Secretly, I think every average person’s dream is walking up onto a karaoke stage and just absolutely blowing the crowd away. Certainly, for professional singers, this goal is a bit more attainable, hence why country legend Vince Gill had some fun with his impromptu karaoke performance.
This story is a pretty old tale from Vince Gill, but it recently recirculated on TikTok, and it is GOLD. User @jamielynnbolen captured the retelling of the story he told to his audience at a recent show in Macon, Georgia, this past Friday, June 20.
Gill starts off by setting the scene, explaining that he was out on tour with Patty Loveless about 35 years ago. On one of the tour’s nights off, he and his crew decided to take over the Holiday Inn lounge bar where they were staying, and it just so happened to be a karaoke night.
The band and crew packed about 50 people into this bar, where a few of the guys were doing heavy metal covers. While everyone’s having a blast drinking and enjoying themselves, Gill notices a pretty woman next to him and the conversation starts flowing, to which the lady curiously asks, “Do I know you?”
Now, Gill, despite being one of the greatest voices in country music, probably wouldn’t be recognizable to many if you just saw him out on a random night in public. He responds to the lady, “I don’t think so, I’m not from around here,” but the lady persists that she knows him from somewhere. The woman asks, “What’s your name, baby?” to which he hilariously replies, “My name is Willis.”
Then, digging himself deeper into this new persona, the conversation continues. “‘Aww, I don’t know anybody named Willis.’ She says, ‘What do you do Willis?’ and I said ‘I sell Auto Parts’ and she says ‘Oh, I don’t know any auto parts dealer but I know that I know you.’” The crowd erupts at Gill’s lie.
As the night continues and everyone is having fun, the lady offers that she and ‘Willis’ go and do a duet. “I said, ‘Baby, I said you couldn’t get me to sing in front of people for a million dollars. No chance. Uh uh. No Way’ and she goes, ‘Come on baby, I’ll get you through it, just come with me’.”
Obviously, with 20 Grammy awards and 18 CMA awards to his name as well as being a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame, this lie couldn’t be further from the truth. But Gill kept up with his persistence that he wouldn’t sing.
…Until the end of the night rolls around and he finally gives in and suggests to the woman, “Okay, let’s do that duet.” With the room lined with all of his guys from the tour, they’re all in on the secret and laughing at the scene about to take place.
He then goes on to show off his grade-A acting skills too by absolutely bamboozling the poor lady by starting off their duet with horrendous vocals (which I didn’t even know it was possible for Vince Gill to even attempt to sound bad).
The two choose to sing a Motown song, and Gill takes the first verse. “I sing so bad out of tune and all the wrong words and shes just like, ‘Oh God man you suck’. You can read it in her face, and she sang a little bit, and she was okay. And then I sang the second verse worse than the first, and she’s like just so despondent and crushed, and all the people are laughing at us, of course. And so there’s one more verse, and so I look at her and I grab the mic and I went like Stevie Wonder on her.”
What an absolute power move. In true Vince Gill fashion, he tells the crowd that he starts hitting all of these runs and riffs and high falsetto notes, and of course, the lady’s face drops in awe. He goes on to say they’re walking off the stage and the woman humbles poor Gill by saying, “You know what Willis? Once you weren’t quite so nervous, you got a little better, a bit.”
He finally lets her in on his secret and admits he’s just been messing with her all night, finally revealing that he’s “a fairly well-known country singer from Nashville.” In response, she has her ah-ha moment and proclaims, “THAT’s where I know you from! You are that Alan Jackson boy, aren’t you?” and he just replies with a hilarious, “yup.”
In an amazing ending to the story, Gill tells everyone how the two became friends, and he left her some tickets, and the woman has since been coming to his shows for 35 years. And of course… she still calls him Willis.
Karaoke nights really do bring out a wide variety of individuals, but take this story as your reminder to be friendly to everyone there because you never know when you’ll be sitting next to a superstar like Vince Gill. Unfortunately, you may not find the 68-year-old in a hotel bar anymore, but he’s currently out on his 2025 tour, An Evening With Vince Gill, spanning 31 cities throughout the summer.
Check out the remaining dates below:
- July 10 – Tysons, VA – Capitol One Hall
- July 11 – New York, NY – Beacon Theatre
- July 12 – Pittsburgh, PA – Heinz Hall
- July 24 – Detroit, MI – Fox Theatre
- July 25 – Columbus, OH – Palace Theatre
- July 26 – Louisville, KY – The Kentucky Center – Robert S. Whitney Hall
- July 31 – Charlotte, NC – Ovens Auditorium
- Aug 1 – Richmond, VA – Altria Theater
- Aug 2 – Cleveland, OH – Playhouse Square – Connor Palace
- Aug 8 – Nashville, TN – Ryman Auditorium
- Aug 9 – Nashville, TN – Ryman Auditorium
- Aug 15 – Nashville, TN – Ryman Auditorium
- Aug 16 – Nashville, TN – Ryman Auditorium
And watch the full clip here: