Vince Gill talks about National Cowboy Museum’s “The Guitar” exhibit
Country Music Hall of Famer Vince Gill is among the stars who have loaned guitars to the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum for the new exhibit “The Guitar: Art, Artists and Artisans,” opening today.
The exhibit includes guitars from several country music luminaries with Oklahoma ties: Gill, Garth Brooks, Toby Keith and duo Brooks & Dunn (which includes former Tulsan Ronnie Dunn). It also features guitars from country stars Lynn Anderson, Eddy Arnold and Marty Robbins.
To read my story on “The Guitar” exhibit, click here.
Gill, who was born in Tulsa and raised in Oklahoma City, recently talked to my colleague Bryan Painter about the exhibit, guitars and golf clubs. Here is a Q&A version of their conversation:
Q: Was your first guitar a gift or one you went out and bought?
A: As a matter of fact that guitar that is going to hang at the (museum) is the very first guitar I ever remember seeing. It was my father’s (Stan), who has since passed away. That’s why I chose it, just because I got my own guitar when I was 10 but until then, that was the guitar that I tried to learn on. He had two guitars, that’s the one I was always drawn to, to try to learn to play. I think it’s got to be the first instrument I ever remember seeing.
Q: What do you look for in a guitar?
A: It has to feel right in your hands. Some necks are bigger than others. Some neck profiles are different. It’s still all about how one sounds and how one feels in your hands. If it doesn’t sound good to you, if it doesn’t feel good to you, you’ll never play it. I don’t remember ever picking up a guitar that didn’t feel good to me. It’s interesting, I’m such a guitar snob of sorts. I know what neck profiles are by the years the instruments are, so you already kind of know going in here’s a 1940 Martin guitar, D-28 or something. You have a pretty good idea what the neck’s going to feel like.
Q: Which is tougher to select, a guitar or golf clubs?
A: They’re the same. I don’t know that one’s tougher. A golf club has to have the right loft and lie and stiffness of shaft, and all of those things have got to feel great in your hands, too. They have to work in a mathematical way. You get a shaft that’s too limber or too light, it won’t perform. It has to match your swing speed and how hard you hit it. It’s the same with a guitar.
- BAM
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