Vince Gill Takes Up Residence at the Hall of Fame

Vince Gill says he isn't sure exactly what kind of shows he will do during his three Artist-in-Residence concerts at the Country Music Hall of Fame this month. All three of the Nashville shows, which run for three consecutive Tuesdays beginning today, are sold-out.

A member of the Country Music Hall of Fame since 2007, Gill says he has been trying for a couple years to find dates when he can do the series of shows. "I'm still kind of searching for what I'll do," the multi-talented musician told The Boot. "Maybe one night it will be bluegrass, one night songwriter oriented. The first one will probably be very similar to the tour I did last fall, just me and a trio of musicians playing acoustically."

During that show, Gill plays requests and takes questions from the audience. "It was really a fun tour for me, just everybody sitting down and being very inclusive of the audience," Gill recalls. "I feel like after so many years of traveling to these same places, a lot of same people come to see me time and again, so I try to do something a little bit different for them."

Gill follows in the footsteps of entertainers including Kris Kristofferson, Tom T. Hall and Earl Scruggs, all of whom have attracted celebrities as members of the audience while doing their artist-in-residence concerts. While the singer/songwriter says he won't be nervous if some of his peers show up, he admits that it does step up the performance a notch.

"Whenever you know there's another musician in the house you always want to play great," Gill admits. "There's an element of showing off when that happens, but it's more of 'I'm glad you're hear to listen' than it is anything else. But really, at the end of the day everybody wants whoever they're going to see to be great, they're never rooting against you, I never get that sense. Playing music has always been a celebration of gathering people together who love to play and sing and love music, so in a musical setting like this it's pretty great. The community of musicians and songwriters and people who love music is the common bond. "