{"id":34702,"date":"2025-07-03T07:22:10","date_gmt":"2025-07-03T07:22:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/34702\/"},"modified":"2025-07-03T07:22:10","modified_gmt":"2025-07-03T07:22:10","slug":"vince-gills-guitarist-recalls-playing-with-joe-walsh-and-what-gill-said-when-he-had-to-quit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/34702\/","title":{"rendered":"Vince Gill\u2019s Guitarist Recalls Playing With Joe Walsh (And What Gill Said When He Had To Quit)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Vince Gill certainly earned his nickname of the \u201cNicest Guy in Nashville,\u201d<\/a> as Gill\u2019s guitarist learned when he had to tell his bandleader that he was quitting to play with Joe Walsh. Vince Gill is one of several musical icons Tom Bukovac has toured with, including Tanya Tucker, Faith Hill, and John Fogerty. Bukovac is also a prolific session player, tracking guitar parts on albums by the Black Keys, Glen Campbell, Morgan Wallen, Stevie Nicks, Kenny Loggins, and many, many more.<\/p>\n

You don\u2019t get to be on the music industry short-list by flaking out of obligations. So, when Bukovac called up Gill to, well, do just that, the \u201cWhen I Call Your Name\u201d<\/a> singer had every right to be a little taken aback\u2014downright peeved, even. But much to Bukovac\u2019s relief, that\u2019s exactly the opposite of how Gill reacted.<\/p>\n

Vince Gill\u2019s Guitarist Recalls Telling Him He Was Quitting For Joe Walsh<\/strong><\/p>\n

The old adage about success in the music industry not relying on \u201cwhat you know, but who you know\u201d is an adage for a reason. While there are certainly exceptions to this rule, being friends of a friend to someone in need of a player can be a priceless stepping stone in a musician\u2019s career. Such was the case for Tom Bukovac, who had been friends with fellow guitarist Joe Vitale for over two decades, when he got a call about possibly stepping in as Joe Walsh\u2019s rhythm guitar player in 2017.<\/p>\n

\u201cI remember [Joe] texting me, saying, \u2018Buko, call me; I got some work for you,\u2019\u201d Bukovac recalled in a 2023 interview<\/a> with Otis Gibbs. \u201cI remember him saying that, and I was like, \u2018Oh, geeze, I wonder if it\u2019s a session or something, you know.\u2019\u201d As it turns out, Vitale was gauging interest in Bukovac replacing Waddy Wachtel on Joe Walsh\u2019s upcoming tour. Wachtel, Vitale explained, was booked with Stevie Nicks<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Bukovac told Vitale he already committed to playing on another Vince Gill tour. But Walsh was Bukovac\u2019s guitar hero, especially being a Cleveland native himself. So, the guitarist called up Gill, beating around the bush as he tried to summarize the phone call he just had with Vitale. \u201cI didn\u2019t want to really come out and say it, you know,\u201d Bukovac said. \u201c[Vince is] like, \u2018Joe Walsh called you to play?\u2019 And I was like, \u2018Yeah.\u2019\u201d Bukovac said Gill replied, \u201c\u2018You got to go do that, man.\u2019 He was super cool about it. Vince is the coolest. Super understanding about that.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Country Icon Knew The Rock \u2018n\u2019 Roller\u2019s Influence Firsthand<\/strong><\/p>\n

Being a bandleader is stressful. When one player quits, it\u2019s usually up to the front person to find a suitable replacement with enough speed and accuracy so as not to jeopardize gigs already on the calendar. When Tom Bukovac stepped down from a major tour with Vince Gill one year before it happened, it would have been within reason for Gill to react angrily, or at least exasperatedly. But he knew firsthand just how influential Joe Walsh was (and how big of an opportunity this would be for Bukovac) because Gill, too, spent his teen years admiring Walsh\u2019s work.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know if he realizes it or not, but he was a huge influence on me as a teenage kid trying to figure out how to play guitar,\u201d Gill said in a 2025 interview<\/a> at the Oklahoma Hall of Fame. \u201cI sat in my room, and me and my best friend, Benny, learned how to play \u201cRocky Mountain Way\u201d<\/a> and \u201cWalk Away\u201d and \u201cFunk 49.\u201d All those things from James Gang long before he ever joined the Eagles. He played in a way that I liked, and I emulated, and I tried to learn.\u201d<\/p>\n

Coincidentally, Vince Gill would join the Eagles<\/a> as Glenn Frey\u2019s replacement in 2017, the same year Gill\u2019s guitarist, Tom Bukovac, toured with Joe Walsh and Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers. So, as stressful as Bukovac quitting might have been for Gill for a day or two, we\u2019d say getting to accomplish their mutual dreams of playing with Walsh, their childhood hero, was cool enough to soothe any friction that, honestly, wasn\u2019t likely to come from someone named the nicest guy in Nashville.<\/p>\n

(Photo by Amiee Stubbs\/imageSPACE\/Shutterstock)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Vince Gill certainly earned his nickname of the \u201cNicest Guy in Nashville,\u201d as Gill\u2019s guitarist learned when he…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":34703,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[185,3988,171,28615,4185,67,132,68,28616],"class_list":{"0":"post-34702","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-celebrities","9":"tag-country-music","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-joe-walsh","12":"tag-rock-music","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-unitedstates","15":"tag-us","16":"tag-vince-gill"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114788102629718923","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34702","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34702"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34702\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34703"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34702"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34702"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34702"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}