Vince Gill

Okie Vince Gill

GRAMMY Award-winning MCA Nashville country star Vince Gill announced that his new album, Okie, will be released on August 23. Gill wrote or co-wrote all 12 songs on Okie. The album s title is taken from the once-derogatory term used to disparage migrants from Oklahoma to the nation s west coast during the Dust Bowl and Great Depression eras. A proud Oklahoman, Gill has appropriated this term on an album that embraces his roots and explores some of the most important issues of our time. I thought this was going to be a songwriter record, not a concept album, Gill says. It wound up being more information than I d envisioned. A friend sent me an email saying, You could have only written this record after living a 60-year-plus life. He said, There s no struggle in these songs, just truth and your experience.