Paisley, Brad

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Paisley, Brad

Career
Sidelights
Selected Discography
Sources

Country singer

B orn October 28, 1972, in Glen Dale, WV; son of Doug (a department of transportation worker) and Sandy (a teacher) Paisley; married Kimberly Williams (an actress), March 15, 2003; children: William Huckleberry. Education: Studied guitar with Clarence “Hank” Goddard; attended West Liberty State College, WV, 1991-93; Belmont University, Nashville, TN, B.B.A., 1995.

Addresses: Management—JAG Management, Jimmy Gilmer, 41 Music Square East, Nashville, TN 37203. Record company—Arista Nashville, 1540 Broadway, New York, NY 10036. Web site—http://www.bradpaisley.com .

Career

P layed on WWVA’s Jamboree USA radio program, 1980s; intern, American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers, Atlantic Records, and Fitzgerald-Hartley Management, 1990s; signed songwriting contract with EMI, 1995; signed with Arista Nashville, 1998; released debut album, Who Needs Pictures, 1999; Grand Ole Opry debut, 1999; inducted as a regular cast member, Grand Ole Opry, 2001; has appeared at international festivals in England, Scotland, Ireland, Canada, and Japan; “Bonfires and Amplifiers” tour for album 5th Gear, 2007.

Awards: Top new male vocalist, Academy of Country Music, 1999; song of the year, for “He Didn’t Have to Be,” TNN Music Awards, 2000; video of the year, for “He Didn’t Have to Be,” TNN Music Awards, 2000; Discovery Award for “He Didn’t Have to Be,” TNN Music Awards, 2000; Horizon Award, Country Music Association, 2000; vocal event of the year award for “Too Country,” Country Music Association, 2001; international songwriter of the year, Nashville Songwriters Association, 2000-01; Connie B. Gay Award, Country Music Association, 2002; album of the year, for Time Well Wasted, Academy of Country Music, 2005; musical event of the year for “When I Get Where I’m Going,” Country Music Association, 2006; album of the year, for Time Well Wasted, Country Music Association, 2006; top male vocalist, Academy of Country Music, 2006; male vocalist of the year, Country Music Association, 2007; music video of the year, for “Online,” Country Music Association, 2007; Grammy Award for best country instrumental performance, for “Throttleneck,” National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, 2008.

Sidelights

C ountry music star Brad Paisley is well known for bring traditional styles back to country. Instead of following the trend where many stars in the country world record their songs as crossover numbers for pop radio stations, Paisley sticks to his originals. Not only a singer, Paisley excels at guitar, and has also worked as a songwriter, writing many of the numbers he and his band—most of whom have been together for 12 years—perform.

But despite his seeming rapid rise from obscurity to stardom at his first album’s release in 1999, Paisley has been in the industry for a long time. It all started with his grandfather. “I got my first guitar when I was eight years old,” Paisley told an interviewer for the Virginian Pilot. “My grandfather, who died in 1987, gave it to me. He was the best friend I ever had. Two months before he died, I opened for the Judds—he got to see that. It was like giving Moses a look at the Promised Land. He knew that guitar was the best gift I ever received.” The two spent hours together as Paisley was growing up: His grandfather, Warren Jarvis, was a railroad worker who worked the night shift, giving him time to spend with his grandson during the day. They listened to country music, and Jarvis began teaching him how to play guitar. Though at first Paisley was reluctant, preferring sports and more active endeavors, he took to the instrument. “I kind of fought it for a while, ’cause at eight you’d rather play sports or do anything other than something that hurts your hand,” Paisley told Melissa Block on All Things Considered. “But the thing that kept me going was knowing how bad he wanted me to do that. I think he enjoyed it so much he wanted me to be able to have that in my life. He changed my life in a way no one ever will again.” Soon he and Jarvis were playing everywhere they could, “anywhere the relatives wouldn’t complain,” Paisley quipped in People.

Jarvis gave him a love of country music, teaching him all of the old Buck Owens numbers. “I had to do the opposite of any other kid,” Paisley explained in Entertainment Weekly, “I had to go study rock and roll. I’d go ‘Oh yeah, I love AC/DC’—and then I would go buy it.” While country music remained his love, he also practiced songs by U2 to perform for his friends, and he enjoyed jazz and sang gospel in church with his family. His first song, written when he was 12, was “Born on Christmas Day.” According to a contributor for the Country Music Television Web site, “His junior high school principal heard it and asked him to do it at the next Rotary Club meeting.” Paisley, always eager to perform—he quipped in People that one of the nice things about coming from a small town was, “If you wanna be a star, they’ll make you one”—accepted, and in the audience was a radio programming director, who then invited him to perform on Jamboree USA, a popular country radio program. The performance was a success, and Paisley was invited to become a regular on the program, where he appeared steadily for eight years, often opening for such country stars as Little Jimmy Dickens and Roy Clark. He became the youngest member elected to Jamboree USA’s Hall of Fame.

Along with performing on the radio, Paisley studied guitar with local musician Clarence “Hank” Goddard, who invited Paisley to perform with his band. “Hank would let me play a solo, and I’d butcher it, but he’d smile and give me encouragement,” Paisley recounted in Guitar Player. “He made me work on my scales, and play solos . That’s when I really started working on my lead playing.” His formal education began at West Liberty College, a local school, but a professor encouraged him to follow his interests to Belmont University in Nashville, where he could study music business. At first, Paisley was reluctant to leave his small town, but once in Nashville, he settled in, meeting fellow students Frank Rogers (who would produce his first album), Chris DuBois, and Kelley Lovelace, who have both co-written songs on Paisley’s albums.

During college, Paisley played on demos and worked as a songwriter, earning money and starting to make inroads in the industry. His work was noticed, and he was signed by Arista Nashville in 1998. A year later, he released his first album, Who Needs Pictures, bringing on Rogers as his producer despite the fact that Rogers had never produced an album, and playing with his stage band, a trend uncommon in country music, when most singers work with a band more familiar with recording in a studio. “He Didn’t Have to Be,” a single he co-wrote with Lovelace, topped the Billboard charts, and the album went platinum. A series of awards thrust Paisley into the spotlight—a light he made a point to share with his band. The humble entertainer was overwhelmed by his sudden celebrity: “It’s a good kind of feeling, but it’s also a whirlwind to some extent, but it’s fun,” he told the Los Angeles Daily News. “It beats working, that’s for sure.”

In 1999, Paisley was also invited to sing at the Grand Ole Opry, and he began doing as many shows there as his schedule would allow—a trend that echoed his more traditional sound. “Many Hot Country performers have been criticized for not playing the Opry, and there’s some concern for its future,” wrote S. Renee Dechert in Popular Music and Society. “Paisley, however, is a regular.” So regular, in fact, that his second album, Part II, featured a track of Paisley performing “The Old Rugged Cross” at the Opry, introduced by Little Jimmy Dickens. His performances there in 1999 also made him, at 27, the youngest cast member.

Part II, released in 2001, also featured Paisley’s third No. 1 hit, “I’m Gonna Miss Her (The Fishing Song).” The song tells the story of a woman who gives her boyfriend an ultimatum: her or the fish.After choosing the fish, he says he is sure he will miss her, but is easily distracted by the fish biting his line. Not only did the song capture Paisley’s sense of humor, which helped him earn a reputation as a comedic songwriter, the music video also featured actress Kimberly Williams, who Paisley married in 2003.

Part II did not capture any awards, nor did Paisley’s third album, Mud on the Tires, though he earned several nominations. “I’m enjoying this losing streak,” Paisley said in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch in 2006. “Nobody dislikes you when you lose, and nobody’s looking to pick you off.” Paisley was the most-nominated male country artist at that year’s Grammy awards, but he took no awards home. That trend changed with his fourth album, Time Well Wasted, which was named Album of the Year by both the Academy of Country Music and the Country Music Association. Paisley’s serious numbers and comedic hits both won praise, and Entertainment Weekly contributor Chris Willman noted, “he’s had more successfully comic songs than anyone in country since the 1970s.”

In 2007, Paisley hit the road on his “Bonfires and Amplifiers” tour, and his fifth full album (not including a Christmas album) went gold, producing another two No. 1 hits. He returned home as often as he could to spend time with his family’s newest addition, William Huckleberry Paisley, in either the Paisleys’ Los Angeles home or his preferred home of Franklin, Tennessee. “Brad’s a great dad,” said wife Kimberly Williams-Paisley in People. ”It’s really fun to leave him with Huck. No matter what happens, when I ask how it went, the first thing Brad says is, ‘Oh, we had a ball.’”

Friends have said that they would call Paisley a workaholic if he were not having so much fun. “He’s extremely intelligent and a very quick learner,” said Paisley’s tour designer Scott Scovill in the Minneapolis Star Tribune. “He can grab animation software and start doing animation . For fun, he’ll sit down and edit his videos or his TV special.” Critics have noted this sense of fun in his music as well. “If Brad Paisley weren’t a country superstar, he could be a comedian,” a critic for Blender magazine was quoted as having said in the Minneapolis Star Tribune. Along with his comedy, country veteran Buck Owens praised Paisley’s nostalgic sound. “Brad’s the real thing,” he said in People. “There’s no pretense.”

Paisley attributes some of his success to being able to combine traditional country styles and themes with rock and jazz inspirations, as well as not taking his music too seriously. “I think levity is very necessary in our modern world,” he said in Entertainment Weekly. For Paisley, “it probably comes from a love of the old country music, because this was such a big part of our format at one time.” He also remembers his roots. “I’ve spent many years with my band playing little fairs on flatbed trailers,” he said in Guitar Player. “We’d show up, and no one knew who we were, so we’d work the whole time to try to convince people not to leave.” Despite, or perhaps because of, his fame, he keeps that same attitude in his live performances: dedication to giving people a good show. He told People, “I feel more nervous than I’ve been in my career. There still isn’t a night when I don’t worry if people will come [to a show].” But despite his nerves, he and his band continue to love their jobs. “There isn’t a single night when we walk out there and hate our job,” Paisley said in Guitar Player. “I am so thankful we’ve gotten to this level. It’s ridiculous we get paid for this . It still blows my mind.”