Country legend Vince Gill still feels the thrill every night when he takes the stage as part of the Eagles. Gill, who signed on with late-co-founder Glenn Frey‘s son Deacon Frey following Glenn’s 2016 death, explained how he came to join the band he idolized as a teen, telling the Richmond Times-Dispatch, “Glenn Frey was a great friend of mine. It’s a tragic loss. I was as big a fan of that band as the people who come to see them. I never dreamed that I’d play with them. At the end of the day, I really understand how important those songs are and how deep they go with people. It’s pretty hard to describe in a sense, but it’s easy to let people know how much it means to me. Playing with these guys, harmonizing with Don Henley, it’s a ‘pinch me’ moment every night when the lights go down. . . It’s terrifying every time I open my mouth (laughs). Like, ‘Good luck, kid, you’re taking on a classic.’”
In the current shows, Gill — who was blessed with “guitar hero” chops and the voice of an angel — takes the lead on such Glenn Frey classics as “Tequila Sunrise,” “Lyin’ Eyes,” “New Kid In Town,” and the Randy Meisner standard “Take It To The Limit.” Vince Gill admitted: “There’s a tremendous amount of pressure because you want to make the band feel like they did the right thing in asking me to do this. And you want the crowd to be okay with it. There’s a unique pressure. I can feel it from the crowd. They’re looking at me with one eye closed, wondering, ‘How is this going to work?’ Then after a verse or two, everybody relaxes and it feels like, ‘It’s going to be okay.’”
Joe Walsh explained to Pulse why Vince Gill was such a perfect choice for the Eagles: “We were looking for a special kind of voice, of course, like Glenn had, so that the chemistry is there. You can’t just get anybody — and that’s the chemistry I’m talking about.”
Until the recent addition of Deacon Frey and Vince Gill, bassist Timothy B. Schmit held the distinction of being the “new guy” in the Eagles. This year’s tour coincides with Schmit’s 40th anniversary with the band. Back in 1978, Timothy B. Schmit replaced Randy Meisner in the Eagles — just as he replaced him before in Poco. He recalled the situation just after he agreed to become an Eagle: “I got approached one day by the Eagles. One day Glenn (Frey) called me up and asked me if I’d be interested, ’cause Randy was quitting. And I said ‘(I’m) absolutely interested.’ And it was all sort of ‘hush hush,’ and they had decided — and I had decided — that we’re gonna do this, but in the meantime, Poco had a new tour planned and they asked me to keep a lid on it for a few months. And it was really too hard, and I finally called them and said, ‘I gotta tell these guys, it just doesn’t feel right.’”
The Eagles come to Chicago October 15th when they perform at the United Center.
