By Alan Sculley | Republican-American

Vince Gill's fall tour couldn't put him in a much different setting from the last time he was on the road.

Following the release of "These Days," the bold and ambitious four-CD set of new music that came out in 2006, Gill put together a 17-piece band and played shows that ran for nearly three hours a night.

That instrumental arsenal was necessary for Gill to be able to re-create the wide-ranging music that was featured on "These Days," as well as a diverse back catalog of songs that extended back to the start of his solo career in the late 1980s.

But this time out, Gill is stripping things back to a bare bones acoustic format. He'll play acoustic guitar and be accompanied at various points each evening by pianist Pete Wasner, percussionist Billy Thomas and bassist Mike Bub.

"Last year, with the 17-piece band, we covered a wide range of music," Gill said in a mid-August phone interview. "I thought it would be interesting to go back a little bit as a story teller and songwriter (and share) how a lot of these songs really came to be and kind of see what happens this way. I don't really have a plan, just a couple of musicians (with me) and we'll see where we go. It's informal and very inclusive, I think, of the audience. It will be fun."

Gill said he has never done a tour in this sort of format, and he is leaving plenty of room to change up the song set to suit the mood of the audience on a given evening.

"The way I see it unfolding is not even having a set list. I'll let one song lead to another and somebody yelling out a song and this and that," he said. "I'm just trying to bone up on a lot of these songs that I don't play very often, some of the off-the-wall ones and maybe even some of the old ones from the early '80s and kind of almost in a sense letting it (the show) just evolve as it goes along, and let the people be a part of it rather than just saying here's what we're doing, just sit there and enjoy it. It will be a little more interactive and hopefully some good fun."

Gill likes the idea of changing up the song set from night to night and reworking songs into an acoustic format for this tour because it helps feed his creativity.

"I feel like if you just kind of go out there and keep slogging through the same old way and the same old thing, all you're doing is kind of just cashing the check," he said.

Gill, obviously, has in no way, shape or form been treading water creatively in recent years.

The four-CD set, "These Days," was pretty much an unprecedented move, not only within the country idiom, but all genres of contemporary music. It started out as a project with more modest ambitions before growing into its epic format.

Originally, he planned to release the usual single CD of new material. But Gill realized he always had tended to write many more songs for a CD than he needed, and the leftover songs would remain unfinished or unrecorded and never get revisited.

With no strict deadline looming to deliver a record, Gill kept working on his newest songs, taking them to finished recordings.

With no strict deadline looming to deliver a record, Gill kept working on his newest songs, taking them to finished recordings.

As the project began to take shape, Gill realized he had three CDs of material, each of which fell into fairly well defined territory – one of rocking material, one of traditional country and one of grooving country/pop.

This gave Gill the idea to release each of these three CDs separately within a few months of each other. But Luke Lewis, head of Gill's record company, UMG Nashville, proposed doing one better – adding a fourth disc of bluegrass – and releasing all four discs in one box set.

In the end, Gill thinks the decision to release all four discs as a set worked in his favor and brought "These Days" far more notoriety and attention than a single CD of new songs would have received.

"If it had been just a record, it would have come and gone, and I don't think anybody would have probably raised an eyebrow toward it," Gill said.

"Just the uniqueness of what it was that I did, I think, created an awful lot of interest in it."

Despite the publicity that surrounded "These Days," the album failed to generate any real country radio airplay for Gill. Like many veteran country artists, Gill has found himself essentially shut out by programmers, despite the fact that he enjoyed major success earlier in his career.

After making a name for himself as a member of Pure Prairie League (he sang the hit "Let Me Love You Tonight"), Gill moved on to a solo career that took off in 1989 when he signed to MCA Records and released the CD "When I Call Your Name."

That album sold more than two million copies and began an uninterrupted run of six studio CDs that all sold more than one million copies and spawned more than 20 top 10 country hits.

But in the late 1990s, Gill's winning streak dried up. Radio grew less and less interested in playing his singles, even though he still racks up sizable album sales. "Next Big Thing," the CD that preceded "These Days," sold 300,000 copies, while "These Days" was certified platinum with sales of more than one million copies.

"It baffles me, but at the same time it doesn't surprise me," Gill said of his difficulties in getting country radio airplay.

Gill, though, was richly rewarded for "These Days" on an artistic/critical level.

The CD set won a Grammy in 2008 for best country album and was also nominated for the all-encompassing album of the year award, an award won by Herbie Hancock for his album "River: The Joni Letters." Winning the country album award, Gill said, was special, but he might have been even more thrilled with the album of the year nomination.

"People who are really knocking it out of the park (with sales) in country music today would probably say the Grammys are not very representative of what's going on in country music today in a big way," Gill said. "I don't blame them for thinking that, but at the same time, the Grammys are not strictly about the top 10…But yeah, I was, certainly, not in a vindictive way, but in a validating way, I was proud that that album won. And the fact that it got nominated in then general category with Amy Winehouse and Foo Fighters and Herbie was a big thrill for me, to be nominated in that category. It created a whole level of interest in me that had never existed before."