When last seen on national television, Vince Gill dropped a joke on rapper Kanye West while accepting a Grammy award for his album "These Days" from Ringo Starr. But Vince appearances will be rare for the next few months.

The album, featuring 43 songs on four CDs, took quite a while to make, and Vince then spent plenty of time promoting the album at the end of 2006 and during '07. So now he has a long period of down time.

"I worked so hard last year on that record, promoting it and doing a winter tour where cities were having blizzards," he told The Tennessean. "Shows were cancelled, and buses were breaking down. It was a nutty, nutty year. So we just kind of cleared the books for the first half of this year, and I've been spending a lot of time at home."

Vince is in the process of building a studio at the house he shares with wife Amy Grant, and it's a good bet he'll be playing some golf, too. Plus, he's still laughing about his acceptance speech, when he quipped, "I just got an award given to me by a Beatle. Have you had that happen yet, Kanye?"

"The village idiot will say anything about any time," Vince said, poking fun at himself. "I can't help it. I like laughing."

One public appearance that is on Vince's schedule comes a month from today: He'll play a fundraiser March 27 at Cleveland Elementary School in Oklahoma City, the place where he gave his first public performance.