If you follow the music industry or country music news, you may have noted that country music superstar Vince Gill has some mighty ambitious plans for his next CD, These Days. It’s a four CD set to be released on October 17, but not as a greatest hits or career-wide retrospective. This multi-disk project contains 43 new tracks, each of them written or co-written by Gill himself. We were impressed when Tim O’Brien released two CDs simultaneously last year, but this really wins the prize!

Long time bluegrass fans know that Vince got his start playing bluegrass, including stints with Bluegrass Alliance, Boone Creek, and Byron Berline’s Sundance before moving towards country rock as a member of Pure Prarie League. The new project indicates that the material will be a mix of styles, with bluegrass included. The Del McCoury Band are listed as guest performers, and with Vince’s own demonstrated ability as a picker and singer, one imagines that the bluegrass that’s featured will be solid stuff.

Gill recently announced a tour in support of the CD, and the press release also mentioned that bluegrass music would be featured on the show. When we learned last week that Nashville banjo man Charlie Cushman had been hired for the tour, there was no doubt that it was true.

The tour dates can be found on the Vince Gill website.