Vince Gill Releases 'Eighteen Summers' From Year-Long EP Series

Vince Gill has released Eighteen Summers , the latest EP in his year-long 50…

The upbeat, slightly Cajun-flavored title track kicks the ninth EP off as a duet with co-writer Cyndi Thomson , a fellow country singer who had some hits during the early 2000s. Gill wrote the smooth, swinging “I'm All the Mississippi You'll Ever Need” from the project with Belle Frantz, but credits Steve Earle with inspiring the title.

“Steve had this bass player named Dennis Crouch, who has played with everybody – a world-class musician," says Gill. "Steve used to introduce him and would say, ‘This cat over here is all the Arkansas you'll ever need.’ That always stuck with me, and when Belle and I were writing I asked her where she was from and she said Mississippi, so I said, ‘OK, maybe this is the time.’ Some songs just show up a whole lot later than you ever anticipated.”

The two-stepping, twangy and slightly sinister “ I'll Haunt Your Memory” marks Gill's first co-write with Carter Faith, and Gill wrote the mellow, lovelorn “Gone Like Yesterday” himself, wallowing in how " Misery keeps me company." The tone is decidedly happier on “Dancing In Texas,” a collaboration with Catie Offerman with a three-quarter time sway that invites listeners to leave their problems behind. “I've lived in a waltz tempo.” Gill notes. “Waltzes built my house – ‘When I Call Your Name,’ ‘Pocket Full of Gold,’ those kinds of songs. I've always been drawn to waltzes because when I was a little boy my mom taught me how to do it, and the only kind of dancing I still do is an occasional waltz.”

"Last Night at Closing Time” penned with Brad Warren , Brett Warren , ( The Warren Brothers) and Preston Cooper, offers another mood shift. The mid-tempo ode to loneliness features a soul-piercing pedal steel solo by Paul Franklin , and introduces a protagonist who passes away in the last verse. For the EP's previously-released single Gill chose “What the Cowgirls Do,” his hit from 1994's When Love Finds You album.

Gill's familial musical roots are celebrated on Eighteen Summers on the guitar featured on the cover. It's been around Gill his whole life, though he doesn't know where it came from initially. “It's a tiny little thing I used to drag around with me everywhere and bang and beat on it,” he remembers. “My mom has a picture of me sleeping face down on the couch when I was about a year and a half, maybe two years old, with my arm around that guitar.”

Commemorating his departure from Oklahoma to begin his music career, Gill has been releasing a new EP each month, drawing from songs he's written mostly over the past few years.

Eighteen Summers Track List: 1. “Eighteen Summers” (Vince Gill, Cyndi Thomson) 2. “I’m All The Mississippi You’ll Ever Need” (Vince Gill, Belle Frantz) 3. “I’ll Haunt Your Memory” (Vince Gill, Carter Faith, Ashley Monroe) 4. “Gone Like Yesterday” (Vince Gill) 5. “Dancing In Texas” (Vince Gill, Catie Offerman) 6. “Last Night At Closing Tim e” (Vince Gill, Preston Cooper, Brett Warren, Brad Warren) 7. “What The Cowgirls Do” (Vince Gill, John Jarvis)