Vince would probably have drifted along for years had it not been for Tim DuBois and MCA. DuBois had long recognized Gill’s talent and charm. He thought that Vince was one of the best vocalists in music, but for reasons that escaped DuBois, RCA had not chosen material that made this fact known. The label had attempted to transform Gill into a rocker (his former association with Los Angeles rock groups was probably what made RCA go in that unsuccessful direction), but Dubois knew that Vince’s voice was made-to-order for ballads.
Tim had followed Gill’s four-year career at RCA very closely, and was frustrated that Vince wasn’t offered a ballad that would give him a chance to break through. Now that Dubois had Gill signed to MCA, they went to work selecting material for Vince’s debut project on his new label, looking at different types of songs that had been submitted by the various publishing companies. They had been working for quite a while when Gill shared the idea of “When I Call Your Name” to Dubois. He told Tim that he and Janis were spending so much time apart because of their careers, and more often than not, when Vince managed to take a break from touring and go home, he would be alone.
The personal loneliness that Gill felt when he called his wife’s name and no one answered just ate at his soul. He told Dubois that he wanted to find a way to wrap those emotions in a song. By the time Vince and Tim finished writing “When I Call Your Name,” they knew it would be their crowning achievement, and both felt confident that it would be a big hit. However, for a while it seemed that MCA was going to relegate the Gill/DuBois song to the back burner and just use it as an album filler. The label picked “Never Alone” as the first release from the session. In spite of having then well-known hit-maker Rosanne Cash provide harmony vocals, the single failed to enter the Billboard Top 20.
