Vince Gill can sing almost anything. But even he admits that there is one song - a Beach Boys' hit - which he thought would be impossible to sing live.
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The song is "Surf's Up," a hit for the Beach Boys in 1971. Gill was asked to sing the song at the All-Star Tribute to Brian Wilson in 2001, a request Gill initially refused.
"I didn't know the song 'Surf's Up,'" Gill recalls on Tom Scott's Podcast Express (via American Songwriter). "So, I said okay, not knowing this was the hardest thing I ever had to learn in my whole life."
Gill didn't actually know the song, but once he heard it, he tried unsuccessfully to back out of it.
"Then, I got the record and put it on," Gill remembers. "And I called my manager and said, 'I can't do this. There's no way in hell I can pull this off.'"
Gill also called the show's organizer, Phil Ramone, who also encouraged Gill to give it a shot.
How Vince Gill Ended Up Performing "Surf's Up" Live
Gill was asked to sing both "Surf's Up" and "Warmth of the Sun" with David Crosby and Jimmy Webb. It was in rehearsal that Gill finally realized he could maybe pull off the challenging tune.
"I worked harder learning some how, some way, to pull that off than anything I've ever learned in my life," Gill shares. "I remember the first rehearsal, with David and Jimmy, and I killed it on the first rehearsal. David Crosby just looked at me, gave me the finger, and said, 'F- you!' I took that as a compliment."
Fortunately, it was after Gill committed to learning "Surf's Up" that he found out how hard the song really is to perform live, even for Wilson.
"We never did that song live. It was too hard," Wilson told Gill. Wilson also praised Gill after his stellar performance.
"I never heard Vince Gill sing before," Wilson later said. "After he sang, I was blown out. I was totally blown out."
Wilson is one of the founding members of the Beach Boys. He was 82 years old when he passed away on June 11.
