Let's Make Sure We Kiss Goodbye

The black-and-white cover photograph and the title of Vince Gill's Let's Make Sure We Kiss Goodbye offer a story that unfolds as the recording itself plays. The album was written in the months preceding his marriage to singer Amy Grant, and if there was ever a record drenched in the kind of transformative rush of new love, this is the one. Yes, it is sappy at times, but the songwriting, as usual, is top-notch, and so are the performances here; mostly they're just really mellow and warm. That doesn't mean that sparks don't fly from some tracks: "Baby Please Don't Go" is drenched in choogling rockabilly swagger, "Shoot Straight from Your Heart is solid — if softer — contemporary country, and "Feels Like Love" is a midtempo country-pop tune that has that trademark wonderful rousing Gill vocal in the refrain. The rest are mostly love songs but inspired ones. Grant was clearly his muse on this set, and nowhere is it more clear than on the lilting title cut and "When I Look into Your Heart," where Gill and Grant perform a duet. Tony Brown's production is pristine and everywhere, but the craft and arrangements in these songs are all Gill's. This is a beautiful and sincere recording, one that not everyone will taker a shine to because of its tenderness, but that doesn't make it any less of a quality endeavor. You only make a record like this once in a lifetime; Vince Gill should be proud of this one.