Over the past four decades, 20-time Grammy winner Vince Gill has had one of the most prolific - and diverse - careers in music history. His prowess on guitar and skill as a songwriter and producer have made him a coveted collaborator across genres. Beyond working with fellow country greats (the Oklahoma native has worked with just about all of them during his quarter century as a Grand Ole Opry member), Gill has recorded with everyone from Alice Cooper to Brian Wilson. Gladys Knight, Sting, Barbra Streisand and Eric Clapton are just a handful of other artists with whom Gill has collaborated.
In anticipation of Gill’s 18th studio album, Down To My Last Bad Habit, which will be released on February 12, Universal Music Group Nashville has built an oddly addictive website to celebrate Gill’s contributions. 6DegreesOfVinceGill.com lets users find the “Vince Gill number” of any musician, in the same style as the popular “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon” parlor game based on the “six degrees of separation” principle.
While it’s often said that the music industry is a small one, the website - called License To Gill - puts that theory into fascinating focus. Adele, for example, has a Vince Gill number of 2 (as do many other artists, including Kanye West, KISS and Katy Perry):
Interestly, Vince Gill is more connected than 99.87% of the more than 1 million artists in the database. “We have determined that the average distance between Vince and most artists, across all genres, is three steps,” Gates says. “It’s simply a testament to Vince’s legendary musical career as an artist, musician, producer and songwriter.”
Gates says the plan is to keep 6DegreesOfVinceGill.com online in perpetuity for it to “become part of Vince’s identity online.” It’s a welcome change, she says, in a world where some artist’s promotional sites “are built to go up and come back down in less than a week.” That means fans can bookmark the site and go back to look for even more remote connections in the future.
Music aficionados will have fun adding filters to the search query to narrow the connection results by genre, collaboration type and more. Stumping the site is hard to do - a testament to Gill’s long, prolific career across many styles and eras of music.
Despite a very hectic schedule leading up to his new album launch - including guest-coaching last weekend’s NHL All-Star Game and performing the National Anthem with his 14-year-old daughter, Corrina, Gill was instrumental in bringing the site’s concept to life. “Vince is one of the most authentic artists I’ve had the pleasure of working with, and the feedback we are receiving about the site from other artists, industry executives and fans alike, is a demonstration of the power of the relationships he has established throughout his career,” Gates says.
Warning: the site is very addictive. All of the friends I’ve sent it to (many of whom were trying to stump it for this article) reported spending at least 20 minutes interacting with it. Thankfully, Universal Music Group Nashville gave fans something fun to listen to while they play: an exclusive Spotify playlist with some of Gill’s most entertaining stories and best advice. Fans can hear about the time he met Mike Nesmith (Gill number: 2), the best advice he’s ever received (from Emory Gordy, Gill number: 1), and much more.
Fans can pre-order Down To My Last Bad Habit at iTunes. Unsurprisingly, the lead single, “Take Me Down,” features a collaboration: Grammy-nominated Little Big Town sings on the track, elevating their Gill number from 2 to 1.
