Vince Gill  Vincent Grant Gill (born April 12, 1957) is an American country singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. He has achieved commercial success and fame both as frontman to the country rock band Pure Prairie League in the 1970s and as a solo artist beginning in 1983, where his talents as a vocalist and musician have placed him in high demand as a guest vocalist and a duet partner. He has recorded more than 20 studio albums, charted over 40 singles on the U.S. "Billboard" charts as Hot Country Songs, and has sold more than 26 million albums. He has been honored by the Country Music Association with 18 CMA Awards, including two Entertainer of the Year awards and five Male Vocalist Awards. As of 2017, Gill has also earned 21 Grammy Awards, more than any other male country music artist. In 2007 he was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. On February 4, 2016, Gill was inducted into the Guitar Center Rock Walk by Joe Walsh of the Eagles. In 2017, Vince Gill and Deacon Frey were hired by the Eagles in place of the late Glenn Frey. Vince Gill was born in Norman, Oklahoma. His mother had a son, Bob Coen, from a previous marriage. He was Gill's half-brother, but was considered a full brother by Gill. His father, J. Stanley Gill, was a lawyer and administrative law judge who played in a country music band part-time and encouraged Gill to pursue a music career. His father encouraged him to learn to play banjo and guitar, which he did along with bass, mandolin, Dobro and fiddle. Gill attended high school at Oklahoma City's Northwest Classen High School. While there he performed bluegrass in the band Mountain Smoke, which built a strong local following. After graduating from high school in 1975, he moved to Louisville, Kentucky, to join the band Bluegrass Alliance. Afterwards he spent a brief amount of time in Ricky Skaggs's Boone Creek band before moving to Los Angeles to join Sundance, a bluegrass group fronted by fiddler Byron Berline. Gill debuted on the national scene with the country rock band Pure Prairie League in 1979, appearing on that band's album "Can't Hold Back". He is the lead singer on their song "Let Me Love You Tonight". Mark Knopfler once invited him to join Dire Straits, but he declined the offer (although he sang backup on the Dire Straits' album "On Every Street").