Remember When Vince Gill Scored His First No. 1 Hit?

Remember When Vince Gill Scored His First No. 1 Hit?

Vince Gill had already had a long and varied career by the time he finally scored his career breakthrough. The country music icon landed his first-ever No. 1 hit on Sept. 5, 1992, with “I Still Believe in You.”

Gill landed his first-ever success in 1980 as the singer for the country-pop band Pure Prairie League, which scored a Top 10 hit with “Let Me Love You Tonight.” But it was slow going for Gill when he departed that situation to launch a country solo career, and he had placed 19 Top 40 singles as a solo act by the time he released “I Still Believe in You” as the lead single from his album of the same title on June 29, 1992.

The career-changing song was inspired by a difficult stretch Gill and his then-wife, Janis Oliver, went through in their marriage, and he wrote it as a reaffirmation of their commitment. The couple would divorce in 1997, and Gill later married Christian singer Amy Grant. Though Gill and his first wife are on friendly terms now, she told Nashville’s Tennessean newspaper that “I Still Believe in You” is hard for her to hear.

‘Some songs that come on the radio still break my heart,” she said (quote via The Boot). ”I can pretend like they don’t tug at my heart or make me wistful, but there are some songs I can’t listen to anymore, like ‘I Still Believe in You,’ because of the circumstances around them and what he told me they meant to him. To hear that now is confusing.”

Gill would go on to score three more No. 1 hits from I Still Believe in You with “Don’t Let Our Love Start Slippin’ Away,”  “One More Last Chance” and “Tryin’ to Get Over You,” and the album would prove the most successful of his career, ultimately selling more than 5 million copies.

Sterling Whitaker is a Senior Writer and Senior Editor for Taste of Country. He focuses on celebrity real estate, as well as coverage of Yellowstone and related shows like 1883 and 1923. He’s interviewed cast members including Cole Hauser, Kelly Reilly, Sam Elliott and Harrison Ford, and Whitaker is also known for his in-depth interviews with country legends including Don Henley, Rodney Crowell, Trace Adkins, Ronnie Milsap, Ricky Skaggs and more.

 

Enjoy 22 Pictures of Vince Gill Young

Vince Gill started his solo career in Nashville in the early 1980s. Since then, he has recorded more than 20 studio albums, charted more than 40 singles on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart and sold more than 26 million albums. When it comes to winning awards, Gill is no slouch, either — he has won 22 Grammys and 18 CMAs lifetime. In 2007, Gill was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. Let’s take a look back at 22 pictures of Vince Gill young.

Gallery Credit: Evan Paul

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