The bright red Gibson ES-335 electric on the cover of End of the Night, the sixth volume in Vince Gill’s monthly 50 Years From Home EP series, is a special one for the veteran Nashville hitmaker and current Eagles member.
“That was my first guitar when I was 10 years old, and I still have it,” Gill tells us via phone. It was a brand-new model, a Christmas present in 1967.
“It was remarkable that I got such a great instrument to learn on,” says Gill, whose numerous guitars include a ’59 Gibson Les Paul gifted to him by a dying friend and a Martin D-28 herringbone that cost him his life savings. “Credit to my folks for not buying me something cheap and hard to play and all that. I had that and a Fender Super Reverb amp — I was Mack Daddy on 24th Street in Oklahoma City.”
Gill acknowledges that 1967 “was not the best era of that instrument. ’58, ’59, ’60, ’61 were better years. This guitar doesn’t have PAF pickups; that makes a big difference.” Yet he’s not really made changes to the guitar over the years.
“I took the pickup covers off, thinking it might sound better, which I don’t know that it did,” Gill says. “But I still have ’em somewhere. I’ll probably put them back on someday.”
The ES-335, of course, brings Chuck Berry. Berry played it and other Gibson semi-hollows, which is why he was buried with an ES-345. As Gill reveals, their paths one day.
“I said, ‘Well, dude, you just got a free Chuck Berry autograph.’”
— Vince Gill
“I only met Chuck Berry one time,” he recalls. “It’s when I was living in Los Angeles. I was up at the booking agency for a meeting, and I saw Chuck walking through the halls. I stopped him; I said, ‘Man, I’m a young guitar player. I don’t want to bother you, but can I get your autograph?’ And the only thing I had to write on was my parking lot ticket.
“So I got his autograph, and I was pretty excited. I went to pay for my parking, and that was back when I was as poor as a church mouse. I asked the attendant, ‘Hey man, is there any way I can keep this ticket, ’cause I just got Chuck Berry’s autograph.’ I was only there for, like, an hour, so my parking ticket was gonna be a dollar.
“He says, ‘Man, I have to charge you for a lost ticket.’ ‘What’s that cost?’ ‘$42.’
“I said, ‘Well, dude, you just got a free Chuck Berry autograph.’”
There’s a happy ending, however. “I told that story to a friend of Chuck’s 35 years later,” Gill recalls, “and I got a nice 8x10 of Chuck autographed.”
Like its predecessors, End of the Night features a selection of new songs — six originals plus the 1992 country chart-topper “Don’t Let Our Love Start Slippin’ Away” — that has a distinct flavor from the other EPs in the series.
“It’s a much more contemporary record,” he notes, “and kind of Yacht Rock-ish. It reminds me of being in California when I lived out there… very reminiscent of that. I feel like this would be a fun record to play cruising down the Pacific Coast Highway, looking at the ocean.”
Yacht rock isn’t a dirty term for Gill, either.
“I think it’s cool. I listen to it all the time. Wherever I eat breakfast they’re always playing that kind of a channel. I think it’s great; I can hear a lot of Eagles songs when I’m eating breakfast to make sure I play my parts right.”
The Eagles association also led to an introduction to Steely Dan’s Donald Fagen, via shared manager Irving Azoff. “We had a visit, and I said, ‘Man, can I ask you a weird question?’” Gill remembers.
I said, ‘Well, every person on earth tunes their PAs at their gig to your records.’”
— Vince Gill
“He smiled and said, ‘Yeah.’ I said, ‘What do you guys tune your PA to?’ He looks at me really puzzled and goes, ‘What?!’ I said, ‘Well, every person on earth tunes their PAs at their gig to your records.’
He started laughing and goes, ‘Well, I guess ours, then.’”
“I love those records. I used to sit at my house when I was living in Hermosa Beach and play those records at the beach, listening on headphones. I’d open the window and smell the ocean. When they sing that one song, ‘Here come those Santa Ana winds again’ [‘Babylon Sisters’], it’s one of the greatest things I’ve ever heard — background parts, the sound, everything.
“Those musicians were just beyond great, and you’d just hear guys like Larry Carlton and people I admired, being a guitar player, play really, really great stuff, just so musical.”
