True love tends to pop into our lives in mysterious ways, and in the case of how Vince Gill first fell for Amy Grant, that “mysterious” arrival came in the form of radio airwaves. A touching testament to their future romantic and musical relationship, their story was love at first sound, not sight.
Although, as Gill would later say in more ways than one, he didn’t find Grant particularly hard on the eyes, either.
The Moment Vince Gill First Fell for Amy Grant
Vince Gill and Amy Grant established highly successful musical careers long before they married in 2000, so it’s only fitting that the “nicest guy in Nashville” first heard the “Queen of Christian Pop” playing on the radio. On an episode of the WSM radio show I Played the Ryman, Gill remembered hearing her voice for the first time while driving through Nashville traffic.
“I heard her voice, and I pulled the car over,” Gill said (via Fox News). “I said, ‘There’s something in that voice. It’s connecting to me,’ and little did I know how much.” In a 2003 interview with Larry King, Gill elaborated, “I heard her records probably in the early ‘80s sometime.” When her song, which he later identified as “Tennessee Christmas,” started playing in the car, he told King he thought, “I can’t drive in traffic. I just have to hear this.”
“Her voice is really compelling,” he continued to King. “Just a quality in it that is so appealing. And there are certain singers like that. Amy will tell you she’s not the greatest singer in the world. She doesn’t have the voice of Mariah Carey or somebody like that, but what she has is what Johnny Cash had—a kind of voice that when you heard it, you knew who it was, and you were captivated by it. She really is an amazing communicator.”
The “Love at First Sound” Feelings Were Reciprocal
Luckily for Vince Gill, he also has quite an arsenal of musical abilities, which meant it didn’t take long for Amy Grant to feel a “love at first sound” feeling herself. Gill and Grant first began collaborating on annual holiday performances around Christmastime in 1993, and it was during one of these seasonal concerts that Grant’s feelings for Gill began to grow.
“I knew from the tips of my toes that he was unlike anybody I had ever met,” Grant recalled in a 2011 AARP interview. “I related to him on such a cellular level [and] was just so overwhelmed by him as a person that I finally came up behind him and wrapped my arms around him and said, ‘I’ve needed to do this all night.’ He went, ‘Woah! Woah! Woah!’ It was weird. It was all caught on film, too.”
While it seems odd to imagine Gill shrinking from Grant’s embrace these days, it was understandable at the time. He and Grant were in relationships when they first began working together, and both musicians had a squeaky-clean public persona that divorce threatened to muddy. Their union was not without controversy, either from the press, their exes, or the children Gill and Grant had with their previous spouses.
Still, the heart—and the music that drew them together—doesn’t lie. And decades after their controversial marriage in 2000, Vince Gill and Amy Grant continue to reign as one of Nashville’s most formidable power couples.
Photo by Kevin Dietsch/UPI/Shutterstock
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