MUSIC REVIEW : Gill Proves Mastery at Fair Concert

The first thing you noticed about Vince Gill when he strode onto the Del Mar Fair’s Grandstand Stage on Monday night was that he’s very, very tall.

Once he hunkered down over his Fender Telecaster, however, Gill demonstrated a stature of a different stripe. With his fingers doing a centipede tap dance up and down the neck, the lanky Oklahoman led his crack, six-piece band through some whirlwind country jamming that left little doubt that he is one of the best pickers in country music.

Before the show reached the half-way point, Gill also had demonstrated that he’s one of the best singers and songwriters in the genre, as well. The only answer this concert put further out of reach was the one that would settle the question of why the triple threat isn’t a permanent fixture at the top of the country music heap.

On Monday, he added to his growing list of credits the ability to win an audience with soft wit and a natural, personable demeanor.

Before schmoozing, however, Gill plied the crowd of several thousand with a nicely varied parcel of tunes, including the mid-tempo “Ridin’ the Rodeo” (from 1989’s “When I Call Your Name”), the honky-tonk-swingin’ “Take Your Memory with You” (from the current “Pocket Full of Gold”), and “If It Weren’t for Him,” a 1984 duet he recorded with Roseanne Cash.

“It’s been an interesting year, to say the least,” Gill told the crowd at last. “In January, I was on a golf course in the Bahamas when I was robbed by two guys with sawed-off shotguns. I really thought they were gonna kill me. When I got home, I wrote a song about it. I made a lot more money on the deal than they did.”

Both the remark and the ballad, “Pocket Full of Gold,” drew sustained cheers, as did his 1988 hit, “Everybody’s Sweetheart (But Mine).” The latter song was inspired by Gill’s marriage to Janis Oliver of the country duo, Sweethearts of the Rodeo, who performed in San Marcos last month.

Throughout most of the ‘80s, the Sweethearts were riding high in the country world while Gill languished in the shadows as little more than a background vocalist on records by Emmylou Harris, Reba McEntire and even Dire Straits. At the time, the couple were living in Oliver’s native Manhattan Beach, and the successful half of the marriage was on the road a lot.

“It got mighty lonely around the ol’ house,” said Gill, “and at one point it seemed that Janis was everybody’s Sweetheart but mine.” Gill must have dispelled much of his gloom with the song, a fast breakdown that in concert was heated to boiling by improvisational duels between Gill and fiddler Andrea Zonn.

A highlight of Gill’s show was a solo segment that featured him on acoustic guitar. The musician spent eight years in California before moving the family to Nashville in 1983, and the coastal influence shows in some ironic ways.

Gill had come west in the first place to join the bluegrass band Sundance, which featured legendary fiddler Byron Berline. While in L.A., Gill was offered a gig in the country-pop band Pure Prairie League. He ended up singing lead on the band’s 1980 hit, “Let Me Love You Tonight.”

In his solo spot, Gill elicited a roar of recognition with the first few bars of “Let Me Love You Tonight,” in which the softening of his Okie twang by years spent singing pop in Southern California was readily apparent. Gill followed with a bluegrass duet on “Black Mountain Rag” for which he was joined by acoustic guitarist Tony King, Wynonna Judd’s fiance.

Alone again in the spotlight, Gill introduced a poignant ballad, “Jenny Dreamed a Train,” which was inspired by his 9-year-old daughter.

“One day when she was real small, Jenny said she wanted to ride a train someday,” explained Gill. “Now, she’d never even seen a picture of one, so all I could figure was that Janis had had an affair in a former life with Jimmie Rodgers . . . and Shirley MacLaine had written about it.”

As the evening wore on, Gill’s guitar solos grew increasingly complex. A twisting, sliding, immensely inventive improv during the new album’s up-tempo “Liza Jane” got an ovation. But perhaps Gill’s and the ensemble’s playing reached their zeniths during “Oklahoma Swing,” a collaborative effort with Reba McEntire that earned the two a best-duet nomination in last spring’s Academy of Country Music awards.

All the “position” players took turns soloing on the tune, with Gill, pianist Joey Smith, and pedal-steel veteran John Hughey (Conway Twitty’s steel guitarist for 20 years) turning in crackling solos. For shear crowd-wowing, however, Gill literally hit the concert’s highest note with a rendition of his first major hit, the ballad “When I Call Your Name.” Exhibiting amazing range and tonal control, Gill made the song a tour de force of country vocalizing.

The standing ovation that rewarded his effort brought Gill and band back for a two-song encore.

“I’ll tell you what,” announced a genuinely excited Gill, “this is a lot of fun! If they hadn’t put a curfew on me, I’d show you the Bruce Springsteen of country music. I could play for about six months!”

Judging from their response, most of those in attendance would gladly have stayed.