Vince Gill and road show revive Grand Ole Opry style

Vince Gill isn't ready to relegate the Grand Ole Opry to the ash heap of history just yet.

At a time when most Music Row hipsters view the country music institution as a dusty relic of America's hayseed past and many young country stars regard playing the humble Opry as a bothersome duty that means giving up a lucrative Saturday night gig in a 20,000-seat arena, Gill remains a true believer.

"I think I'm one of the younger Opry members who really does revere that place," Gill says by phone from Nashville. "I want to keep it current and on everybody's mind. I remember growing up and how I revered it and thought: `All the coolest country music people play the Opry on Saturday night.' I'd like to see that continue."

The affable Gill, who in the 1990s dominated country radio and won a boatload of industry awards, is doing his part to keep the Opry vital this summer by touring with the Grand Ole Opry American Road Show.

Also on the bill are '90s country star Patty Loveless, an artist who has clung tenaciously to country's rough-hewn past; the Del McCoury Band, a respected bluegrass outfit that plays mostly by the strict rules laid down by bluegrass founding father Bill Monroe; and country youngster Rebecca Lynn Howard, who has shown a respect for country's traditions.

Fans who show up for the concerts can expect to see the Opry's signature barn backdrop and microphone stands and to be welcomed by Eddie Stubbs, the veteran announcer for the Nashville AM station WSM.

"There's a lot of intermingling, a lot of duets," Gill says of the show. "We play some bluegrass together, and we play some gospel together. There are some jokes. It's reminiscent of what a real Opry show is like."

Gill is still highly regarded by country purists, but like Loveless, Clint Black, Randy Travis, and the Opry itself, he's no longer one of the hottest tickets in Nashville. The singer's mournful tenor, which made big '90s hits of tunes such as "Pocket Full of Gold," "I Still Believe in You," and "When I Call Your Name" (an awe-inspiring duet with Loveless), began to lose traction with country audiences as the decade neared its end.

A hard-country album titled "The Key," released in 1998, won rave reviews from critics but proved no match for the country-pop onslaught being led that year by Tim McGraw, Kenny Chesney, Faith Hill, and Shania Twain. The follow-up, 2000's pop-leaning "Let's Make Sure We Kiss Goodbye," released soon after Gill's marriage to Amy Grant, fared poorly with both fans and critics.

The artist, 47, candidly addressed his waning popularity on "Next Big Thing," the album he released early last year to lukewarm fan response. The title track makes light of Nashville's star-making machine and jokingly warns: "For a little while, you can do no wrong/Well live it up, son, 'cause it won't last long."

A more poignant exploration of fleeting fame is found on the album's "Young Man's Town," which includes backup vocals by Emmylou Harris and lines like: "You wake up one morning and it's passed you by/You don't know when and you don't know why."

"As I was writing that song, it became so much more about life than it did just a country music singer," Gill says. "It's lifelike in that somebody works his whole life, and then the next generation comes and pushes him aside.

"You can be gracious about it, or you can be bitter about it. I always hated seeing people be bitter when the phone stopped ringing for them."

But, Gill is asked, isn't there also an upside to being nudged out of the spotlight? If the phone doesn't ring quite as often as it used to, doesn't that relieve an artist of some commercial pressure and give him the freedom to be more creative?

Not necessarily, he replies.

"That pressure lives for everybody. . . . I don't think that just because you're trying to have hits that what you're doing isn't quite as valid as what you want to do. I've wanted to make every record I've made.

"If you look back at my career, it's always had weird twists and turns. There's an odd duet with Barbra Streisand, then I'm on a Ralph Stanley record, and then I'm doing a Beach Boys thing or whatever."