Vince Gill & Paul Franklin - Bakersfield

MCA Recording and 20 Grammy Award-winning artist Vince Gill, and famed steel guitarist Paul Franklin have fashioned the album Bakersfield, a perfectly matched set of five Buck Owens and five Merle Haggard classics that pulsate with all the emotional fervor of the originals. Owens is represented by "Foolin' Around," "He Don't Deserve You Anymore," "Nobody's Fool But Yours," "But I Do" and "Together Again," while Haggard surfaces via "Holding Things Together," "The Fightin' Side Of Me," "I Can't Be Myself," "Branded Man" and "The Bottle Let Me Down." All these songs were originally released between 1961 and 1974.

From the outset, Gill and Franklin agreed they wouldn't record sound-alike versions. "The album is very much borrowed from and inspired by the originals," Gill says, "but it's done in our own way-the way we chose to play and sing it. There was no point in doing a note-for-note."

Gill and Franklin go to some length in Bakersfield to honor certain pickers who backed Owens and Haggard early in their careers. Among these were stellar guitarists James Burton, Roy Nichols, Don Rich, Reggie Young, Buck, Merle, and fabled steel players Ralph Mooney, Tom Brumley, Norm Hamlet and J.D. Maness. Although he's spent much of his career in the spotlight, Gill insists his greatest joy is in being a sideman. "The only reason any of us learned to play was to collaborate and play with someone else. It's not much fun by yourself. This record has been a great experience for me-to go back and honor the things that I hold dearest."

"This may be Vince's greatest project," Franklin declares. "What a showcase! I've heard him sing for 30 years, but he sings licks on this record I never heard before." Gill's guitar and vocals grace more than 400 albums-in addition to his own. He's won 20 Grammys, 18 Country Music Association Awards and is a member of the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame, the Country Music Hall of Fame and the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Bakersfield is his first duet album.