The Eagles’ Vince Gill On Emulating Ray Price

Vince Gill and Paul Franklin had joined forces 10 years ago to honor Buck Owens and Merle Haggard with their tribute album ‘Bakersfield.’ Now the duo is back together with a new tribute album ‘Sweet Memories: The Music of Ray Price & The Cherokee Cowboys,’ to pay homage to Ray Price and the band.

Going back a decade, Gill and Franklin had tried to stick to Owens’ choices when they recorded the ‘Bakersfield’ album. Vince recalled what Buck said about their attempt. He expressed:

“Buck [Owens] heard it and said, ‘You didn’t change one note.’ We did it pretty verbatim. They’re both worthy, but what are you going to prove doing a note-for-note adaptation of something somebody’s already done?”

So, this time around Gill decided to take different approach with his tone and made sure he didn’t emulate Price. Vince added:

“I don’t sound like Ray Price. I can emulate him, and I did in small doses. I think that’s just right, to take the spirit of it but don’t overkill it.”

Before the album was released, Vince shared with American Songwriter a track that he was hesitant to re-record, considering several household names like Johnny Cash and Eric Clapton had also done it. The singer shared why ‘Danny Boy’ was a big undertaking for them as a duo. He explained:

“I was apprehensive about doing ‘Danny Boy.’ There’s an element of risk when you’re doing something somebody else has done. You run the risk of them using that comparison of the original.”

You can read Vince Gill’s interview with Music Row here and listen to ‘Sweet Memories’ below.