Album Review: Down to My Last Bad Habit by Vince Gill

The last two Vince Gill albums celebrated their intentions within their titles: 2011's Guitar Slinger found plenty of space for his six-string prowess and his 2013 duet LP with Paul Franklin was a valentine to Bakersfield country. Down to My Last Bad Habit, his first solo album in a half-decade, is a slightly more complicated affair. While it can't be called a concept album, it's certainly unified by a soulful sensibility, trading heavily on slow, simmering grooves and favoring a feel so warm it feels as comfortable as an old tattered sweater.

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Vince Gill is an encyclopedia of country tradition, whether he's reviving western swing with the Time Jumpers, producing new standard-bearer Ashley Monroe, or wrapping his Oklahoma high tenor around "Sad One Comin' On (Song for George Jones)" – a note-perfect honky-tonk weeper about the king of honky-tonk weepers. That’s the odd-card highlight of a set that focuses on smooth Eighties-style country-pop and ballad schmaltz, which after all is Nashville tradition, too. The title track is achey-breaky quiet storming with wit; "I Can't Do This" is grand piano melodrama that might make even Richard Marx – who, as it happens, co-wrote two other songs here – blush.

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If there were such a thing as the mayor of country music, Vince Gill would surely be elected in a landslide. In addition to his own estimable contributions to the genre as a singer, songwriter, and guitarist over the last 30-plus years, he has been a go-to instrumentalist, harmony vocalist, producer, and awards-show host. He’s also a consistent, vocal, and eloquent cheerleader for the format, mounting sporadic benefits for the Country Music Hall of Fame and serving as a bridge to other genres.

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