Guitar Slinger
This is essentially a contemporary country record (Not Country Rock) with Gill in top vocal form waxing with eloquence his silky tenor over 12 songs he co-penned. In keeping with his stellar tradition of telling compelling stories, here the stories abound. Whether if he's telling the story of a homeless person ("Bread and Water") or a man contemplating suicide ("Billy Paul") or his own romantic journey ("Guitar Slinger"), Gill still has the ability to capture our imagination with his creativity and his attention paid to the stories' emotional and spiritual details. With such a galore of rich stories, it would have been better to title this disc "Story Slinger." Coming 5 years after his last release "These Days," Gill has not lost his touch of creating music that interweaves the stories of his protagonists with our own stories. Many of these cuts are fresh, engaging and above par relative to what's out there on country radio now; given the right promotion this is pregnant with hits ready to be birthed.
Album opener is an exceptional Gill barnburner: it bears all the imprints of greatness. The Jerry Lee Lewis-type piano jamming, the stately anthemic build up to the explosive chorus and the all so-romantic lyrics of how a guitar slinger found true love with that "contemporary Christian singer." And the "contemporary Christian singer" (aka wife Amy Grant) does show up on the album's sophomore single "True Love." Here Grant and Gill trade lines over this breezy ballad about the persistency of love in the midst of trails over a sturdy background of affecting strings. Grant shows up also as a co-writer on two other tracks: one of them being the lead single "Threaten Me with Heaven." This moralistic tale of not taking life for granted is a multi-layered busy number comes with a Gospel-inflected chorus that is made much more haunting when one of the co-writers Will Owsley committed suicide some time after writing this song. The question thus lingers: did Owsley ever take the lyrics of this song to heart? Grant again shows up in co-penning "When Lonely Comes Around." Given that one of Gill's album titles and hit was "When Love Comes Around," "When Lonely Comes Around" automatically calls to mind the earlier cut.
Leslie Satcher who has written Kellie Pickler's "Tough" and George Strait's "Troubadour" teams with Gill to write "Bread and Water." This is the album's richest narrative gem where both Gill and Satcher interweaves the story of a homeless person with the stories of Jesus in the Bible. Most arresting is the line "even Jesus was a homeless man." This is the type of song that really challenges our souls to think deeper about Jesus and social issues. Gill is not afraid to step out of his comfort zone when he dives into Southern R&B traditions of long lonesome electric guitar solos with the Delbert McClinton-like "When the Lady Sings the Blues." Gill goes further in the country-soul territory with "Tell Me Fool" which again sounds in tune and title like his former album cut "Tell Me Lover" (from his "High Lonesome Sound" CD). Gill takes on the Bakersfield sound with the sweepingly catchy "Billy Paul" which guises the dark plot about a murder-suicide story.
Above all, Gill is still at the best when he croons a love song. This is why a glance through Gill's hit-studded discography shows that many of his biggest hits were love songs ("Feels Like Love" and "I Still Believe in You"). Here Gill melts hearts again with "Who Wouldn't Fall in Love with You"--a sonic arrow to the heart that is compellingly sung with earnestness. On an album this good, to say that Gill is just a "guitar slinger" is a misnomer in itself. No, he still is country best crooner of story songs.
Album opener is an exceptional Gill barnburner: it bears all the imprints of greatness. The Jerry Lee Lewis-type piano jamming, the stately anthemic build up to the explosive chorus and the all so-romantic lyrics of how a guitar slinger found true love with that "contemporary Christian singer." And the "contemporary Christian singer" (aka wife Amy Grant) does show up on the album's sophomore single "True Love." Here Grant and Gill trade lines over this breezy ballad about the persistency of love in the midst of trails over a sturdy background of affecting strings. Grant shows up also as a co-writer on two other tracks: one of them being the lead single "Threaten Me with Heaven." This moralistic tale of not taking life for granted is a multi-layered busy number comes with a Gospel-inflected chorus that is made much more haunting when one of the co-writers Will Owsley committed suicide some time after writing this song. The question thus lingers: did Owsley ever take the lyrics of this song to heart? Grant again shows up in co-penning "When Lonely Comes Around." Given that one of Gill's album titles and hit was "When Love Comes Around," "When Lonely Comes Around" automatically calls to mind the earlier cut.
Leslie Satcher who has written Kellie Pickler's "Tough" and George Strait's "Troubadour" teams with Gill to write "Bread and Water." This is the album's richest narrative gem where both Gill and Satcher interweaves the story of a homeless person with the stories of Jesus in the Bible. Most arresting is the line "even Jesus was a homeless man." This is the type of song that really challenges our souls to think deeper about Jesus and social issues. Gill is not afraid to step out of his comfort zone when he dives into Southern R&B traditions of long lonesome electric guitar solos with the Delbert McClinton-like "When the Lady Sings the Blues." Gill goes further in the country-soul territory with "Tell Me Fool" which again sounds in tune and title like his former album cut "Tell Me Lover" (from his "High Lonesome Sound" CD). Gill takes on the Bakersfield sound with the sweepingly catchy "Billy Paul" which guises the dark plot about a murder-suicide story.
Above all, Gill is still at the best when he croons a love song. This is why a glance through Gill's hit-studded discography shows that many of his biggest hits were love songs ("Feels Like Love" and "I Still Believe in You"). Here Gill melts hearts again with "Who Wouldn't Fall in Love with You"--a sonic arrow to the heart that is compellingly sung with earnestness. On an album this good, to say that Gill is just a "guitar slinger" is a misnomer in itself. No, he still is country best crooner of story songs.
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