文斯·吉尔最新专辑创下新高:“我从未预料到它”

Think you’ve heard that old chestnut of a song, “Danny Boy,” more than enough times? Yeah, so did Vince Gill.

你是不是听过那首老掉牙的歌"丹尼小子"听够多遍了?是的，文斯·吉尔也是。

So what possessed him to include it on his latest album? Who cares? All you really need to know is that this song, delivered by one of country’s G.O.A.T. voices, will leave you heaving sighs and wiping away tears.

那么是什么让他把这首歌收录进了他的最新专辑呢?谁在乎呢?你真正需要知道的是，这首歌，由国家的G.O.A.T.的声音之一，会让你叹气，擦干眼泪。

Even the usually self-effacing Gill admits he was impressed. “I’ve been singing for a long, long, long, long time on a lot of records — 50 years,” says the 66-year-old Hall of Fame member, “and I sang a couple of notes in that recording that are some of my favorite notes I’ve ever hit. Just the sound — the controlled little bit of vibrato and everything about it — was really moving to me, and I never expected it.”

就连一向谦逊的吉尔也承认自己被打动了。这位66岁的名人堂成员说:“我唱了很长、很长、很长、很长一段时间，在很多唱片上都有50年了，我在那些唱片中唱了几个音符，这些音符是我最喜欢的一些音符。”仅仅是声音——那一点可控的颤音和有关它的一切——就真的打动了我，我从来没有想到过。”

Of course, country fans live for moments like this, and Gill, even more, lives to make them. Blessedly, for the rest of us, it’s why he keeps doing it.

当然，乡村乐迷们就是为了这样的时刻而活，而吉尔更是为了创造这样的时刻而活。幸运的是，对我们其他人来说，这就是他一直这么做的原因。

This time around, “Danny Boy” is nestled amid 10 other equally sublime tracks on Gill’s latest collaboration with his frequent musical partner, virtuoso steel guitarist Paul Franklin: Sweet Memories: The Music of Ray Price & The Cherokee Cowboys.

这一次，“丹尼男孩”在吉尔与他的音乐伙伴，精湛的钢铁吉他手保罗·富兰克林的最新合作中，与其他10首同样崇高的曲目相结合:甜蜜的回忆:雷·普莱斯和切诺基牛仔的音乐。

On Friday, the two men learned one of those tracks, "Kissing Your Picture (Is So Cold)," has been nominated for a Grammy for best country duo/group performance. No doubt its title is a throwback to a different era in country music: Price originally released the song in 1958. But both Gill and Franklin offer assurances that — though they performed it with conviction — the songwriter, Mel Tillis, another country legend, probably had his famously stuttering tongue in cheek. "He was such a comedian," says Franklin.

周五，两人得知其中一首歌曲《Kissing Your Picture (Is So Cold)》被提名为格莱美最佳乡村二人组/组合。毫无疑问，这首歌的名字是对乡村音乐另一个时代的回顾:普莱斯最初在1958年发行了这首歌。但吉尔和富兰克林都保证，尽管他们的表演很有说服力，但另一位乡村传奇歌曲作者梅尔·蒂利斯(Mel Tillis)可能是在开玩笑，他那出了名的口吃。“他真是个喜剧演员，”富兰克林说。

Sweet Memories is Gill and Franklin's second album together, following 2013's Bakersfield, which featured the music of Merle Haggard and Buck Owens. While both projects fall under the category of “tribute” albums, they are much more playgrounds for the two men’s fertile — and like-minded — musical spirits. “Fun” is the word that keeps coming up as they talk about the album. It was fun, they say, to discover and learn new music, fun to pick the songs, fun to get into the studio and combine their singular voices, Gill’s sweet tenor and Franklin’s smooth steel.

Sweet Memories是Gill和Franklin继2013年的《Bakersfield》(由Merle Haggard和Buck Owens合作)之后的第二张专辑。虽然这两张专辑都属于“致敬”专辑的范畴，但它们更像是两人丰富而志同道合的音乐精神的游乐场。“有趣”是他们在谈论这张专辑时不断出现的一个词。他们说，发现和学习新的音乐很有趣，挑选歌曲很有趣，进入录音室，把他们独特的声音，吉尔甜美的男高音和富兰克林流畅的钢铁声结合起来很有趣。

The sound of those bended strings, Gill submits, “is the most reminiscent of the human voice, and I think that’s why I’m so drawn to it. I love the sound of the instrument with my voice.” Franklin returns the love to Gill. “His voice is like a musical instrument,” says the 69-year-old musician, who’s played on Gill’s recordings since “When I Called Your Name,” his first major hit. “It’s as flawless and as pure as you can get.”

吉尔认为，那些弯曲的琴弦的声音“最能让人想起人类的声音，我想这就是我被它吸引的原因。”我喜欢乐器的声音和我的声音。”富兰克林把爱还给了吉尔。“他的声音就像一件乐器，”这位69岁的音乐家说，自从他的第一首热门歌曲《当我呼唤你的名字》以来，他就一直在吉尔的唱片中演奏。“它是你能得到的最完美、最纯净的东西。”

Picking the music of Ray Price was fun, as well, for the two men, but it was also an act of love. Both are lifelong fans who’ve been deeply influenced by the country legend and his ace band, the Cherokee Cowboys, and both knew Price personally. In Gill’s storied career as an artist, guitarist, and songwriter, he crossed paths with his hero several times, and Gill and Franklin both contributed to his last album, Beauty Is … The Final Sessions, recorded in 2013 soon after Price was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. He died, at age 87, in December that year.

为雷·普莱斯挑选音乐对两人来说也很有趣，但这也是一种爱的行为。两人都是普莱斯的终身粉丝，深受这位乡村传奇人物和他的王牌乐队切罗基牛仔队的影响，两人都认识普莱斯。在吉尔作为艺术家、吉他手和词曲作者的传奇生涯中，他与他的偶像多次相遇，吉尔和富兰克林都为他的最后一张专辑《Beauty Is…The Final Sessions》做出了贡献，这张专辑是在2013年普莱斯被诊断出患有胰腺癌后不久录制的。同年12月，他去世，享年87岁。

These days Price’s name is not commonly included in the same breath as Willie, Waylon, Jones and Haggard, but Gill points out that Price was among their great inspirations — and the one who “took all those cats under his wing.”

如今，普赖斯的名字通常不会与威利、韦伦、琼斯和哈格德相提并论，但吉尔指出，普赖斯是他们最伟大的灵感来源之一，是他“把所有的猫都放在他的翅膀下”。

“There’s just a grand history of Ray having the respect of all those people because of the way he sang,” says Gill. “They would tell you, to the man, that’s the guy. That’s the singer right there.”

“因为他的演唱方式，雷赢得了所有这些人的尊重，这是一段伟大的历史，”吉尔说。“他们会告诉你，对那个男人来说，他就是那个人。那就是歌手。”

In fact, Willie Nelson, who briefly played bass in Price’s band in the early 1960s, created his own tribute album in 2016, and both Gill and Franklin appeared on several of its tracks. Nelson mostly chose from Price’s hit parade, including his groundbreaking shuffle, “Crazy Arms” (its swinging 4/4 beat soon took over country); his aching “Make the World Go Away”; his smooth countrypolitan “For the Good Times”; and the Nelson-written masterpiece, “Night Life,” with its signature steel intro.

事实上，威利·纳尔逊曾在20世纪60年代初在普莱斯的乐队中短暂担任贝斯手，他在2016年创作了自己的致敬专辑，吉尔和富兰克林都出现在其中的几首曲目中。尼尔森大多选择了普莱斯的热门歌曲，包括他开创性的歌曲Crazy Arms(摇摆的4/4节奏很快风靡乡村音乐);他那令人心痛的《让世界消失》;他流畅的乡村政治“为了好时光”;以及纳尔逊的杰作Night Life，带有标志性的钢铁引子。