Well, Don, interestingly enough... I wasn't going to mention this
till you brought it up, but I too saw that Vince Gill special and was
pretty impressed.
On Saturday in my area we got both the Austin City Limits with Old
97s and Whiskeytown *and* this Vince Gill special.
Now, although some of the Gill was a bit schmaltzed-out for my taste,
what surprised me--watching these two shows back to back--was the
degree to which Vince and band (to my ears, of course) basically
kicked the butt of the 97s and Wtown. It was awfully interesting to
see them juxtaposed so closely.... I came close to taking a more
tolerant Weisbergian view of Nashville corporate country <many gs>,
since Vince had tons more musicianship, more country tradition, more
everything, than both "alt.country" bands put together. He's got
that voice, fo course, but besides that he's got great chops as a
player and, obviously, a real grasp of all the country subgenres (no
western swing there, but hey, he's Nashville...). However much
one likes 97s or Wtown, they didn't cut much mustard next to Vince, I
must confess....
Now if Vince just had his bangs hanging down all sloppy-ass, then
I guess he'd have it all <g>,
--junior
