar picking has made him a sought-after guest artist with six-string heroes such as Mark Knopfler and Eric Clapton.</p> <p class="inputText">He is celebrated in the country music world for his dedication to humanitarian causes, playing hundreds of benefit concerts, and sponsoring the Vince Gill Pro-Celebrity Invitational Golf Tournament. In 2007, he was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame, and has become a pillar of the organization, dedicated to the recognition and preservation of America’s musical heritage.</p> </article> </div> </section> </div> <div class="tab-pane" id="interview" role="tabpanel"> <section class="clearfix"> <div class="col-md-12 interview-feature-video"> <figure> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235227if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/_9z7E-n_B7I?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0&start=0&end=6490&version=3" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Gill-Vince-2009-July-5-INTV-1-of-3.00_54_42_03.Still001-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Gill-Vince-2009-July-5-INTV-1-of-3.00_54_42_03.Still001-760x428.jpg"></div> <div class="video-tag sans-4"> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> <div class="video-tag__text">Watch full interview</div> </div> </div> </figure> </div> <header class="col-md-12 text-xs-center m-b-2"> <i class="icon-icon_bio text-brand-primary"></i> </header> <aside class="col-md-4 sidebar"> <h2 class="serif-3 achiever--biography-subtitle">21 Grammy Awards</h2> <div class="sans-2">Singita Sabi Sand Game Reserve, South Africa</div> <div class="sans-2">July 5, 2009</div> </aside> <article class="editorial-article col-md-8">   <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <html><body data-rsssl="1"><p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>Let’s just start at the beginning. Where were you born?</b></span></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">Vince Gill: I was born in the United States in Norman, Oklahoma, small college town just south of Oklahoma City. It’s a great town. And as a kid — I guess I was four — before I started school we moved up to Oklahoma City and I really grew up there, Oklahoma City.</span></p> <figure id="attachment_10085" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-10085" style="width: 783px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-10085 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235227im_/https://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-005.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-10085 lazyload" alt="Vince Gill as a baby in Norman, Oklahoma. (Courtesy of Vince Gill)" width="783" height="1096" data-sizes="(max-width: 783px) 100vw, 783px" data-srcset="/web/20200917235227im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-005.jpg 783w, /web/20200917235227im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-005-271x380.jpg 271w, /web/20200917235227im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-005-543x760.jpg 543w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235227/https://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-005.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-10085" class="wp-caption-text">Vince Gill as a baby in Norman, Oklahoma. (Courtesy of Vince Gill)</figcaption></figure> <p class="p3"><span class="s2"><b>Who were your parents?</b></span></p> </body></html> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235227if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/0L0CguqLQ_8?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0&start=0&end=51&version=3" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Gill-Vince-2009-July-5-INTV-1-of-3.01_47_41_28.Still012-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Gill-Vince-2009-July-5-INTV-1-of-3.01_47_41_28.Still012-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p class="p1">Vince Gill: My father was a lawyer, Jay Stanley Gill. My mom was a stay-at-home mom for most of my life. Her name is Jerine, and she’s still alive. My father passed in ’97. Kind people, sweet people. They both were farm people. Grew up on a farm and had a great sense of the earth, in that they knew hard times. <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>They knew what it was like to really work for everything that they had. So there was a great wisdom of common sense that prevailed in our household, and things you did better make sense or you’d suffer the wrath.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>Who was the disciplinarian?</b></span></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s2">Vince Gill: Oh, they both were. They both got it done. My dad was real strict, very firm. But I’m grateful for it as a grown man. And I knew how far to go, and I knew when I screwed up I’d get in trouble, and I was okay with that. My father passed away in ’97. I’ve enjoyed telling people that he was a judge the last half of his life and a lawyer the first half. And he said, “Son, nobody likes a lawyer until they need one.”</span></p> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235227if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/p21GIcFop0E?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0&start=0&end=62&version=3" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Gill-Vince-2009-July-5-INTV-1-of-3.00_02_40_14.Still014-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Gill-Vince-2009-July-5-INTV-1-of-3.00_02_40_14.Still014-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p class="p1">My dad was quite a character. He was really strict, really fair. If I screwed up, I got in trouble right away. There was no messing around much. My father was pretty gruff. He was a lawyer by trade, but a redneck by birth. He’d go to work in a suit and tie, slick his hair back and put on glasses and stuff, and then he’d come home, put on overalls, no shirt and a ball cap. He was a very imposing man — six foot three and over 300 pounds. It was like having John Wayne, Patton and Clint Eastwood all rolled up into one guy. And he was very gruff, and he always smoked a cigarette like this, and he talked like this. He said, “Son, don’t make me come over there, ’cause I’ll give you something to cry about.” Screwed up, you got your butt kicked right away. You know, old school, old school, old school.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <html><body data-rsssl="1"><figure id="attachment_10084" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-10084" style="width: 1470px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="wp-image-10084 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235227im_/https://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-004.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="wp-image-10084 size-full lazyload" alt="Vince Gill and his father, Jay Stanley Gill, an administrative law judge and country music enthusiast who gave Vince his first guitar lessons. (Courtesy of Vince Gill)" width="1470" height="1014" data-sizes="(max-width: 1470px) 100vw, 1470px" data-srcset="/web/20200917235227im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-004.jpg 1470w, /web/20200917235227im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-004-380x262.jpg 380w, /web/20200917235227im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-004-760x524.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235227/https://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-004.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-10084" class="wp-caption-text">Vince and his father, Jay Stanley Gill, a judge and country music enthusiast who gave Vince his first guitar lessons.</figcaption></figure> </body></html> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235227if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/Oi6rVbljv1s?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0&start=0&end=140&version=3" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Gill-Vince-2009-July-5-INTV-1-of-3.00_01_14_06.Still013-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Gill-Vince-2009-July-5-INTV-1-of-3.00_01_14_06.Still013-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p class="p1">I would like to have seen my father’s reaction to somebody telling him that “time out” would be a good thing. “You want me to do what? You want me to set him in a corner for 30 minutes? I don’t think so. I’m just gonna kick his ass and that’ll be the end of it!” That was my life. Oh, man. But he told me that he had an idea for a song and he told it to me. And through the years, he was so great, and I didn’t realize it at the time. When you’re young you don’t know much. I didn’t anyway. Wrong room to say that in! But y’all are smokin’. I knew how to play a few chords on the guitar and sing high and that was about it. But you know, I went out there and took off at 18, and I had a dream of just playing music. And I didn’t care where I wound up. I loved to play more than anything. It wasn’t about the result. It wasn’t about how much money I could make or how famous I could get. I just wanted to play music. Through all the years that I struggled, my dad would often send me words of encouragement when I was really struggling, you know. Stuff like, “Hang in there, boy. You’re getting’ better. Your songs are getting better and I swear you’re gonna make it. Just keep after it.” That was the kind of stuff. And then, I started doin’ good and started having some hits and selling some records. Then he turned into my biggest critic. I remember the first year — I hosted the Country Music Awards for twelve years — and the first year I did it I was excited, had a lot of fun, did a good job, won a couple of awards. I stayed up all night to party and celebrate. My dad decided to call me with his review of the show at about 7:15 on his way into work. I answered the phone. I hadn’t been to bed for a couple of hours. I hear this, “Who in the hell do you think you are?” “What are you talking about?” “Let me tell you somethin’, pal. I watched you last night. You’re no Jay Leno.” It was his way of keeping me level.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235227if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/PXNdcdj--aU?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0&start=0&end=86&version=3" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Gill-Vince-2009-July-5-INTV-1-of-3.01_47_11_15.Still011-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Gill-Vince-2009-July-5-INTV-1-of-3.01_47_11_15.Still011-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p class="p1">Vince Gill: Well, I started playing — you know, I cannot consciously remember an age where I started playing. I know that I had a very small parlor guitar that had like a lampshade cord on it, and it was broken and probably didn’t have all of its strings. I don’t remember, but I’ve seen pictures of me when I was one or two, you know, just getting around, dragging that guitar around.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>So I know that I had always had one around to play on, beat on, and all that. And I played my father’s. He had two guitars, and I played them. And then he also got me, when I was very small, a tenor guitar, which only has the first four strings. So the neck is much smaller, not as wide as a six-string guitar.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>So I learned to play on a tenor guitar, and tuned it like the first four strings of a regular guitar. There’s a lot of different tunings for a tenor guitar, some are much different. But I tuned it like a regular guitar and started learning the rudimentary chords from my dad, and he showed me.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>But I was playing, you know, at show-and-tell stuff in grade school — second, third grade. And so I don’t have a conscious memory of when I started, but all I know is it’s all I’ve ever done, is beat on one of those things.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <html><body data-rsssl="1"><figure id="attachment_10089" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-10089" style="width: 919px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-10089 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235227im_/https://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-009.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-10089 lazyload" alt="Vince Gill as a schoolboy in Oklahoma, City. (Courtesy of Vince Gill)" width="919" height="1297" data-sizes="(max-width: 919px) 100vw, 919px" data-srcset="/web/20200917235227im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-009.jpg 919w, /web/20200917235227im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-009-269x380.jpg 269w, /web/20200917235227im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-009-539x760.jpg 539w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235227/https://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-009.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-10089" class="wp-caption-text">Vince Gill as a schoolboy in Oklahoma City. (Courtesy of Vince Gill)</figcaption></figure> </body></html> </div>     <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>How did you begin playing the guitar?</b></span></p> </div>     <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">I got my own guitar when I was 10 years old, and that was — I can still remember finding that gift under the tree. What an amazing, you know, I didn’t know it at the time but it was easily the most incredible Christmas gift I’d ever got, more than a football and more than any of that other kind of stuff. Because at that time, being a 10-year-old kid…</span></p> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235227if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/7GMPBqQMt9c?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Gill-Vince-2009-July-5-INTV-1-of-3.01_45_17_16.Still010-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Gill-Vince-2009-July-5-INTV-1-of-3.01_45_17_16.Still010-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p class="p1">My folks scrimped and saved, and they actually took that old tenor guitar of mine and traded it in on this new electric Gibson guitar called an ES-335. And for me to have the opportunity to learn on a great instrument! I think, unfortunately, what happens to a lot of young kids that want to maybe learn to play, or have an interest in playing is — because they don’t want to invest in a good instrument — they get them something that’s not good enough, and nobody could play it no matter how great of a guitar player they are; the instrument wouldn’t be ever decent enough to really play. So at 10 years old, the fact that my folks got me something that grand and that great and so playable that it was inspiring, you know, even at 10 years old.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>And I still have that guitar today. And you know, as it turned out, it wound up being a guitar I would have sought as a grown, matured player, because of the type of instrument it is. You know, there are a lot of great guitar players that play the 335.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>And so I had no idea at the time, when I was 10, that it was a great instrument to have, but it sure was inspiring to have something that great to start to really learn on.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>Was guitar the first instrument that you learned to play?</b></span></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">Vince Gill: Yeah, I played the guitar first. I was telling Joshua Bell, who comes to the Academy of Achievement — we’ve become friends this trip and we have a lot of mutual friends that play music. I was telling him that I started taking violin lessons and playing in the school orchestras and stuff when I was in grade school. And I said I got a mean teacher in the sixth grade and that was the end of the violin for me.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>Were you a good student, or were there subjects in particular you were good at?</b></span></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">Vince Gill: I don’t think I was. I was never as smart as my sister. My sister always made better grades. She was a couple of years older than me. I was a fine student, but I wasn’t a hard worker. I wasn’t any trouble, I just went through the motions and loved my music and loved playing sports. I was a Beaver Cleaver kid. I was pretty normal.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>Was there anything you read as a kid that inspired you?</b></span></p> <p class="p3"><span class="s2">Vince Gill: I don’t know that there’s anything that I read as a kid that was inspiring to me, musically. I like reading, I like reading books about history. I loved Civil War books, things like that. And I loved biographies of sports people that I admired. If there was a book on Willie Mays or Hank Aaron, or whoever the great baseball player of that era was, I would love to read stories about sports, because I played all the sports.</span></p> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235227if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/PyTZGlC7L4k?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Gill-Vince-2009-July-5-INTV-1-of-3.01_34_21_09.Still009-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Gill-Vince-2009-July-5-INTV-1-of-3.01_34_21_09.Still009-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p class="p1">As I look back, I really feel that the records were my books, you know, and I would study the — it was back in the day when the albums were large. You could read the credits, you knew who played on things, you knew who wrote the songs, who sang on things. And I was one of those kids that loved all the information on a record. I spent years buying records of artists I’d never heard of, just because I knew the guitar player, or I knew somebody that played a certain instrument that, I said, “Well if this guy played on this record maybe there’s something good in there,” because I liked that musician.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>So I felt like those records told me stories in a way that related to me more, because of — my brain was stimulated by sounds more than sights, I think. I loved listening to records and trying to emulate what I was hearing. I’m self-taught and all by ear, and just by hearing it come through the speakers.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>I’d say, “How do they do that?” and just sit and practice and noodle and mess around until I made the same sounds.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <html><body data-rsssl="1"><p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>So you never took singing lessons or music lessons?</b></span></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s2">Vince Gill: No. I took some guitar lessons in junior high school, but as I look back, I don’t think they were really informative. It was something to do, and he was a neat old guy, and I enjoyed him. But I just basically learned songs. I didn’t learn any theory. I wish I’d have stayed with the violin lessons, the piano lessons, to where I could have learned the theory of music on paper, so I could be able to read, you know, because I don’t read music. I can kind of go through there and remember the very rudimentary things of how the notes are, and what they are, but I couldn’t sight read and play what I was reading. So that’s all I know about that. I sound like Forrest Gump, don’t I?</span></p> <figure id="attachment_10083" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-10083" style="width: 939px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-10083 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235227im_/https://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-003.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-10083 lazyload" alt="A young Vince Gill with his older brother Bob. Vince Gill wrote "Go Rest High On That Mountain" after his brother died in 1993. (Courtesy of Vince Gill)" width="939" height="1307" data-sizes="(max-width: 939px) 100vw, 939px" data-srcset="/web/20200917235227im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-003.jpg 939w, /web/20200917235227im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-003-273x380.jpg 273w, /web/20200917235227im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-003-546x760.jpg 546w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235227/https://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-003.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-10083" class="wp-caption-text">Young Vince Gill with his older brother, Bob. Vince Gill wrote <em>Go Rest High On That Mountain</em> after his brother died.</figcaption></figure> <p><b>Teachers aside, was there somebody who inspired you or opened up new possibilities to you?</b></p> <p>Vince Gill: All of those musicians did. They were countless. I had my favorite records. I loved Chet Atkins, and I loved the Beatles, and I loved the people that I loved. But just that element of collaboration, of people gathering together and playing music. I saw it as a kid, didn’t realize it. You know, my mom played a little bit, she played a harmonica, and she played two or three songs and ran out of breath and she was done.</p> </body></html> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235227if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/G3KXs2QBSXs?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0&start=0&end=78&version=3" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Gill-Vince-2009-July-5-INTV-1-of-3.01_00_25_20.Still008-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Gill-Vince-2009-July-5-INTV-1-of-3.01_00_25_20.Still008-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p class="p1">My dad played the banjo and the guitar, and he had some friends, and they had a little band that would occasionally go play at an outdoor thing. You know, not professionally, but always just for fun. And I always got to play along, and just being around musicians was to me the neatest thing. I had garage bands, you know, where you found two or three guys in school that played. “Hey, let’s start a band!” you know, and away we went. We’d go in the garage and bash away. I still work with a kid that I grew up with since seventh grade. We started playing music together when we got in junior high school and we’re still together. He works with me and travels on the road and takes care of all my guitars. So it’s remarkable to have your oldest friend out there, going through this experience with you. I called him when I had a couple of big hits and said, “Hey, do you want to go on this ride with me?” He was like, “Yeah, sure. Why not?” He was a musician too. And that to me was — the beauty of collaborating was what I was really drawn to. I never wanted to just be me by myself with music. I liked a lot of people playing it.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <p><b>What did your parents think when you first told them you wanted to be a professional musician? Did you tell them? Did you know yourself?</b></p> <p>Vince Gill: I think they knew early on that that was the only thing that was in store for me. I mean, I was a decent golfer. I played on the high school golf team, and I went through high school and I played out a lot.</p> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235227if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/XY10pobEn58?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Gill-Vince-2009-July-5-INTV-1-of-3.00_54_42_03.Still001-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Gill-Vince-2009-July-5-INTV-1-of-3.00_54_42_03.Still001-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p class="p1">My mom and dad were not real strict, in the fact that they would let me go play in bars, you know, while I was in high school in different bands.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>And they said, “You get to school and keep your grades up and don’t give us any reason to not let you.” So I tried to be respectful of all of that. So I had so many years under my belt, even when I was a freshman, junior, and all through high school, that I was out playing gigs and traveling around some with bands and to different parts of the States.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>I think they saw the writing on the wall, and they weren’t surprised when I didn’t really have a plan to go to college when I got out of high school. I wouldn’t advise that for anybody, it just worked for me. Somebody called me — I was 18 — and said, “Hey, do you want to come be in this band in Kentucky?” and I said sure.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>So I packed up everything and I moved there and started playing with that band for a while. That led to another band, and then I moved to California, and that led to another band. It’s just interesting. Everything that happened to me was a result of just going and trying to get better.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">I’ve tried to always play with better musicians. That’s how I got discovered, I guess, if you want to use that word. But that camaraderie that you had. You know, one musician would say, “Hey, if you’re looking for this kind of player, this guy is really good.” And your reputation would then be with some of the people you were associating with and playing with. I didn’t have goals, I didn’t have dreams of stardom. I wasn’t saying I have to be famous.</span></p> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235227if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/NUvdPc-LRqk?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0&start=0&end=0&version=3" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Gill-Vince-2009-July-5-INTV-1-of-3.00_54_24_01.Still007-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Gill-Vince-2009-July-5-INTV-1-of-3.00_54_24_01.Still007-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> <figcaption class="achiever__interview-video-terms"> <span>Keys to success —</span> <a class="comma-item" href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/keys-to-success/passion/">Passion</a> </figcaption> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>I have the best time playing music. And my folks saw that. And so they never said, “When are you going to go get a <i>real</i> job?” because I had really put a lot of effort into it long before it was time to move on and go to college and think about something else. I think that’s another reason maybe a lot of young musicians fall by the wayside. They’re not willing to do what I did, which is go out there and play on street corners once in a while to make enough money to pay your rent and be willing to starve. You know, they only want that safety net. They want that cushion. And I never needed it. I don’t feel any different today at 52 than I did at 18. And what’s in the bank account has never changed one ounce of what I loved doing. I’d still be doing it at 52, if I was still playing those same beer joints.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <html><body data-rsssl="1"><p>I think that was the objective of my mother and father in a sense. I talk to my mom these days. She said, “I think my job as being your parent was to make you be a happy person.” And that to me is what parenting is. It’s not about how much money can you make. She said, “I feel like I’ve done a good job, because he’s getting to do what he loves and he’s happy doing it, and he doesn’t seem to care that he’s struggling to pay the rent most of the time. So why should I worry? He’s a happy boy.”</p> <figure id="attachment_10090" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-10090" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="wp-image-10090 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235227im_/https://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-010-gill-family-2-IMG_4750.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="wp-image-10090 size-full lazyload" alt="Vince Gill and his wife Amy Grant, with family members, at the Singita Sabi Sand Game Reserve during the 2009 International Achievement Summit in South Africa. (© Academy of Achievement)" width="2280" height="1520" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20200917235227im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-010-gill-family-2-IMG_4750.jpg 2280w, /web/20200917235227im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-010-gill-family-2-IMG_4750-380x253.jpg 380w, /web/20200917235227im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-010-gill-family-2-IMG_4750-760x507.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235227/https://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-010-gill-family-2-IMG_4750.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-10090" class="wp-caption-text">Vince Gill and his wife, Amy Grant, with family members, at the Singita Sabi Sand Game Reserve during the 2009 International Achievement Summit in South Africa. Vince and Amy performed in concert to conclude the Summit.</figcaption></figure> <p><b>Setting out on your own, were you ever afraid of failure?</b></p> <p>Vince Gill: No, I wasn’t. I didn’t know any better. There’s some beauty in that, you know. The best part was I didn’t need much. If you don’t have much, you don’t need much. That felt good to me.</p> </body></html> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235227if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/ZixTyQ2xLcE?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0&start=0&end=0&version=3" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Gill-Vince-2009-July-5-INTV-1-of-3.00_27_12_08.Still005-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Gill-Vince-2009-July-5-INTV-1-of-3.00_27_12_08.Still005-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p class="p1">To me, progress was not how much more money I could make, but how much better I could be. How am I as a guitar player, at this point, versus what I was three years ago? And then, who am I playing with? Am I playing with better musicians? Yes.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>So every step that I felt like I made was progress in my mind. It might not have been financially the same thing. There was one point when I was in my early 20s, I’d spent a few years playing with Pure Prairie League, and I had a few hit records and was on television shows and was the front man. I was the lead singer, and I quit to go be a side man with one of my favorite musicians and songwriter-singers, a guy named Rodney Crowell, to just be his guitar player, harmony singer. He said, “What are you doing? You were the guy in the front!” “Yeah, but this band’s better. These songs are better.” To me it was a move up. To most people it wouldn’t look like that, but I knew in my heart, and my ears told me this is a better thing.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235227if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/cg5t3jSlI0Y?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0&start=0&end=84&version=3" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Gill-Vince-2009-July-5-INTV-1-of-3.00_18_02_15.Still003-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Gill-Vince-2009-July-5-INTV-1-of-3.00_18_02_15.Still003-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p class="p1">It’s not always about the attention you get and the dollar bill and how many of them you get. Sometimes you make decisions that defy logic, I guess. But I made one, and years later I was invited by Mark Knopfler to join Dire Straits. And it was at a time where I was pretty broke, you know, I was really struggling. I had had a record deal for several years, but couldn’t turn that into hit records, and couldn’t turn that into a big career, and even though I was trying. And this would have been a very lucrative, very great move financially, and in a lot of ways. Musically it would have been a great move. But I said, “I can’t do it right now.<span class="s1">“</span> I said, “I just changed record companies and I’ve invested a lot of my life in country music,” and I said, “I don’t want to bail on it, because I think I have something to offer it.” And you know, it was like, it was the golden egg being dangled in front of me, and I turned it down.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>And I was lucky, because then the next record I had was this massive hit, and it completely turned my life around. So I made a decision based on my heart, and it hasn’t let me down very often.</p> </div> </div>     <aside class="collapse" id="full-interview">    <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <html><body data-rsssl="1"><p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>Why wasn’t Dire Straits the fork in the road that you picked? Was your relationship with Mark Knopfler an important factor in that?</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">Vince Gill: When it happened — it happened I think in 1989 or 1990. And he came to see me play in New York. I was a huge fan of Mark Knopfler’s and the band (Dire Straits) and loved their records, and loved the way he played the guitar. Once again, that common bond that would have drawn him to me and me to him was that we liked the way each other played. So there was that, we had something in common. And at the time it was a fork in the road. And the obvious choice, because of what had happened up until then, would have been go and go play with this nationally known band, do a world tour, make a bunch of money, get your family healthy and pay for your house and all that. But I chose the other one, just because I believed in myself. And it was not the decision that would have probably made the most sense for the circumstances that I was in. But once again, I just felt like making that decision was the acceptance of failure.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">I don’t know that I was willing to accept that failure. To me, it would have derailed what I was trying to accomplish. And most people would have thought the smart decision would be go get healed up. Musically, I wish I could have. I wanted to badly, just because I would have loved the experience musically. But like I said, in a sense it kind of accepted defeat, that I had not done what I’d hoped I would do. So I kept believing in myself, and that’s why I think that I made that decision.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">I felt like I had a new shot, with a new company, and new people saying they liked what I did. Because the relationship is still very good that I have with the people that ran RCA at the time, we’re still great friends. But you know, everybody knows it didn’t work, and who knows why. I can say that my name’s on the record, so I can take the fact that they didn’t work and I’m okay with that. But it ended in a way where I knew that they didn’t believe in me, you know, as a songwriter. Maybe they did as a singer and a player and all that, but they didn’t as a songwriter, and that was of equal importance to me, being a songwriter. So I made that move to change and try something else. I wanted to write my own songs. So if I had made that record, <i>When I Call Your Name</i>, and then turned my back on it and gone on to do something else, I just didn’t feel like I was giving myself the opportunity that I’d created for myself for some new life, new blood, and a new shot. I don’t know that it made any difference which record company it was. I don’t think they’d like to hear that, but, you know, they all worked hard with every record I ever made, both companies. I still believe it was the song. It was the right song at the right time.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>When you made the decision to not go with Dire Straits, it was because you believed in yourself. Where did that confidence come from?</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">Vince Gill: I don’t know that it was as much confidence as it was my fear of saying I have not succeeded in what I wanted to do. I think that’s a much harder bridge to get over. That’s a struggle, one that might be associated with failure. You can always react favorably when things are great. That’s easy. Anybody can accomplish that. That’s confidence in a sense, because you’re reacting to something that’s done very well. But how you react when something doesn’t go very well is really a much truer test of character and a much truer test of who you really are. I really think that it might have been more of a decision based on fear than of confidence.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>When you were a kid, living in Oklahoma City, you decided to pack up and go to Louisville, Kentucky. Were you just going to land in Kentucky and figure it out, or had you set some things up? What took you to Kentucky?</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">Vince Gill: A job. There was a band called the Bluegrass Alliance in the world of bluegrass in the mid 70’s and early 70’s. They were one of the really well-known bands in bluegrass. A lot of great musicians went through that band. So once again, it was a step up for me and an improvement over the situation I had been in before. I didn’t know anything. I had all the stuff that I owned in my van. A guitar and a few t-shirts and my golf clubs and whatever I had, and I went off to Kentucky to play in this band. I found a little place to live. My rent was $15 a month and I stayed in an attic in this old cool house in Cherokee Park, a house full of musicians that all loved bluegrass music and, you know, I just followed my muse. It was a great experience. It gave me a chance to travel around the United States a lot and play at different kinds of festivals. It was a really fun time because of the innocence of it.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">I think one of my favorite memories of those days was I ran out of clean clothes. And obviously my mom’s not around and always washed my jeans and my t-shirts. And I had this pile of dirty laundry, and I said, “Now what do I do?” So I went to a laundromat and I started watching people. Okay, they put those in there, and they put all the white stuff in there, and they kind of put the money in and dump that stuff on top. And I figured out how to wash my clothes and figured out how to dry them. Then they were all dry, and I said, “How do you fold them?” And this woman was over there just laughing her head off. She said, “You don’t know how to fold your clothes, do you?” I said, “No, ma’am, I’ve never done my laundry before.” “Well, God bless your mother, but come here. I’m going to teach you how to fold your shirts.” I still fold my t-shirts that way today. So life’s about stepping in there and learning and making mistakes. You’re never going to learn anything if you don’t make a mistake. That’s where you find, to me, the real beauty in life, is screwing something up and learning from it. And I did it plenty.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">It was a great time. I moved from there to Southern California, a 19-year-old kid, and I moved to Los Angeles to play bluegrass music and be in this great band. It was a great time in Southern California. The music scene there was unbelievable.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">The first gig that I did with a band that I had joined was a club there called the Troubadour in L.A. It’s like one of the most famous clubs in history, one of those great music clubs. We opened for a guy name Guy Clark who was a great singer-songwriter from Texas. I walked into this gig and I couldn’t believe who was there. It was all the people that I was aspiring to be like: Emmylou Harris, Rodney Crowell, all these guys that were all playing with Guy, and I think Linda Ronstadt was there that night. And I couldn’t believe it, you know. Here are all these people that I’ve seen on the backs of these records that I’ve studied my whole life, and there they were. And I made friends, and you know, they heard me play, they heard me sing. And that just kind of was another rung in the ladder, so to speak, you know. I wouldn’t call it networking, but that’s exactly what it was. Just getting out there and jumping in the middle of the water and see how deep it is.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>Well, the Troubadour is smack in the heart of the Sunset Strip, and it’s notorious for agents and who’s in the audience. Did that lead you to sign with RCA?</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">Vince Gill: Yeah. I spent several years in Southern California and loved it, and I got some session work playing on people’s records, singing on people’s records. I joined Pure Prairie League for three years, three records. They had a major label record deal and that was exciting. Then I stopped doing that, and I started playing with Rodney Crowell and Rosanne Cash. Rosanne was having big hits, and I was her guitar player, and it was a great job to have for a guitar player, because it featured the guitar a lot. And the people that played before me were James Burton and Albert Lee, arguably two of the greatest guitar players that ever lived. James played with Elvis for years, so I was occupying this pretty heavy seat for a guitar player.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">One of the guys in the band was a guy named Tony Brown, who also used to play with Elvis. He was a piano player, and he played with Rodney and Rosanne, and he was also an A&R guy for RCA Records in Nashville. He said, “Man, you need to start making country records!” And so he signed me to RCA in 1983, and I made my first record and not much happened. I made my second record and not much happened. I made my third record and not much happened. And then I got another chance. I moved over to MCA Records a few years later and got another opportunity. You know, I really am grateful for the years of struggle in looking back. I think at the time it was hard, because you feel like you’re beating your head against the walls, saying, “Why isn’t this working?” You know? Well, maybe if you go around the wall… you know, so I found some way to go around the wall. In hindsight, I think all those years of struggle was a humbling experience.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">It was a learning experience. I got to spend a lot of years really putting my feet in a lot of different places. I sang on so many records in that stretch of time in Nashville in the 80’s. I don’t know how many artists’ records I’ve worked on over the years. I know it’s — well, over 400 or 500. Something like that. And not that that’s bragging, but it’s how I made a living. You know, people thought enough of what I did as a supporting cast member to be a part of those records. And in all honesty, that’s what I had really aspired to be, more than an artist even. And I said, “I don’t want to be one of those guys that their name is down there playing on the records.” Even saying it today, I would have been fine had that been my career, you know, because I didn’t have to be at the center of it to have it matter. I just had to be a part of it, and it mattered. That’s what I loved, was the democracy of making music in that it takes all of those elements that most people aren’t even aware of. And that’s fine. Some people just listen to music and they focus on the guy up there singing. But I’m listening to the bass player, and listening to the drummer, and listening to what the guitar player plays. I love every note of it. And so that’s to me what’s beautiful about collaborating with people is that all the notes are equal, and it takes all those notes to make something great.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>What did you learn from being a session musician?</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">Vince Gill: Being part of the supporting cast teaches you to do the work that they want you to do, that you’re hired to do. You don’t get to just do what you want and play what you want to play. You have to make something work, you have to make something fit, you have to be a chameleon.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">I think some of the best advice I got as a young session musician — the first time I played on something — they came back and said, “Now just play me half of what you know. Okay, that was impressive, but that’s not what I need here.” So it’s really an exercise on what’s best going to serve the work in front of you, what’s the job that will do that the best. And so, as the more you do it, you realize that it’s much more of what you don’t play than what you do play. And that’s learning to play with people, and that’s — I spoke earlier about why music feels like a democracy to me, because it’s everybody, it’s not yelling at each other, they’re all listening to each other. And that’s what’s great, because I’ll play something, he’ll hear it, that’ll inspire him. That will, in turn — they respond to each other. It’s a call and answer kind of a thing. And that’s what you’re hoping for when you’re playing. You’re not just going, “I’m only playing my part and I don’t care what everybody else is playing.” It’s this kind of beautiful experience, when everybody’s on the same page and everybody’s just bouncing. Then it’s just like you’re riding the cloud, you know. It’s really beautiful.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>What did Tony Brown and Emory Gordy teach you about writing songs and making records?</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">Vince Gill: Tony Brown and Emory Gordy were two great musicians. Both had stellar careers as record producers and session musicians, and were two of the best friends I’d ever made. Along with folks like Guy Clark and Rodney Crowell, they taught me what great songwriters were all about. I never had as much knowledge of songwriters as I did musicians. I was always a little more drawn to musicians than to singers. I eventually started trying to write songs, but that didn’t come until much later, after years of just playing music.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">Tony and Emory knew the value of a good song. That’s why they both wound up being great producers and having successful careers. They produced the majority of my records. Emory produced the first two, and Tony produced all the ones I made in the 90’s. They believed in me as a songwriter, which was really a great gift, living in a world like Nashville, where this guy that’s parking your car can write better songs than you sometimes. It’s a great town. It’s a song town, that’s really what it is. Moving there was a great lesson in learning about writing songs and getting better at it.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">I marvel at coming to something like the American Academy of Achievement, because you see greatness in people, and you see suffering. You see all kinds of stuff, they’re so inspiring. This trip to South Africa has been so inspiring, because of some of the struggles that people not only went through to achieve their greatness, but just to hear the spoken word be so eloquent, just to be so beautiful. I play the guitar a little bit, and I sing a little bit, and I pale in comparison to some of these folks.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">But there’s also a beauty in the simplicity of things too. Because I didn’t go to college, because I was not an English major — or a lot of reasons that my vocabulary doesn’t have the depth that some of these people that I have the opportunity to meet here would — I still have a way to communicate with people, and that’s what my world has always been about, being a good communicator.</span></p> <figure id="attachment_10093" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-10093" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption alignright"><noscript><img class="wp-image-10093 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235227im_/https://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-014-PEN3411.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="wp-image-10093 size-full lazyload" alt="Hank Williams, composer of country classics such as "Cold, Cold Heart," "Jambalaya" and "Your Cheatin' Heart." His influence can be heard in the work of songwriters to this day. (© Corbis ca. 1950s)" width="2280" height="2837" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20200917235227im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-014-PEN3411.jpg 2280w, /web/20200917235227im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-014-PEN3411-305x380.jpg 305w, /web/20200917235227im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-014-PEN3411-611x760.jpg 611w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235227/https://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-014-PEN3411.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-10093" class="wp-caption-text">Hank Williams, composer of country classics such as <em>Cold, Cold Heart, Jambalaya</em> and <em>Your Cheatin’ Heart</em>. His influence can be heard in the work of songwriters to this day. (© Corbis ca. 1950s)</figcaption></figure> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">Hank Williams used to write songs that were simple. There was great beauty in their simpleness. And to me, great songwriters tell stories where you hear those words and you see the pictures. The songwriters are like painters. They paint pictures in their words and in their songs. And that’s generally what I think you’re trying to do as a songwriter, is paint pictures. Because I’ve always — you know, music’s in my ears, it’s not in my eyes. And so that’s what I’m always trying to accomplish, is to get you to close your eyes and see in your own mind and your own heart what these words mean to you. I think that’s the beauty of the written word. Everybody has their own interpretation of it. So I believe that there’s — as simplistic as songs are — sometimes there’s a great beauty in them. </span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>You were in the music business a good 15 years before you finally had your breakout record. You’d been in Nashville for seven years, you had a recording contract with RCA as a solo artist, you were well-known inside the business, but you hadn’t made the big breakthrough. Then in 1990, everything changed. What made the difference?</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">Vince Gill: I think it’s as simple as having the right record at the right time, having the right song at the right time. As I go back and listen to my earlier records, I’m not surprised that they’re not hits. Hit records sometimes are not necessarily that great either. It takes one to have another. You can’t have the second one until you have the first one. It’s such a Catch 22 that until you get on the radio and have a hit, you can’t get gigs, because nobody’s ever heard of you. It’s just this whole cycle.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">Even though I’d moved to MCA from RCA, and had seven years of struggles, and some records would get on the charts for a little bit — but never that just out-of-the-box home run, slam dunk, giant hit record, you know, that everybody had to have, a real career record. I’d made my first record for MCA, and we released two singles, and not much happened. You know, it wasn’t any different. And so I really, I would love to give MCA Records all the credit, they would like to hear me give them all the credit. But as it turned out, it was the right song at the right time, and that was a song called, “When I Call Your Name.” And there was just something about it that struck that chord that was — it was really fun to watch in a lot of different ways. For me it was fun just going, “Oh, that’s what that feels like.”</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">There’s a totally different reaction from an audience when there’s that familiarity of something massive. I’m just trying to think back to those days. </span><span class="s1">I’m grateful for the years of struggle, because it got a lot of people rooting for me — industry people, musicians and what not. And then when it finally happened, they felt, they finally went, “Finally!” You know, and there was a collective kind of, “Now all is right with the world. This is as it should be.” Because people would say, “I can’t understand why you’re not having hit records. You sing beautifully, you play beautifully, you play with great musicians. You’re writing songs with great songwriters.” And it just hadn’t happened. And so then that song came along and that got the door open. And once you can get that door opened, then you have the opportunity of longevity, you have the opportunity of making a difference and being heard, and all that was great. It was an amazing run of a great successful period of country music, too. Arguably the biggest in its history as far as record sales and attention and all of that. So yeah, I was beyond grateful. But it never changed my focus on what I loved, what I wanted to do. Even though I was starting to have big hit records, I still worked on everybody else’s records. I still loved being part of the process.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">“Okay, now I’ve got the result I wanted. I’ve made it. I’ve done great!” and all that. That wasn’t what I was after. I still longed to be called on the phone, “Hey, will you come sing on my record?” “Hey, will you come play on my record?” Yeah, I’d love to, because that’s what I think has been the most fun. Even more so than my own success as an artist was the diversity and the collaborating that I got to do because I was willing. Most people, they don’t want to do that. They don’t have any interest in it. And I just love the fact that the phone would ring and who would be on the other end sometimes. Eric Clapton called one time and I answered the phone. He goes, “Vince, it’s Eric Clapton,” I go, “Yeah, sure. Who’s yanking my chain?” You know? And he said, “No, seriously. I want you to come and play on a record of mine. I want to record one of your songs.” Yes! You know, this is all great. And you just never know who’s going to be on the other end of that phone. To me, I’ve always been a reactor to life, and not a planner and a worker trying to accomplish something. I just want it to all happen naturally.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">That feels the best to me, because I just think that music is something that doesn’t have an answer in a sense. It’s just this thing that you listen to, and you either like it or you don’t. It’s not like a ball game where it’s over and you know who won. And I am so grateful that I am not hung up on the results of what something has done to define it for me. You know, the definition is in the work, hands down. Once that work is done, and I have finished it and done it to the best of my ability, whether it sells ten copies or 10 million, that doesn’t change one note of that work. So to me, the answer lies within the work. That’s what’s motivating to me.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>When you were recording “When I Call Your Name,” did that process feel any different? Did you have any idea this would be such a hit?</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">Vince Gill: One thing I was grateful for is that it was a really traditional country record. I really like deep, deep-rooted, hardcore, twangy kind of country music, the old school stuff. I don’t like the new stuff very much. The contemporary side of it’s okay, I’ve done some of it. But I’m not as crazy about it as I am those great old records of the ’50s and ’60s that I grew up on, and to me is the definition of what country music is. “When I Call Your Name,” the two elements that made it much more special than it was, were the piano player, a fellow named Barry Beckett, who played all that Muscle Shoals stuff and produced a bunch of great records. He was a dear friend of mine, and he just passed away a couple of weeks ago.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">He came in late one night and played the intro to “When I Call Your Name.” There’s a piano intro on that song, and it’s lonesome, and as soon as it happens you know what record it is. And that’s another thing why I love being a part of making records, is because the musicians often times define records, make them memorable when they play something — before the singer ever starts singing — that gives it its definition and its identity. And they never get the credit, near enough credit for it, but they deserve it. And that’s what Barry Beckett did as a piano player to that record. It defined it, and you knew exactly what song it was as soon as it started. And that happened late one night. We called him, it was like two in the morning. I said, “Hey, we need a really cool intro on this song we’re working on.” He’d been a friend of mine for years and produced some things on me, and we were great friends. And he came in and played and left. My favorite part of that story was, after it had become a hit, he came to the party. We had a big party that I finally had a hit record. And he hugged me and said, “Man I’m so proud of you. I think that’s so great, you deserve it, and long time coming.” And he says, “By the way, who played piano on it?” I said, “Are you kidding me?” He goes, “No, that intro.” I go, “Well it’s you.” He goes, “Oh, well no wonder I liked it.” And he had forgotten that he did it, you know, because he does so many things and it’s hard to remember ’em all.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">So that’s an element that made that song much better than the song was in its original state of a guy playing a song. It’s all those elements that turn it into a great record and make it memorable. And then Patty Loveless sang the harmony, and she has this aching, beautiful, crystal Kentucky voice that is one of the greatest things I’ve ever heard. I had sung on all of her records for years.</span></p> <figure id="attachment_10105" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-10105" style="width: 448px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><noscript><img class="wp-image-10105 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235227im_/https://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-027-loveless_gill_Capture.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="wp-image-10105 size-full lazyload" alt="Vince Gill and Patty Loveless. They sang together on numerous recordings, beginning in the 1980s. Here they attend a charity gala in Los Angeles, 1993. (Photo by Ron Galella, Ltd/WireImage)" width="448" height="631" data-sizes="(max-width: 448px) 100vw, 448px" data-srcset="/web/20200917235227im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-027-loveless_gill_Capture.jpg 448w, /web/20200917235227im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-027-loveless_gill_Capture-270x380.jpg 270w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235227/https://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-027-loveless_gill_Capture.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-10105" class="wp-caption-text">Vince Gill and Patty Loveless. They sang together on numerous recordings, beginning in the 1980s. Here they attend a charity gala in Los Angeles, 1993. (Photo by Ron Galella, Ltd/WireImage)</figcaption></figure> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">We had recorded this song, we had this great intro, we had everything done, then we wanted to put harmony on it. And Patty Loveless had become a dear friend and she just has this Appalachian, Kentucky, beautiful voice that is unlike anything I’ve every heard. And I thought, you know, we sound really good together on her records, I wonder how it’ll sound with her on my record. And so I called her and asked her if she’d come sing on it. And the first line of harmony that she sang, I just looked at Tony (Brown), and he looked at me, and we both got chills on our arms. And that’s as big a reason as that song was a hit, you know, for all those reasons. It had so many great elements. That’s when a record is neat, when it’s not only a good song, when it’s also a good record, it’s also all the things just kind of line up. I have an old friend that used to say, “Great songs play themselves. Just get out of the way.” And hopefully that’s what that was, but there were a few elements that really made it stand out and make it special.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>A lot of artists think that their project — their film, their record — is really special. But did this song in particular seem any different than the others you’d recorded before?</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">Vince Gill: I had no reason to jump up and down and say, “This is going to be the song of the year. This is going to change my life.” I didn’t know. I was just doing all that I knew how to do. Any time I was in the studio I was just trying to do my best. I think sometimes you kind of can hear a song. I mean, “That really sounds like a hit. That’s a great song.” Sometimes the stars line up and sometimes they don’t.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>You’ve received a lot of awards. We want to ask for your perspective on awards and fame. By the way, where do you keep your Grammy Awards?</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">Vince Gill: Well, I just think that if you’re the guy winning the awards, you think they’re the greatest things in the world. If you’re not winning them, you think the guy winning them is not any good! You know, it’s pretty true. But I really hope and believe that in the majority of cases it’s a result of the work. It’s just a result of good work. And no different than you painting a painting and everybody looks at it and goes, “I love it!” That’s a result of good work. Fame was interesting for me in that your anonymity was gone. And that’s — be careful what you wish for. There’s an element of that that is great, and there’s an element of it that’s horrible. Just which way do you choose to react to it, you know? Because — and I think I spoke earlier about the years of struggle were a great learning curve for me, because I watched people react to success — some reacted favorably, some reacted, I thought, poorly. And I saw enough of it to go, “I know I don’t want to act like that.”</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">I don’t like arrogance. I don’t like a guy beating on his chest that just scored the touchdown, “Look at me, look at me!” I like being just one of the flowers in the vase. I don’t enjoy a lot of attention. And nobody will believe you when you say that, but I’m a little bit shy. I don’t have a problem putting a guitar on and playing and singing in front of 15,000 people, but in front of two or three I might be a little more uncomfortable. But at the end of the day, I really like people. So I never ran from it. I basically ignored it in a sense that I wasn’t going to let it change who I was. Whatever the consequences are for doing that, I’m okay with.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">Somebody wants a picture, somebody wants an autograph, that’s no big deal. That doesn’t bother me. It never has. And you know, I didn’t want to be a recluse, I didn’t want to run from anything, I didn’t want to all of a sudden be thinking I was something that I wasn’t. And that comes from the fact that I knew I was a musician. I came at things from a musician’s perspective first. And I knew that musicians I liked, they wouldn’t act that way, so I didn’t want to. I married a woman that is the same, and that’s been a great gift, because she could care less how successful she’s been. She’s the same — always. She’s constant in that. She’s kind of oblivious to it in a beautiful way, and I try to be too. You know, we just, well okay. We did okay. Don’t jump up and down. And I’ve always felt that God blessed me with some great gifts, you know, and I can’t deny that there’s a beautiful voice and great hands and great ears that allow me to play and tell stories that people like. I get on well with people and they like these songs. They like the way I sing, and that’s not me going, “Oh, great for me,” but I realize those are God-given and they’re special. But the difference being is that doesn’t make me special, it’s only the gift that is special. And I think that’s what I see people have a hard time really differentiating, is the fact that success, or notoriety, or fame, or lots of money, or power, or any of those things unfortunately — people — it affects them in a way that they think they’re a little bit better than they were or something. </span><span class="s1">I never liked seeing that very much. So I run as hard as I can from it.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>Was religion a big part of your household when you were growing up? Now, as a dad, is religion part of your household?</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">Vince Gill: Growing up, religion was not a huge part of my household. We went to church for a pretty good while, and then my brother had an accident — car accident — and it was pretty traumatic for the family, and very devastating to him. He was in a coma for months, and not expected to live. And I don’t remember, I don’t even know if that’s when we quit going to church, but I kind of feel like it. That’s what happened. I think sometimes, when something really tragic happens, people either run <i>to</i> God or run away from God, and I think my family had a tendency to maybe run away. And I still sought out a bit of church life, even just as a kid, teenage kid. Some of my buddies went to church, and we played on the ball teams. So church had a great — it was a great experience for me. But maybe more because of athletics than sermons, you know. I don’t know. I don’t remember enough to know. </span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">After I took off and got out of school, I had no church life to speak of. And then, as you have children, as you get older and you hopefully gain a little bit of wisdom and whatnot, I’ve found myself getting back into a church life. I don’t think that I was ever a non-believer, it just didn’t make a lot of sense for me to wind up in church, because I was never home, and I was never home on a weekend. So church life was not something that I could really accomplish. And then Amy (Grant) and I got married nearly ten years ago, and… I’m back in the church house! Thank God! But I think, as you travel the world, you realize everybody’s got to believe in something. It doesn’t have to be one thing. It’s not the right thing (or) the wrong thing. I always felt like I’d rather be forgiven than be right. I got in my heart what I feel is the way to act, the way to treat people, and (if) people are kind to each other and friendly and fair and all that, that would solve most all the problems right there.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>We were discussing music earlier, and you said it might be indefinable.</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">Vince Gill: Sure. I love the analogy of there is no definition of it. </span><span class="s1">Count Basie said it best. He said, “There’s two kinds of music, good and bad.” You either like it or you don’t. And it’s so subjective, because what you like, I may not. What he may like, I may not. Vice versa. And that’s what’s so beautiful to me about music is that there is no score at the end of it. There’s no bottom line to it. Whether you’re — you do something with math and then there’s a solution to the problem. You do something with the budget and there’s a solution to the problem. There’s an end to the book. With music, it’s just floating up there in the air. Especially live music. I love live music because it’s just experienced at that moment. And I really am a — I like to live in the moment. I love the moment. I’m not too concerned about tomorrow and I don’t get too worked up over yesterday. I like to experience what’s right in front of me, and I don’t like to plan stuff. And that’s what I love about music. There’s really no result in a sense — of a fact or an answer or a solution — most things have. And it’s kind of like golf in a sense, because golf has a score, but it could always be better and it could always be worse.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>Is there a difference between musicians who can play by ear and musicians who read music?</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">Vince Gill: That’s a great question. I don’t know how I would interpret it, other than, I think all musicians can hear music. I enjoyed meeting some of the folks here. Joshua Bell is a great violinist, world class, and one of the young girls was at Julliard, and I asked her, “Are you able to play by ear? Are you able to improvise?” She goes yeah. And I said that’s rare for a trained player. A lot of trained players can only read the page and they’re playing by sight first and foremost. I think I play by feel and by hearing. I think they’re both equally as beautiful. I don’t think one is better than the other. So I don’t know the answer to that, to be honest.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>Could you tell us more about the importance of hearing, and listening to others, in your musical process? You spoke earlier about the democracy of music.</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">We had a lesson in church, Sunday school, it’s been several years ago, and it really just stuck with me. There was a go-around question that everybody in the class would answer. They said, “Okay, you have to give up one of the following, what will you give up? Your ability to speak, your ability to see, or your ability to hear?” I was the only one on the whole class that said the ability to hear. Because they said, “Oh it’s better to be silent, I’d rather not speak,” or “I’d hate to not see, and the beauty of this and that.” And I go, “It’s a slam dunk for me. If I can’t hear, I’m dead,” because the world speaks to me through my ears more so than my eyes. And I think that your eyes will lie to you. Your eyes will judge something before you ever know what it is. But your ears won’t. And if I have my eyes closed, I don’t know whether a man’s wearing a tuxedo or he’s dressed in rags. I don’t know if he’s white, I don’t know if he’s black, I don’t know anything about him. And I think that’s why I love music so much, and I’m not sold on videos and the music becoming a visual entity. I liked it when I put on a record and I saw my own pictures, I saw the story. It spoke to me through my ears. And so my ears are — they’re kind of the center of it all. They’re what tell me what to play. I try to play like I would sing, and then sing like I would play.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">My ears tell me to do all that stuff. As far as music, to me, being a democracy — music without language doesn’t have anything attached to it that defines it. It’s just sound. Once the language is on it, and it’s in Spanish, you may not know what they’re saying, so then it’s different. But just in its raw state, to me, it’s honest and it’s universal. It’s so many things. We claim to live in this democratic society, and we kind of do, but we certainly could improve it. That, to me, is what music is. It’s just people going, “Let’s all do this together,” and it creates this. I’m just glad I can hear!</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>You’ve recorded with an impressive list of people. What is it that makes your voice fit so well with so many different artists, with Dolly Parton or Reba McEntire?</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">Vince Gill: Once again, I hate to keep belaboring the point of my hearing and my ears, but that’s what points me. My ears are listening to what it is, and they’re telling me, “Do what’s appropriate. Do what fits.” And to me, that’s the exercise. Do what enhances what that other person does. It’s interesting, the majority of the work that I’ve done — arguably 90 percent of it — I’m just part of the supporting cast. It’s not always a duet. I’m not always a featured, equal performer, and therein lies the difference. It’s my job to go in there and help build this building, and put it together. Each job is different. Like in singing a duet you do a different job than when you’re a harmony singer or when you’re the guitar player. And you just know what your role is before you get started. Once again, your ears tell you that. You just kind of do what you’re supposed to as much as anything.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">I hear the difference between jazz and bluegrass, between country music and rock and roll. And whatever it is that you’re doing, you want to do what honors that in the most authentic way. That, to me, is what music should be, is authentic. It should be honest, and it should — you know, you don’t want something on something — well, it’s trying to be this but you’re making it — all of a sudden you’re sliding it in a different way. So I feel like that my job always in that role was to honor what it is you’re doing. When I’m singing with Diana Krall in my latest record, I’m trying to sing like Tony Bennett and Frank Sinatra and those guys, and honor that big traditional pop kind of thing, and croon like that. And then when I’m singing with Del McCoury, who’s the greatest bluegrass singer in the world, I’m trying to make it high and lonesome and twangy. And so that whatever I’m doing honors the genre, that it’s trying to fit in, and my ears still are kind of the pointing. And you’ve got to be a bit of a chameleon, you know. I’m proud in looking back at my career that I feel that my talent level is much broader because I don’t just do one thing.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>Your wife aside, who do you most like to write or play or perform with?</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">Vince Gill: Oh man, great question! Great question. I have the greatest admiration for the most gifted people. Just recently I got to work with Allison Krauss, Michael McDonald, people like that. I love being around the best of the best. There is nothing more inspiring than being around greatness. It’s beautiful.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">Coming to these seminars, symposiums, and these things that we do with the Academy of Achievement are inspiring, you know. They’re life-changing. I’m hearing things and seeing things that I never would have seen before. I know for a fact I never would have gone to that orphanage like I did yesterday, or heard this man speak that was in prison. When you’re only caught up in your own little piece of world and you get a really nice dose of what else is going on… man! I’ve got songs flying around in my head about what I’ve experienced. I want to go home and sit down and sing a song about Rosie Mashale, the girl that runs the orphanage, and Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela. You get around these people that have done really beautiful things and you’re inspired.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>In the late ’90s, you returned to a hardcore country sound. Was there a connection between going through tough times and going back to that sound?</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">Vince Gill: Yeah. I’m sure you’re referring to a record called <i>The Key</i>. </span><span class="s1">My dad died in ’97, and I guess more than anything — I went through a divorce and all that — but what drew me to want to make a country record — real traditional country record — is I saw it waning in the amount of it that was being recorded, and the amount of it that was getting played on the radio. And I missed it. It’s that simple. I love it to begin with, but I missed it. And then there was my father passing on. He was gone, and it made me remember all those records as a little boy that I heard, that he and my mom would play in my house, and you know, going through the record collection and singing Patsy Cline and Merle Haggard and Buck Owens and Johnny Cash and Webb Pierce. You know, on and on and on. All these great, great records. And I wanted to, I don’t know, I just always followed my heart and that’s what my heart was kind of all about in that period of time. And, you know, a little bit of the rebel in me was wanting to prove a point that they wouldn’t play any really traditional country music, and I was right! And they didn’t play that record very much!</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">I always want to follow what’s in my heart and be honest about it. I’m at the mercy of whatever songs turn up. I love to write songs, and I love to write songs with people that I have a connection with. I’ve got a lot of folks that I’ve written songs with for years and years and years.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">I make new friends, I write songs with new people, young people, try to get a perspective from a 25-year-old kid that’s really talented, but who’s going to see life totally different at 25 years than I will at 50-something. And once again, just trying to experience it, and I want to be welcoming of the next generation of young people. Not necessarily that they could learn something from me, that’s not the exercise. The fact is that we could just collaborate together and have something that might be great.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>You’ve played for presidents, you’ve played for heads of state in small rooms, and you’ve played for crowds, tens of thousands of seats filled with the energy from your fans. How different is that? What do you love about performing?</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">Vince Gill: Well, the reason any of us perform is we want to be responded to. We love that instant gratification, hoping what we do is inspiring, is enjoyable, whatever you want to call it. It’s not more fun to play for the President than it is a bunch of guys in the honky tonk, you know. There’s a fun factor in both, and there’s also a factor that’s not so fun in both.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">You get the best feeling when you’re playing live. It’s not who it is you’re playing for, but it’s what they respond with. So if you’re playing and you get the polite “golf clap,” you feel like, “Man, I’m not doing so good here.” Then you get a “Raahh!” That’s a great feeling. It’s adrenalin, it’s all that stuff. You can feel the warmth of a crowd by the way they applaud. I know that sounds crazy, but there’s crowds that are screamers, you know, there might be 15,000 people — and I love seeing it with younger acts. They’ll say, “Now watch the reaction. There’s 15,000 people in here, but very few of them are going to clap, they’re all going to scream, and then there’s going to be this giant scream and then it’s going to be nothing.” And then maybe an older crowd, they’re going to all applaud, nobody’s going to yell or anything, but that applause is deeper and there’s a warmth to it. It’s all totally different.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">Then there’s the indifferent crowd that’s still talking while you’re performing. There’s a Texas crowd that, if they like you, they dance. You know, you’re playing a beer joint or a honky tonk. The beauty of a crowd is every one of them is different. Every single one of them is different. It took me years to realize that if you play in Texas and they don’t dance, they don’t like you. You know, when you play in the beer joints in Texas, if they’re dancing, they like you. They don’t applaud, but they dance. You always want to play for people that are crazy about you. That’s the greatest feeling in the world. It’s like a kid, you know. When he does something great, he’s looking for… “Where’s Mom and Dad?” They want that. And a musician is no different. You can play for a private function where they’re paying you a fortune, but you’re just part of the window dressing in that sense. Nobody bought a ticket to come and see you. They’re all different.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">The best feeling I’ve ever had in my life — playing for, oh, 40 years in front of people now — was in Ireland. And they didn’t know my music that well there, but there’s something about music in that country that it goes deeper. It means more. It has more depth. And I’ll never, ever forget that. That reaction was spiritual. And it was unlike anything I’d ever heard, you know. And I’ve been in front of a lot of great audiences. Being in the world of bluegrass for so many years was a great training ground for me, in that the crowds that came to that kind of music were big lovers of that music or they wouldn’t be there. So you’re getting started and you’re feeling like, “Man, they really love this.” And it’s the best feeling in the world when you’re playing and people are listening, and they show their appreciation. It’s the only way you know really how you’re getting on.</span></p> <figure id="attachment_10098" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-10098" style="width: 4256px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><noscript><img class="wp-image-10098 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235227im_/https://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-019-GettyImages_85236784.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="wp-image-10098 size-full lazyload" alt="Guitarist extraordinaire Larry Carlton, known for his work with The Crusaders and Steely Dan, seen here at the North Sea Jazz Festival in 2007. He was a hero to the young VInce Gill. (© Getty Images) " width="4256" height="2848" data-sizes="(max-width: 4256px) 100vw, 4256px" data-srcset="/web/20200917235227im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-019-GettyImages_85236784.jpg 4256w, /web/20200917235227im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-019-GettyImages_85236784-380x254.jpg 380w, /web/20200917235227im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-019-GettyImages_85236784-760x509.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235227/https://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-019-GettyImages_85236784.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-10098" class="wp-caption-text">Guitarist extraordinaire Larry Carlton, known for his work with The Crusaders and Steely Dan, seen here at the North Sea Jazz Festival in 2007. He was a hero to the young VInce Gill. (© Getty Images)</figcaption></figure> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>You’ve played with Ricky Skaggs, Amy Grant, Barbra Streisand. What is it like to perform with these people and for their audience?</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">Vince Gill: I’ve done every conceivable kind of gig there is. There’s nothing that’s going to surprise me anymore. I’ve been the opening act, I’ve been the middle act, I’ve been the headliner. I’ve been the act that nobody’s ever heard of. I got booked in a gig one time at a college during spring break, nobody came. You have to have tolerance, you know. And the older you get… Before, I’d go out and I’d be real disappointed that more people didn’t come. Now I go out and I go, “Somebody came! Yippee!” Your perspective changes, just like with anything else, with a little bit of life experience and some wisdom and hard knocks and what not.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">One instance really stands out. I played, when I was playing in Pure Prairie League, and one of my heroes opened for us, it was Larry Carlton. He’s a guitar player that most people aren’t going to know, not a household name, but he played on Steely Dan records and was one of the greatest session players in Los Angeles. A brilliant guitar player, one of my favorites of all time. And I went up to him afterwards, and I go, “Man, this is wrong! You’re one of the greatest guitar players ever and there’s no way that you should have opened for us.” He goes, “Man, it doesn’t matter where you play. Just play.” It was great advice to get as a kid.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">So I don’t worry too much about it. If you have enough savvy, you know what kind of crowd you’re playing to. They came to see you, so give them what they want. Striking that balance, after a long career with a lot of songs that are familiar, but you have new songs that you want to play. Striking that balance where everybody feels like they enjoyed what they saw.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">My mind is never on the show so to speak, it’s about the playing and the singing. And we don’t dance around, we don’t jump off the stage, we don’t do anything other than sing and play. So some people would come to my show and go, “Man, this guy’s boring! All he does it just stand there and sing.” But that’s my definition of what it is that I love and what I like. So I just do what it is that I’ve always enjoyed in other people. I never went to hear anybody and see how good they could run around. I wanted to hear them play and sing! That was entertaining to me.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>You said you’ve played as an opening act, headliner, and everything in the middle, but when Eric Clapton asks you to play at the Crossroads Guitar Festival, do you have a different reaction to that?</b></span></p> <figure id="attachment_10099" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-10099" style="width: 2299px" class="wp-caption alignright"><noscript><img class="wp-image-10099 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235227im_/https://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-020GettyImages_88754186.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="wp-image-10099 size-full lazyload" alt="Legendary guitarist and vocalist Eric Clapton performs in Oakland, California in June 2009. Clapton invited Vince Gill to perform at his Crossroads Guitar Festival, and to collaborate in the studio. (© Getty Images)" width="2299" height="3000" data-sizes="(max-width: 2299px) 100vw, 2299px" data-srcset="/web/20200917235227im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-020GettyImages_88754186.jpg 2299w, /web/20200917235227im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-020GettyImages_88754186-291x380.jpg 291w, /web/20200917235227im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-020GettyImages_88754186-582x760.jpg 582w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235227/https://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-020GettyImages_88754186.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-10099" class="wp-caption-text">Legendary guitarist and vocalist Eric Clapton performs in Oakland, California in June 2009. Clapton invited Vince Gill to perform at his Crossroads Guitar Festival, and to collaborate in the studio. (© Getty Images)</figcaption></figure> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">Vince Gill: Yeah. I had no idea the impact that that would have on me, because he called me and he said, “I’m only inviting people I like.” And I was the only guy from the world of country music that got invited to come and play at the festival in ’04.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">And I was going through a period where they’d stopped playing my records so much on radio. My popularity was, in a sense, declining, and I was kind of going through that, “Man, I’m doing some good work here and nobody — I don’t know why they’re not responding to it like they used to.” And so to be seen once again in the definition that I always had for myself, to be seen by him as that was such a great gift. I said, “Man, he sees me as just a guitar player. That’s all I ever wanted to be. So I’m okay again.”</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">It felt great, and we became friends and I got to play the next one in ’07. And the beauty of all that is, you know, we’ve got a healthy dose of insecurity in us, you know, and self-doubt. And I’m the king of self-deprecation. I love to pick on me first. It puts everybody else at ease. But in saying that…</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">In saying that we’re all a little bit insecure, I’m in New York, Eric is recording one of my songs, and he asked me to come up and play on it. I’m scared to death, you know. And for, really, for the reason that I’m going, “Okay, I’m not afraid to play,” but I’m afraid that he has such a great gift for sounding great. His tone is always like unbelievably great. I said, “So my fear is my tone won’t be great. I know I can play, but I have to sound great.” So I’m insecure, and I’m scared, and we’d been tracking for a few hours and having a lot of fun, and he’s playing electric guitar and I’m playing acoustic guitar, and I’m great because I’ve got a little part that’s working and fitting right in there. And I’m comfortable and not really beating myself up too bad. And he says, “All right Vince, you play electric this time and I’ll play acoustic.” And I went, “Well, why do we want to do that? You have just completely obliterated this song and torched it into the dirt, you know. It’s so good.” And I didn’t really, that didn’t last too long. He said, “We’ll both play electric.” So we started tracking again, and we had a take that we liked, and we were listening to it, and it was just him, myself and the engineer sitting in the control booth. And here, arguably, one of the greatest guitar players that ever lived — in Eric Clapton — is sitting behind the board. I’m sitting over there on the other side of the board on the couch and I’m looking over between the speakers, and he played something, I went, “Oh God, that sounds so good, that’s so great,” you know. And then I played something, and I’m sitting there thinking, “Oh man, my tone is just, it sounds small compared to Eric.” And right at that moment Eric says, “Has his guitar got reverb on it?” The engineer said, “No.” And he said, “Make mine sound that good.” And I’m just going, “I give up,” you know, we’re all the same. And once again, there was a neat lesson in that. Even though here’s the — arguably the greatest of the great — he’s still got a few insecurity issues like the rest of us!</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>Could you tell us about your experience hosting the CMA (Country Music Association) Awards on television. What was that like the first time?</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">They called and asked if I would co-host the Country Music Awards with Reba. And we were great friends and we had just had a semi-hit with a duet together, and I said, “Yeah, I’d love to.” I had no expectation of being a great host, and I knew I’d have her and we’d have a lot of fun together because we were great friends. And I enjoyed it and it went really well, and I made people laugh, I made people feel comfortable. And I won an award that night, I think, or two. And so it was a win-win for me, and everybody liked it, and they asked me to do it the next year and the next and the next. And so I felt like my role was to make everybody look good, even at my own expense sometimes, and that was okay with me too. And I did it for 12 years. And I promised myself, I said, “Man, if I ever walk out there and I’m hosting this show and I get this vibe from the people of ‘Oh God, not him again!’ you know,” I said, “Then I want to quit.” And as it turned out, I was the one that walked out and went, “Oh God, not me again!” And I had just kind of grown tired of it. I enjoyed doing it, I enjoyed doing that role for all of country music. But in the later years, I didn’t feel like I was quite in the mix as an artist as those first seven, eight, nine, ten years, whatever it was. And I just said, “I have a feeling people are seeing me more as the host guy than that musician that burns inside of me and that artist that burns inside of me. I don’t want to be that guy, I’d rather be this guy.” And so I said I need to quit doing this. I want people to see me as an artist again. So I quit doing it, and I’m glad that I did.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">You know, they started going to arenas to do the show, and I never felt like a host has a chance to own the room in an arena like they do in a small room. The years that I did it was at the Opry House in Nashville, and it only seats 4,400 people. So there’s that setting of intimacy, but once it turns to 15,000 it’s really hard. Even now, I go as a fan, and as a performer, whatever, it’s really disconnected. It feels so disconnected because the place is so big. And there’s a tradeoff sometimes if you lose that intimacy and you’re trying to connect to people in that job. It’s a lot tougher, so I just didn’t want to do it anymore. I just wanted to step away. I’m just doing this because I can do it pretty good and I have a good time with it. The people like when I mess with them and introduce them. I felt like I did a good job, but if that was the only job that I felt like I was contributing, I needed to honor the musician in me a little more.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>You just mentioned being a fan. Whose shows do you go to today as a fan?</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">Vince Gill: I go to some, I don’t go to a lot. I still like clubs. I like small venues. I went to see James Taylor when he came to town, Sheryl Crow when she plays in town. Just whoever I’m a fan of. I like to go out to some shows and see people, because it’s still inspiring today, as it was when I was a kid and going to see my favorite bands. I don’t travel as much as I used to, so I’m home more and it’s easier to get out and see some folks.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>How long have you been a member of the Grand Ole Opry? What is its importance to you?</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">Vince Gill: I’ve been a member for nearly 20 years with the Grand Ole Opry. And I enjoy that place because it really honors the history of the music. You can go on a Saturday night and see a man that’s 88 years old, still playing and singing at the Grand Ole Opry, Little Jimmy Dickens. You see a kid that’s just made his first record, and everything in between. So it has a reverence for its past, which I love. Anytime I hear music that makes me feel or think of the past, then I think it has reverence and it has honor. And it’s been there for 84 years now. Eighty-three. It will be 84 in — it started the same time as my mother was born, in the fall of ’25. And my mom will be 84 this year. And so they’re exactly the same age. It holds all the history of country music, not just the top 20 of the charts today. And I like that so much. I love the friendships that I’ve made out there even more so than the love of their music. I love getting to know them as people and become their friends. And some of those people that made the records that I first heard as a little boy, I’m out there sitting around with on a Saturday night, and telling dirty jokes with, you know. So I feel like I’m living, in a sense, some of my parent’s life too, because they were some of the folks that my parents liked as young fans of music. It just has an importance to me, that I feel like all those people paved the way, because that was the only thing that was going on in country music was the Grand Ole Opry.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">Radio was the only thing up until the 50’s where you ever heard country music. It was the end-all to end-all if you were on the Grand Ole Opry. It’s not that way today, obviously, because of the changes in our country and culture and technology and all that. But to me, it has such a beautiful reverence that I’m out there probably a lot more than any of my contemporaries that are also members. I like to play out there all the time, just because I love the fact that they’re still playing bluegrass out there on the stage, and Gospel music has a history, and comedy has a history, and old time string band music has a history, and western swing has a history out there. And it’s all elements of that music that’s gone on since the 20’s that you can hear in a single night, and really spend a night that has some impact on where we’ve been.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>We wanted to ask about the parenting style you and your wife practice in teaching philanthropy to your own family.</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">Vince Gill: Boy, being a parent is a hard job, I think, because in parenting you want your kids to like you. Too much sometimes. It’s a hard line to find between doing what’s necessary to give them the tools to be good kids and make good decisions and all that, versus just completely not giving them a chance to accomplish anything because you do everything for them. I kind of feel like it’s okay if these kids go out and make a few mistakes, because they’re going to learn.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">The last ten years have been interesting, because I’m a stepparent to three kids, and I’m a father to two kids, an older and a younger. And it’s a real interesting dynamic. I don’t really have a whole lot of parenting that I do with Amy’s three that are 21, 19 and 16 — Matt, Millie and Sarah. My oldest daughter is 27, and off and gone and succeeding in the world, and is a great kid and happy, and people like her. So that’s a great feeling as a father, just going, “People like my kid.” She’s got a good job and she’s out there getting it done, and she sings great.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">Our youngest is the one we parent together, and I still try to pull Amy aside and talk about things. She says, “What should I do?” and we go through all that together. But it’s different this time around, with an eight-year-old, because I’m on the backside of my career in a sense. Twenty-seven years ago I was trying to accomplish, trying to achieve — all the things that you want to do as a parent, and also as a person. So I think my oldest sometimes just rolls her eyes and goes, “Well, I’d never have gotten away with that.” You learn not to sweat the small stuff quite so much. You just try to arm them with the best possibility to make a good decision. That’s all you can ever hope for, to me, in a kid, is giving them a good choice to make. If there’s one of the choices in there that’s a good one, I think more often than not that the kids will make a good choice.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>In 1993 you started the “Vinny” Pro-Celebrity Golf Invitational to support junior golf. What motivated you to do that?</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">I had a great experience as a kid with junior golf, with the availability to play golf on all the courses in Oklahoma City, where I grew up. And I felt like if I did well in my career, it would afford me the opportunity to help out, and I’ve always wanted to be a charitable type person. I wanted to help other people out, and so I started this tournament to raise money for kids to have an opportunity for junior golf, for kids to have a place to play, and ability to play, and talent to play. So I started a fun golf tournament, and it’s lasted for 17 years. Raised about $4 or $5 million for kids across the state of Tennessee. And it’s got one of the best programs in the country for young people.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">They’re very supportive of young people, and I felt okay with doing that because of my past, and because I do all the other things as well, for sick kids and Make a Wish and St. Jude’s. I never felt like any cause was more important than any other. Let’s just do whatever we have time for. Let’s do them all, help them all out. So I don’t really just champion the one cause. I know I’ve done the golf tournament for 17 years, but I’ve done other things equally as long.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>What is the “All for the Hall” initiative?</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">I’m the President of the Board at the Country Music Hall of Fame, and when I got on the Board I would go to the meeting, kind of looking around, going, “I’m not doing anything, I don’t know why I’m here.” You know? And I asked the Director, whose name is Kyle Young, I said, “Why do you got me here, I’m not doing anything?” And he said, “Well, we like you,” and “Let’s find a way to make an impact here. What are the biggest problems we’ve got?” And one was, they built a beautiful new facility downtown. It cost a lot of money, and it was trying to make it work, pay it off and all that. And I said, “What’s the artist community done for the Hall of Fame?” And he goes, “Not much.” You know, you’ve got to be kidding me. And so this was built for them by pioneers that have come before them, and so I had this idea. I said, “I want everybody that plays music for a living to play one night for free.” I said, “If you’re Kenny Chesney and you play in front of 20,000 people, give us that money. If you’re this guy and you play in front of 200 people, give us that money. And just go out and play for the love of music one night during the year.” And so I invited, I don’t remember, 400 or 500 artists and musicians over to our house for dinner and tried to implant this seed of what they could do for the Hall of Fame. And there’s been a few people that have come on board and helped out, and it’s just slowly building, slowly growing. And it’s really neat, because I just feel like that if you really love music, you know, why wouldn’t you go play one night just for the love of playing music, instead of big box office and the big pocket full of cash, you know? Just book one more gig. You’ll get healed up pretty quick, you know.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">So there have been a few guys that have come on board, and we’ve raised a lot of money and we’ve done a couple of neat shows. We did one in New York City with Emmylou Harris, Rodney Crowell, myself and Levon Helm from The Band, and we’ve had some great people come and help out and do those things. We’re doing one in Los Angeles in October 2009. Who’s coming, I don’t even remember now. Just really neat, great people that have written songs and had great careers. Keith Urban’s going to help out. I wasn’t supposed to announce it yet. Who else? Rascal Flatts. A lot of people are coming on board, and I just figured that the artists’ community should make the biggest difference in the future of the Country Music Hall of Fame, because it houses everything that has been done to this point. And if there’s a more reverent place, I don’t know what it could possibly be than the Country Music Hall of Fame.</span></p> <figure id="attachment_10095" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-10095" style="width: 3000px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><noscript><img class="wp-image-10095 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235227im_/https://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-016-GettyImages_74177666.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="wp-image-10095 size-full lazyload" alt="Vince Gill performs at the 42nd Annual CMA (Country Music Association) Awards. Gill hosted the event for 12 consecutive years from 1992 to 2003." width="3000" height="2239" data-sizes="(max-width: 3000px) 100vw, 3000px" data-srcset="/web/20200917235227im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-016-GettyImages_74177666.jpg 3000w, /web/20200917235227im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-016-GettyImages_74177666-380x284.jpg 380w, /web/20200917235227im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-016-GettyImages_74177666-760x567.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235227/https://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-016-GettyImages_74177666.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-10095" class="wp-caption-text">Vince Gill performs at the 42nd Annual CMA (Country Music Association) Awards. Gill hosted the event for 12 consecutive years from 1992 to 2003.</figcaption></figure> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">Vince Gill: That was a headscratcher. I was so grateful that it happened to me so young. A lot of people felt that I was too young. Me included, to some extent. But they passed a new law in the eligibility of being able to be inducted. The laws that were in place said you had to start your career prior to 1975, and there are so many people since 1975 that would obviously be great additions to the Hall of Fame. So they started, I think four years ago now, a new category that didn’t have to be prior to 1975. So the first year was Alabama, the second year was George Strait, and the third year was me.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">So I felt like I’ve had a great career. I like to look at my career in the entirety of all of the supporting roles I’ve played in music in addition to just my own artistry. And I don’t feel quite so weird about being inducted when I look at it in its entirety and think of all the years and all the records and all the things that I’ve tried to do to help the music.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">And I also understand that the only reason it was possible is because they changed the eligibility. So I said, “Well maybe I do have a chance now in my lifetime,” and it came quite a bit sooner than I ever hoped it would. It can’t get any better than that. I didn’t have anything to do with it, other than create what I’ve created over the years. There’s a committee of, I think, 300 voters throughout the industry, and nobody really knows who they are. I know who a few of them are. But there’s a list that comes before them of several names and they just vote who they think is deserving. So they voted, and I’m trilled to death.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>What do you see as the next great challenge in music, country music, American music?</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">Vince Gill: The technology is kind of ahead of the curve of the ability for everybody to be paid properly in a sense. That’s the biggest issue I see, is the people that are able to get the music for nothing. And that impacts songwriters, it impacts publishers, it impacts so many people that most people wouldn’t even think about, that they’re part of the income stream that makes a living out of the music business. And I feel like, if you think about a download costing a dollar of a single song, with iTunes, or whichever of those companies you use, that’s what you paid for a single record in the late 50’s and early 60’s. I’d like you to find me something that costs the same thing today as it did then, and wonder how we’re expected to survive. So there are great challenges because of the technology being able to decimate our industry. But regardless of all that stuff, they’ll all figure out how the new business model is going to work and it will be fine. Because people are always going to want and crave and need the creative process. So I never fear that music will go on. It will live on and it will inspire and it will change the world. It will do all the same things that it’s always done. When something’s great, it’s just great. It doesn’t matter if it’s 1920 or 2010, you know, great is great.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>What do you think you know about achievement now that you didn’t know when you were younger?</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">I think I’ve learned that the result is not as important as the work. I feel like the journey is more important than where I wound up at the end of the journey. The end of the journey is not the exercise, it’s the journey. And I feel the same way with my achievements — with the tools that I had to achieve them with — felt as great at 17 as they do at 52. As you grow, and as you get older, all you’re hoping to do is get better at what it is that you’re doing. I know I sing better, play better, write better today than I did ten years ago, 20 years ago, 30 years ago. All the above. And I heard Kenny Rogers speak not long ago, and he said something that was pretty impactful to me. He hadn’t made a record in a long time, and they said, “Why did you make a record? You haven’t made one in a long time. Were you worried that it might not be successful?” And he says, “My interest was not making a record that was successful, it was making a record that was significant.” And I just loved the heart in that, because that to me is the equivalent of an achievement.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">The things that I’ve achieved that feel the best, are actually things I received. In the sense that I think I’m giving something to someone, and then in turn I got something back that I never expected. It’s the unexpected thing that you receive that to me is a better definition of achievement than what you do for yourself.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>What does the American Dream mean to you?</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">The American Dream to me is, it’s a fair chance. I think that’s all anybody could ever want and anybody could ever expect. I see an awful lot of people that think they’re entitled to things. You’ve got to earn them, you know. They have to be earned. You’re not entitled to — you know. You parent a kid, and they think they’re entitled to every toy on the shelf. And you just go, I don’t think so. To me, that’s what I’d like to see. The American Dream for me would be a fair chance for everybody, not just the “haves.” You see a lot of life where most people are too hung up on the pecking order of things, and not everyone does get a fair chance. It was always my argument with my father about anything was, until there’s a level playing field, you can’t have a right answer to something. So that would be my definition of the American Dream is a fair chance for everybody.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>What do you think will be one of the big achievements in the next quarter century?</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">Vince Gill: Oh boy. I’m hoping it’s wisdom we find in ourselves to think about the world instead of ourselves. If we could find a way to put ourselves last instead of first, I think we’d be better off. I think there are things we do that just obliterate the planet, and it’s mostly out of greed and selfishness that that comes from. So hopefully we can find a way to put ourselves last instead of first.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>Here’s our last question. What advice would you want to give your grandchildren to leave behind as your verbal footprint?</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">Vince Gill: Be kind.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>Thank you so much for sitting down with us today.</b></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">Vince Gill: it’s been a pleasure.</span></p> </body></html> </div>  </aside>  <div class="read-more__toggle collapsed" data-toggle="collapse" data-target="#full-interview"><a href="#" class="sans-4 btn">Read full interview</a></div> </article> </section> </div> <div class="tab-pane" id="gallery" role="tabpanel"> <section class="isotope-wrapper">  <header class="toolbar toolbar--gallery bg-white clearfix"> <div class="col-md-6"> <div class="serif-4">Vince Gill Gallery</div> </div> <div class="col-md-6 text-md-right isotope-toolbar"> <ul class="list-unstyled list-inline m-b-0 text-brand-primary sans-4"> <li class="list-inline-item" data-filter=".photo"><i class="icon-icon_camera"></i>29 photos</li> </ul> </div> </header> <div class="isotope-gallery isotope-box single-achiever__gallery clearfix"> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66710526315789" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-023-IMG_3730.jpg" data-image-caption="Vince Gill and his wife, Amy Grant, with Chris Matthews, Maggie Daley, Jeremy Irons and Kathleen Matthews at the 2009 International Achievement Summit in South Africa. (© Academy of Achievement)" data-image-copyright="gil0-023-IMG_3730" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-023-IMG_3730-380x253.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-023-IMG_3730-760x507.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66710526315789" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-028-Amy_Grant_James_Taylor_and_Vince_Gill.jpg" data-image-caption="Amy Grant, James Taylor, and Vince Gill performing together at Tanglewood in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, July 2011. " data-image-copyright="gil0-028-Amy_Grant,_James_Taylor,_and_Vince_Gill" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-028-Amy_Grant_James_Taylor_and_Vince_Gill-380x253.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-028-Amy_Grant_James_Taylor_and_Vince_Gill-760x507.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.4084821428571" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-027-loveless_gill_Capture.jpg" data-image-caption="Vince Gill and Patty Loveless sang together on numerous recordings, beginning in the 1980s. Here they attend a charity gala in Los Angeles, 1993. (Photo by Ron Galella, Ltd/WireImage)" data-image-copyright="gil0-027-loveless_gill_Capture" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-027-loveless_gill_Capture-270x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-027-loveless_gill_Capture.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.2258064516129" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-026-patty-loveless.jpg" data-image-caption="Singer Patty Loveless. Vince Gill sang harmony on many of her records. She returned the favor, adding her harmony to his breakthrough hit, "When I Call Your Name." " data-image-copyright="gil0-026-patty-loveless" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-026-patty-loveless-310x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-026-patty-loveless-620x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66710526315789" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-025-IMG_3986.jpg" data-image-caption="Amy Grant sings "El Shaddai" at St. George's Cathedral in Cape Town, South Africa, during the 2009 International Achievement Summit. (© Academy of Achievement)" data-image-copyright="gil0-025-IMG_3986" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-025-IMG_3986-380x253.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-025-IMG_3986-760x507.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.4990138067061" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-024-IMG_6609.jpg" data-image-caption="Vince Gill finds a comfortable spot while listening to an afternoon symposium at the Singita Sabi Sand Game Reserve during the 2009 International Achievement Summit in South Africa. (© Academy of Achievement)" data-image-copyright="gil0-024-IMG_6609" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-024-IMG_6609-253x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-024-IMG_6609-507x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.4990138067061" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-022-Gill-young.jpg" data-image-caption="March 18, 1989: Singer Vince Gill in the press room at the Academy of Country Music Awards. (Photo by Time Life Pictures/DMI/Time Life Pictures/Getty Images)" data-image-copyright="Vince Gill" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-022-Gill-young-254x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-022-Gill-young-507x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66447368421053" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-021-crowellBgPetillo300-credit-Thomas-Petillo.jpg" data-image-caption="Singer and songwriter Rodney Crowell. Vince Gill played in Crowell's band, The Cherry Bombs, in the 1980s. (© Thomas Petillo 2009)" data-image-copyright="gil0-021-crowellBgPetillo300 credit Thomas Petillo" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-021-crowellBgPetillo300-credit-Thomas-Petillo-380x252.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-021-crowellBgPetillo300-credit-Thomas-Petillo-760x505.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.3058419243986" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-020GettyImages_88754186.jpg" data-image-caption="Legendary guitarist and vocalist Eric Clapton performs in Oakland, California in June 2009. Clapton invited Vince Gill to perform at his Crossroads Guitar Festival, and to collaborate in the studio. (© Getty Images)" data-image-copyright="Eric Clapton in Concert - Oakland, CA" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-020GettyImages_88754186-291x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-020GettyImages_88754186-582x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66973684210526" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-019-GettyImages_85236784.jpg" data-image-caption="Guitarist extraordinaire Larry Carlton, known for his work with The Crusaders and Steely Dan, seen here at the North Sea Jazz Festival in 2007. He was a hero to the young VInce Gill. (© Getty Images) " data-image-copyright="Photo of Larry CARLTON" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-019-GettyImages_85236784-380x254.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-019-GettyImages_85236784-760x509.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.71710526315789" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-018-GettyImages_78879767.jpg" data-image-caption="Vince Gill and Reba McEntire co-host the 38th annual Country Music Association (CMA) Awards in 2003. (© Getty Images) " data-image-copyright="38th Annual Academy of Country Music Awards - Show" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-018-GettyImages_78879767-380x272.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-018-GettyImages_78879767-760x545.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.4990138067061" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-017-GettyImages_75952533.jpg" data-image-caption="Vince Gill performs with his wife, gospel star Amy Grant, on NBC's "Today Show" in 2003. (© Getty Images)" data-image-copyright="Vince Gill, Amy Grant, Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker Appear on NBC?s "Today" - August 3, 2007" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-017-GettyImages_75952533-253x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-017-GettyImages_75952533-507x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.74605263157895" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-016-GettyImages_74177666.jpg" data-image-caption="Vince Gill performs at the 42nd annual Country Music Association (CMA) Awards. Gill hosted the event for 12 consecutive years from 1992 to 2003." data-image-copyright="42nd Annual Academy Of Country Music Awards - Show" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-016-GettyImages_74177666-380x284.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-016-GettyImages_74177666-760x567.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.76973684210526" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-015-GettyImages_72787197.jpg" data-image-caption="Vince Gill performing in a 2006 concert at the Las Vegas Hilton. (© Getty Images)" data-image-copyright="Vince Gill In Concert At The Las Vegas Hilton" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-015-GettyImages_72787197-380x293.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-015-GettyImages_72787197-760x585.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.2438625204583" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-014-PEN3411.jpg" data-image-caption="Hank Williams, composer of country classics such as "Cold, Cold Heart," "Jambalaya" and "Your Cheatin' Heart." His influence can be heard in the work of songwriters to this day. (© Corbis)" data-image-copyright="Portrait of Hank Williams Posing with Band Members" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-014-PEN3411-305x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-014-PEN3411-611x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.2881355932203" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-013-42-17407550.jpg" data-image-caption="Hank Williams performs at the Hadacol Caravan Show in Columbus, Ohio, September 1951. (© Corbis)" data-image-copyright="Hank Williams in Concert at the Hadacol Caravan Show" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-013-42-17407550-295x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-013-42-17407550-590x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66710526315789" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-011-family-on-jeep-IMG_4758.jpg" data-image-caption="Vince Gill and Amy Grant depart for a game drive with family members at the Singita Sabi Sand Game Reserve during the 2009 International Achievement Summit in South Africa. (© Academy of Achievement)" data-image-copyright="gil0-011-family on jeep IMG_4758" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-011-family-on-jeep-IMG_4758-380x253.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-011-family-on-jeep-IMG_4758-760x507.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66710526315789" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-010-gill-family-2-IMG_4750.jpg" data-image-caption="Vince Gill and his wife, Amy Grant, with family members, at the 2009 International Achievement Summit in South Africa. (© Academy of Achievement)" data-image-copyright="gil0-010-gill-family-2-IMG_4750" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-010-gill-family-2-IMG_4750-380x253.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-010-gill-family-2-IMG_4750-760x507.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.4100185528757" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-009.jpg" data-image-caption="Vince Gill as a schoolboy in Oklahoma City. (Courtesy of Vince Gill)" data-image-copyright="Vince Gill as a schoolboy in Oklahoma, City. (Courtesy of Vince Gill)" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-009-269x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-009-539x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.68026315789474" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-008.jpg" data-image-caption="For Christmas 1967, Vince Gill's parents gave him his first professional instrument, a Gibson ES-335 electric guitar. He still has it. (Courtesy of Vince Gill)" data-image-copyright="gil0-008" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-008-380x259.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-008-760x517.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.4373333333333" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-007.jpg" data-image-caption="Vince Gill enjoys a new football on Christmas morning. (Courtesy of Vince Gill)" data-image-copyright="gil0-007" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-007-264x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-007.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.69210526315789" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-006.jpg" data-image-caption="Vince Gill began his career as a teenager, playing with bluegrass bands in Oklahoma City and the surrounding area. (Courtesy of Vince Gill)" data-image-copyright="gil0-006" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-006-380x263.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-006-760x526.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.3996316758748" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-005.jpg" data-image-caption="Vince Gill as a baby in Norman, Oklahoma. (Courtesy of Vince Gill)" data-image-copyright="Vince Gill as a baby in Norman, Oklahoma. (Courtesy of Vince Gill)" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-005-271x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-005-543x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.68947368421053" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-004.jpg" data-image-caption="Vince Gill and his father, Jay Stanley Gill, an administrative law judge and country music enthusiast who gave Vince his first guitar lessons. (Courtesy of Vince Gill)" data-image-copyright="gil0-004" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-004-380x262.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-004-760x524.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.3919413919414" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-003.jpg" data-image-caption="A young Vince Gill with his older brother, Bob. Vince Gill wrote "Go Rest High on That Mountain" after his brother died in 1993. (Courtesy of Vince Gill)" data-image-copyright="gil0-003" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-003-273x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-003-546x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.68421052631579" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-002.jpg" data-image-caption="Vince Gill left home at 18 to embark on a musical career: "Just getting out there and jumping in the middle of the water and seeing how deep it is." (Courtesy of Vince Gill)" data-image-copyright="gil0-002" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-002-380x260.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-002-760x520.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66710526315789" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-001.jpg" data-image-caption="Vince Gill and his wife, Amy Grant, entertain the student delegates at the Ntshuxekani pre-school in Justicia, South Africa during the 2009 International Achievement Summit. (© Academy of Achievement)" data-image-copyright="gil0-001" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-001-380x253.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gil0-001-760x507.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.8" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Gill-Vince-and-Amy-Grant-on-stage-with-Military-Choir-behind-them.jpg" data-image-caption="" data-image-copyright="gill-vince-and-amy-grant-on-stage-with-military-choir-behind-them" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Gill-Vince-and-Amy-Grant-on-stage-with-Military-Choir-behind-them-380x304.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Gill-Vince-and-Amy-Grant-on-stage-with-Military-Choir-behind-them-760x608.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66710526315789" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/WP-2280-et-IMG_3999-1.jpg" data-image-caption="2009: Awards Council members Amy Grant and Vince Gill perform “El Shaddai” with 300 members of South Africa’s best children’s choirs — the internationally renowned Tygerberg children’s choir, the Kenmere Primary School Choir, the Kensington Chorale, the South African Youth Choir and the elite Voices of Angels group — seated in the background at St. George’s Cathedral in Cape Town during the 48th annual International Achievement Summit." data-image-copyright="WP-2280-et-IMG_3999" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/WP-2280-et-IMG_3999-1-380x253.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/05/WP-2280-et-IMG_3999-1-760x507.jpg"></div>  </figure>    </div> </section> </div> </div> <div class="container"> <footer class="editorial-article__footer col-md-8 col-md-offset-4"> <div class="editorial-article__next-link sans-3"> <a href="#"><strong>What's next:</strong> <span class="editorial-article__next-link-title">profile</span></a> </div> <ul class="social list-unstyled list-inline ssk-group m-b-0"> <li class="list-inline-item"><a href="" class="ssk ssk-facebook" data-gtm-category="social" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Shared Achiever on Facebook"><i class="icon-icon_facebook-circle"></i></a></li> <li class="list-inline-item"><a href="" class="ssk ssk-twitter" data-gtm-category="social" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Shared Achiever on Twitter"><i class="icon-icon_twitter-circle"></i></a></li>  <li 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class="ratio-container ratio-container--square bg-black"> <div class="lazyload box achiever-block__image" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/page-profile-square-190x190.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/01/page-profile-square-380x380.jpg"></div> <div class="achiever-block__overlay"></div> <figcaption class="text-xs-center achiever-block__text"> <div class="display--table"> <div class="display--table-cell"> <div class="achiever-block__text--center"> <div class="achiever-block__name text-brand-primary">Jimmy Page</div> <div class="achiever-block__known-as text-white sans-6">Guitarist and Founder of Led Zeppelin</div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="text-white achiever-block__text--bottom"> <div class="achiever-block__year sans-4">Inducted in <span class="year-inducted">2017</span></div> </div> </figcaption> </figure> </a> </div> </div> </div> </footer> </div> </div> </article> <div class="modal image-modal" id="imageModal" tabindex="-1" 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list m-b-0 list-unstyled"> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/hank-aaron/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Hank Aaron</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/kareem-abdul-jabbar/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Kareem Abdul-Jabbar</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/lynsey-addario/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lynsey Addario</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/edward-albee/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Edward Albee</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/tenley-albright-m-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Tenley Albright, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/svetlana-alexievich/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Svetlana Alexievich</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/julie-andrews/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Dame Julie Andrews</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/maya-angelou/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Maya Angelou</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/frances-h-arnold-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Frances H. Arnold, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/robert-d-ballard-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Robert D. Ballard, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/sir-roger-bannister-2/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sir Roger Bannister</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/john-banville/"><span class="achiever-list-name">John Banville</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/ehud-barak/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ehud Barak</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/lee-r-berger-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lee R. 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Black, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/elizabeth-blackburn/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Elizabeth Blackburn, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/david-boies-2/"><span class="achiever-list-name">David Boies</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/norman-e-borlaug/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Norman E. Borlaug, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/benjamin-c-bradlee/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Benjamin C. Bradlee</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/sergey-brin/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sergey Brin</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/carter-j-brown/"><span class="achiever-list-name">J. Carter Brown</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/linda-buck/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Linda B. Buck, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/carol-burnett/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Carol Burnett</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/george-h-w-bush/"><span class="achiever-list-name">George H. W. Bush</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/susan-butcher/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Susan Butcher</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/sir-michael-caine/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sir Michael Caine</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/james-cameron/"><span class="achiever-list-name">James Cameron</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/benjamin-s-carson/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Benjamin S. Carson, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/jimmy-carter/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Jimmy Carter</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/johnny-cash/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Johnny Cash</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/william-j-clinton/"><span class="achiever-list-name">William J. Clinton</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/francis-s-collins/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Francis S. Collins, M.D., Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/denton-a-cooley/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Denton A. Cooley, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/francis-ford-coppola/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Francis Ford Coppola</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/ray-dalio/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ray Dalio</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/olivia-de-havilland/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Dame Olivia de Havilland</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/michael-e-debakey-m-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Michael E. DeBakey, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/michael-dell/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Michael S. Dell</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/ron-dennis/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ron Dennis</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/joan-didion/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Joan Didion</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/david-herbert-donald-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">David Herbert Donald, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/david-doubilet/"><span class="achiever-list-name">David Doubilet</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/jennifer-a-doudna-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Jennifer A. Doudna, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/rita-dove/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Rita Dove</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/sylvia-earle/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sylvia Earle, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/elbaradei/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Mohamed ElBaradei</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/gertrude-elion/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Gertrude B. Elion, M.Sc.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/larry-j-ellison/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Larry J. Ellison</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/nora-ephron/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Nora Ephron</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/julius-erving/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Julius Erving</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/tony-fadell/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Tony Fadell</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/paul-farmer/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Paul Farmer, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/suzanne-farrell/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Suzanne Farrell</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/anthony-s-fauci-m-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Anthony S. Fauci, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/sally-field/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sally Field</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/lord-norman-foster/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lord Norman Foster</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/aretha-franklin/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Aretha Franklin</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/milton-friedman-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Milton Friedman, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/carlos-fuentes/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Carlos Fuentes</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/athol-fugard/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Athol Fugard</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/peter-gabriel/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Peter Gabriel</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/ernest-j-gaines/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ernest J. Gaines</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/william-h-gates-iii/"><span class="achiever-list-name">William H. Gates III</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/leymah-gbowee/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Leymah Gbowee</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/frank-gehry/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Frank O. Gehry</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/murray-gell-mann-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Murray Gell-Mann, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/carlos-ghosn/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Carlos Ghosn</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/vince-gill/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Vince Gill</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/ruth-bader-ginsburg/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ruth Bader Ginsburg</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/louise-gluck/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Louise Glück</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/whoopi-goldberg/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Whoopi Goldberg</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/jane-goodall/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Dame Jane Goodall</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/doris-kearns-goodwin/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Doris Kearns Goodwin, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/mikhail-s-gorbachev/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Mikhail S. Gorbachev</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/nadine-gordimer/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Nadine Gordimer</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/stephen-jay-gould/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Stephen Jay Gould, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/carol-greider-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Carol W. Greider, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/john-grisham/"><span class="achiever-list-name">John Grisham</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/sir-john-gurdon/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sir John Gurdon</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/dorothy-hamill/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Dorothy Hamill</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/demis-hassabis-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Demis Hassabis, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/lauryn-hill/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lauryn Hill</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/sir-edmund-hillary/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sir Edmund Hillary</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/reid-hoffman/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Reid Hoffman</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/khaled-hosseini/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Khaled Hosseini, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/ron-howard/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ron Howard</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/john-hume/"><span class="achiever-list-name">John Hume</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/louis-ignarro-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Louis Ignarro, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/daniel-inouye/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Daniel K. Inouye</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/jeremy-irons/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Jeremy Irons</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/john-irving/"><span class="achiever-list-name">John Irving</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/kazuo-ishiguro/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sir Kazuo Ishiguro</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/sir-peter-jackson/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sir Peter Jackson</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/donald-c-johanson/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Donald C. Johanson, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/frank-m-johnson/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Frank M. Johnson, Jr.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/philip-johnson/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Philip C. Johnson</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/chuck-jones/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Chuck Jones</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/james-earl-jones/"><span class="achiever-list-name">James Earl Jones</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/quincy-jones/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Quincy Jones</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/beverly-joubert/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Beverly Joubert</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/dereck-joubert/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Dereck Joubert</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/paul-kagame/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Paul Kagame</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/thomas-keller-2/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Thomas Keller</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/anthony-m-kennedy/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Anthony M. Kennedy</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/carole-king/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Carole King</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/b-b-king/"><span class="achiever-list-name">B.B. King</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/coretta-scott-king/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Coretta Scott King</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/henry-kissinger-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Henry A. Kissinger, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/willem-j-kolff/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Willem J. Kolff, M.D., Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/wendy-kopp/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Wendy Kopp</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/henry-r-kravis/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Henry R. Kravis</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/nicholas-d-kristof/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Nicholas D. Kristof</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/mike-krzyzewski/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Mike Krzyzewski</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/ray-kurzwell/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ray Kurzweil</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/eric-lander-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Eric S. Lander, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/robert-s-langer-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Robert S. Langer, Sc.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/richard-leakey/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Richard E. Leakey</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/leon-lederman-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Leon Lederman, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/robert-lefkowitz-m-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Robert J. Lefkowitz, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/congressman-john-r-lewis/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Congressman John R. Lewis</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/maya-lin/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Maya Lin</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/george-lucas/"><span class="achiever-list-name">George Lucas</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/paul-b-maccready-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Paul B. MacCready, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/norman-mailer/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Norman Mailer</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/peyton-manning/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Peyton Manning</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/wynton-marsalis/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Wynton Marsalis</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/john-c-mather-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">John C. Mather, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/johnny-mathis/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Johnny Mathis</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/ernst-mayr-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ernst Mayr, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/willie-mays/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Willie Mays</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/frank-mccourt/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Frank McCourt</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/david-mccullough/"><span class="achiever-list-name">David McCullough</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/audra-mcdonald/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Audra McDonald</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/admiral-william-h-mcraven/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Admiral William H. McRaven, USN</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/w-s-merwin/"><span class="achiever-list-name">W. S. Merwin</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/reinhold-messner/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Reinhold Messner</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/james-a-michener/"><span class="achiever-list-name">James A. Michener</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/marvin-minsky-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Marvin Minsky, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/mario-j-molina-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Mario J. Molina, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/n-scott-momaday-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">N. Scott Momaday, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/story-musgrave/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Story Musgrave, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/ralph-nader/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ralph Nader</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/peggy-noonan/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Peggy Noonan</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/jessye-norman/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Jessye Norman</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/tommy-norris/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lt. Thomas R. Norris, USN</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/joyce-carol-oates/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Joyce Carol Oates</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/pierre-omidyar/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Pierre Omidyar</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/jimmy-page/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Jimmy Page</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/larry-page/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Larry Page</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/arnold-palmer/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Arnold Palmer</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/leon-panetta/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Leon Panetta</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/rosa-parks/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Rosa Parks</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/suzan-lori-parks/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Suzan-Lori Parks</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/linus-pauling/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Linus C. Pauling, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/shimon-peres/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Shimon Peres</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/itzhak-perlman/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Itzhak Perlman</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/general-david-petraeus/"><span class="achiever-list-name">General David H. Petraeus, USA</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/sidney-poitier/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sidney Poitier</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/general-colin-l-powell/"><span class="achiever-list-name">General Colin L. Powell, USA</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/harold-prince/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Harold Prince</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/venki-ramakrishnan-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Venki Ramakrishnan, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/lord-martin-rees/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lord Martin Rees</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/lloyd-richards/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lloyd Richards</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/sally-ride-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sally K. Ride, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/sonny-rollins/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sonny Rollins</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/anthony-romero/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Anthony D. Romero</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/james-rosenquist/"><span class="achiever-list-name">James Rosenquist</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/pete-rozelle/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Pete Rozelle</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/bill-russell/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Bill Russell</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/albie-sachs/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Albie Sachs</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/oliver-sacks-m-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Oliver Sacks, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/jonas-salk-m-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Jonas Salk, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/frederick-sanger-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Frederick Sanger, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/george-b-schaller-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">George B. Schaller, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/barry-scheck/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Barry Scheck</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/richard-evans-schultes-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Richard Evans Schultes, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/general-h-norman-schwarzkopf/"><span class="achiever-list-name">General H. Norman Schwarzkopf, USA</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/stephen-schwarzman/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Stephen A. Schwarzman</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/glenn-t-seaborg-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Glenn T. Seaborg, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/neil-sheehan/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Neil Sheehan</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/admiral-alan-shepard-jr/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Admiral Alan B. Shepard, Jr., USN</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/ellen-johnson-sirleaf/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ellen Johnson Sirleaf</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/carlos-slim/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Carlos Slim Helú</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/frederick-w-smith/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Frederick W. Smith</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/stephen-sondheim/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Stephen Sondheim</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/sonia-sotomayor/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sonia Sotomayor</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/wole-soyinka/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Wole Soyinka</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/esperanza-spalding/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Esperanza Spalding</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/martha-stewart/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Martha Stewart</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/admiral-james-b-stockdale/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Admiral James B. Stockdale, USN</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/hilary-swank/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Hilary Swank</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/amy-tan/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Amy Tan</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/dame-kiri-te-kanawa/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Dame Kiri Te Kanawa</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/edward-teller-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Edward Teller, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/twyla-tharp/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Twyla Tharp</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/wayne-thiebaud/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Wayne Thiebaud</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/lt-michael-e-thornton-usn/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lt. Michael E. Thornton, USN</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/clyde-tombaugh/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Clyde Tombaugh</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/charles-h-townes-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Charles H. Townes, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/david-trimble/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lord David Trimble</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/ted-turner/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Robert Edward (Ted) Turner</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/desmond-tutu/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Archbishop Desmond Tutu</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/john-updike/"><span class="achiever-list-name">John Updike</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/gore-vidal/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Gore Vidal</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/antonio-villaraigosa/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Antonio Villaraigosa</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/lech-walesa/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lech Walesa</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/herschel-walker/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Herschel Walker</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/alice-waters/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Alice Waters</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/james-d-watson/"><span class="achiever-list-name">James D. Watson, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/andrew-weil-m-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Andrew Weil, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/leslie-h-wexner/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Leslie H. Wexner</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/elie-wiesel/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Elie Wiesel</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/edward-o-wilson-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Edward O. Wilson, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/oprah-winfrey/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Oprah Winfrey</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/tom-wolfe/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Tom Wolfe</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/john-wooden/"><span class="achiever-list-name">John Wooden</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/bob-woodward/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Bob Woodward</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/shinya-yamanaka-m-d-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Shinya Yamanaka, M.D., Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/general-chuck-yeager/"><span class="achiever-list-name">General Chuck Yeager, USAF</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/achiever/andrew-young/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Andrew J. Young</span></a> </li> </ul> <div class="list__close"></div> </div> <div class="col-sm-6 col-lg-3"> <ul id="menu-footer-menu-col-1" class="menu list-unstyled"><li class="menu-item menu-item-has-children menu-our-history"><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/our-history/">Our History</a> <ul class="sub-menu"> <li class="menu-item menu-about-the-academy"><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/our-history/">About the Academy</a></li> <li class="menu-item menu-academy-patrons"><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/our-history/patrons/">Academy Patrons</a></li> <li class="menu-item menu-delegate-alumni"><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235227/https://achievement.org/our-history/alumni/">Delegate Alumni</a></li> <li class="menu-item menu-directors-our-team"><a 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