by Brad Paisley
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down the front of it.
The vast majority of the biggest stars in country music all came through Wheeling as part of the national circuit, but because the Jamboree wasn’t in Nashville, where so many of the great artists lived, the format was a little different. Members of the Jamboree from the area played for about an hour to get things going, then a popular national headlining act played one or two shows depending on who that headliner was. I remember that a true country legend like George Jones would play two or three shows to packed houses. The great Charley Pride would do as many as four sellout shows in a weekend and he’d add a matinee too. There was such a fan base in West Virginia for classic country that people were always lined up around the block in those days.
I was already a fan of the Wheeling Jamboree before I could even dream of actually being part of the action on-stage. One time my grandfather won tickets, and he took me with him to see the country star John Conlee. John had lots of popular country hits, like “Common Man,” “Backside of Thirty,” and “Lady Lay Down.” As the show was wrapping up, my grandfather whispered to me that we should leave and try to beat the traffic. I begged Papaw to stay just a little longer because I knew that John Conlee hadn’t sung his best song yet—“Rose Colored Glasses.” My grandfather halfheartedly agreed to wait, and afterward on the way home he told me that I had good taste in songs. I was already interested in what made a country song work, but now that I had confirmation that I had good taste, I was fascinated.
Returning to the Jamboree—which had helped make me a fan of so many country music artists—to take the stage myself while I was still a kid was just unbelievable. Turns out it also was pretty unbelievable for the man who ran the music on the show. Many years later, the musical director of the Wheeling Jamboree Zane Baxter confessed to me that he was completely furious when he heard that Tom Miller had invited a little boy from Glen Dale to come onto the radio program. He’d asked Tom that very night, “Is this going to be the worst thing that we have ever done?”
For whatever reason, Tom Miller went out on a limb for me and said, “Well, I don’t think so, but I’m willing to go out there and introduce the kid, so don’t worry. Let me take the responsibility for this. I’ll take the blame if he’s awful. But I really think you’ll be surprised.”
Fortunately, I didn’t know a thing about any of this backstage drama at that time.
* * *
I was already interested in what made a country song work, but now that I had confirmation that I had good taste, I was fascinated.
* * *
I was the most excited I had ever been as I walked out on the stage of the Jamboree. Only my guitar was there to help take on the biggest audience I had ever faced. I caught my breath and started to play and sing my only hit—“Born on Christmas Day,” a song I still love. Because I was very young, or not completely horrible, or possibly some combination of the two, the Jamboree audience gave a wonderful and welcoming reception. That very night, Zane Baxter changed his tune and invited me to return soon. Zane later told me that what really made him take notice of me that night was the fact that here was this young kid who dared to sing an original Christmas song rather than one of the obvious standards. And he could tell I could play. Really play. Especially for thirteen years old.
There’s an important lesson there. If I had gone out there, strummed, and sung something safe, like, say, “Winter Wonderland,” I can’t imagine that the Jamboree would have been as impressed. Or ever ended up inviting me back on the show to be their new, young regular performer. It was the fact that I dared to write and play my own song that made the powers that be sit up and take notice and give me this big and crazy break. Ever since then, I think I’ve always seen the writing as the thing that has pushed me forward to the next level as an artist.
Being a part of the Jamboree as a teenager was a dream come true. Our job was to warm up the audience for our headliner. That’s how, as a teenager, I got the unique career-altering chance to open for so many of the greats. By the time I was sixteen, I was playing the Jamboree every other weekend—or every weekend—and I played in the band some too, which was good for learning my chops as a player.
Those were my American Saturday nights for a good long time. I’ll never forget those shows and all the greats who I got to open for. Though I can hardly believe it as I write a few of these names on a list, I got to open for George Jones, Conway Twitty, Charley Pride, Vince Gill, Steve Wariner, Charlie Daniels, Little Jimmy Dickens, Chet Atkins (twice), Larry Gatlin and the Gatlin Brothers, Ricky Skaggs, John Conlee (twice), Ray Stevens, Lee Greenwood, Joe Diffie, the Desert Rose Band, Exile, the Judds . . . I could go on and on.
So many of the headlining stars were kind and generous and complimentary to me. Especially Charley Pride. When Charley came to headline at the Jamboree, he was usually nice enough to slip into the audience and watch the first part of the show. It’s hilarious to me to think that this African-American superstar could possibly not stand out in the all-white country crowd assembled to watch him play in Wheeling. One night my mom and her friend Susan were excited to notice that Charley Pride was sitting right there in front of them. When I came out onstage picking and singing, Charley Pride turned around and asked, “Excuse me, who is that?” My mom got shy, but Susan said, “That’s her son.” Afterward, Charley said, “Your son’s amazing. I want to meet him.”
That’s how we all first met, and Charley exchanged numbers with us and struck up a phone friendship with my father. He wanted to help me if he could. To this day, Charley still has my dad’s number. In fact, Charley might have been the very first big country artist who took a real interest in me—and the first to ever tell my father that I had something special and should come to Nashville and take my shot at becoming a recording artist.
Charley—one of twelve children of a poor sharecropper from Mississippi—became a groundbreaking country superstar, thanks to his famously smooth baritone on thirty-six number one hits, including “I’m Just Me,” “Kiss an Angel Good Morning,” and “My Eyes Can Only See as Far as You.” This was a man who was tearing up the charts during the height of the racial tensions in our country. In fact, his record label at the time used to ship singles with no photo of Charley. I’ve heard that the first time he played the Opry, Charley walked out to a huge ovation, which abruptly stopped. He walked silently to the mic and, with total grace and humor, said, “Think of it as a permanent suntan.” And the ice was forever broken. What a pioneer. Many years later, I was honored to play with Charley Pride at the White House for President Obama and the First Lady. That night, Charley went straight up to my father and said, “Doug, is your number still . . . ,” and then told my dad his number correctly.
A lot of the famous headliners would hear about this teenager who was pretty good and would actually watch me play. I’ll never forget being thirteen and seeing the Judds—who were really rocking my world and the rest of the world back then—standing on the side of the stage taking an interest in my act.
Country music was then—and still is—an overwhelmingly warm, welcoming community chock-full of some of the nicest folks you could ever want to meet. The headliners were always more than willing to be cordial to an aspiring young talent. I can’t believe the things I got to see at that show. From the amplifiers and guitar gear the greats used, to Chet Atkins sitting around backstage pickin’, to Vern Gosdin so furious with his monitors that he threw his cup of beer in the air, which completely soaked yours truly. Now, that’s a baptism.
Thankfully, very few bottles came my way, and I still have some of the photos of me with all these country greats when I was just a kid. Some of my most treasured are photos of me at twelve with Vince Gill and Steve Wariner, who were just then becoming my heroes as singers, songwriters,
and, more importantly, guitarists. Meeting these giants and sharing a stage with them was my first real hint that maybe this was not an impossible dream. I was at least in the vicinity. Perhaps I really could become a player.
As an American musician, I hold this truth to be self-evident: a guitar makes a better friend than most human beings. Seriously, some of my best friends are guitars. But right about this point in my coming-of-age as a man and a musician, I started to notice something beyond guitars . . . amplifiers.
Disclaimer: These next few paragraphs are probably going to be boring for anyone not interested in guitar gear. You’ve been warned.
* * *
As an American musician, I hold this truth to be self-evident: a guitar makes a better friend than most human beings.
* * *
That’s right: I was a teenage amp-head. Suddenly it dawned on me that as much as I loved guitars, the amp was often 75 percent of the equation. My grandfather had started me off small with a little Fender amp that was just fine for a while, but then I convinced my father that I needed to have a Fender Twin—and I needed it on wheels, too, because it weighed about a hundred and fifty pounds, and my father, who had to carry it most of the time, only weighed a hundred and fifty pounds himself. But just when my father thought I would be satisfied with that, I decided unilaterally that I needed—that’s needed, mind you, not wanted—a Mesa Boogie pre-amp and amp with two speakers and a big rack full of junk with blinking lights to go with it. I was a kid in a candy store playing at that Jamboree. I would see these guys come through with their fancy rigs and flashy guitars, and my saliva glands would activate. I had Fender amps, then Peavey amps, then pedal boards, then rack gear, then wireless units—you name it.
All of this high fidelity and high finance pales in comparison to what my father and I call the Great Vox Amp Crisis of 1987. That’s the year when I came to Dad at age fifteen to explain to him in no uncertain terms that I now needed—again, not wanted, but needed—some very specific and hard-to-find Vox amps from England. My father had begun to realize that something was going on a little earlier when he noticed that his phone bill was suddenly full of long and expensive phone calls to Great Britain because I had done due diligence and discovered the numbers of some excellent music stores across the Atlantic.
These amps were the stuff of legend, first made famous by the Shadows and the Beatles, and they were rare and mythical in late-eighties West Virginia. They looked as exotic as a Ferrari to me with their basket-weave tolex, diamond grill cloth, chicken-head tone knobs, and blue bulldog speakers. And like I was Veruca Salt in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, they were my golden goose. I had to have them. “How much, Wonka? Won’t take no for an answer. Come now, how much, I say? Now, now, everything is for sale . . .” And they were going to be mine.
My sudden and overwhelming interest in calling England first started when I opened up for my new favorite group, the Desert Rose Band, an incredibly innovative country band formed by Chris Hillman, formerly of the Byrds, and featuring the apex of my all-time guitar heroes, John Jorgenson, who would go on to play for years with Elton John and record or tour with everyone from Hank Williams Jr. to Luciano Pavarotti. As soon as I realized that the Desert Rose Band had Vox amps, I scammed someone into giving me John Jorgenson’s phone number. So I just called John blind and said, “My name is Brad Paisley. I opened for you at the Jamboree in Wheeling, and I love your sound. Do you have a minute to talk about Vox amps?” Rather than just hang up on this punk, John was nice enough to explain that you could only get these amplifiers in certain places and that I wanted the old ones, not the new ones. He told me there was a great music store in Louisville that would probably have them, but that they’d have a lot more to choose from in England at certain stores.
Despite the fact that I would avoid math homework at all costs, I gladly calculated the time difference between Glen Dale, West Virginia, and Doncaster, England, even though I failed to properly calculate the cost per minute. The first time I heard a British phone go burr-burr instead of ring, ring, I freaked out. Then someone with an actual British accent answered and I really got giddy. I pulled myself together and explained that I was interested in getting some Vox AC30s, and by any chance did he have any? This unimpressed guy with a thick British accent said, “Yes. We’ve got about fifty.”
With my heart pounding a mile a minute, I somehow worked out a deal to buy two. I think the cost for my dream amplifiers came to $2,500 total. Not including the exorbitant phone bills. But hey, some kids my age were calling those late-night 900 numbers to hear heavy breathing by then, so I figure my parents should have been happy.
Dad also claims that I never paid him back for this sonic adventure, so I guess an eventual free Corvette is not accepted currency in these transactions. But by this point, I was earning $250 a pop playing solo for old ladies at a golf resort, so I did do a little of the math on that one.
After I made a deal in Doncaster, England, those Vox amps couldn’t come in fast enough. In the end, it took them about two weeks to get to America, with me desperately tracking them all the way. I would lie awake at night and picture them crossing the Atlantic in the belly of a freighter, in their wooden shipping crates, like they were the lost ark and I was Indiana Jones about to intercept them. My new amps came through Pittsburgh to clear customs, and so my father and I decided to save a little money and drive there and get them ourselves in his Chevy Blazer. By now I was absolutely going out of my mind; I literally could not wait to get my hands on these amps. I had never really touched a Vox amp before—I had only seen them in concert and heard them on records—but I was already in love. No girl in school could be half as beautiful as these Vox amps were to me. Well, almost.
Finally we got to Pittsburgh and claimed my new musical treasure. I could not believe that I was now the proud owner of not one but two AC30s. By this point, customs had already torn the boxes apart looking for drugs or other contraband—unaware, perhaps, that these amplifiers were my drugs. Then I furiously continued their work and ripped open the box to see the head control plate and know for sure that I had actually gotten what I (or rather, my dad) had paid for—and blissfully discovered that I had.
Dad and I loaded the amp boxes into his car, and we drove all the way home through the snow in the frigid air. Then right as we arrived in Glen Dale, my father—who’s a volunteer fireman in our little town—decided we had to stop by the firehouse and wash the salt from the highway off the Chevy. By this point, I was just dying because I was literally one half mile away from my house—and from my dream of playing my first Vox AC30s. And they were right there in the boot. (That’s British for “trunk.” Pip pip. Read on.) It was around seven thirty P.M. and getting very dark. In just an hour or so, it would be too late to play for fear of waking up the neighbors. Anyway, I was losing my mind. My father, on the other hand, was enjoying every minute of seeing me in agony as he carefully cleaned his vehicle. Payback can take many forms other than money.
At long last, we got back to our house around nine. I was flipping out because this was my ultimate dream coming true. It was like a Christmas morning moment for me. I tore apart those boxes and rushed to plug a guitar into one of my new Voxes because I had never even heard one up close. And then came a moment of pure horror—despite all my research and calculations and conversions, it was not until that exact second that I made a horrible realization: British amps came with . . . British electrical plugs!
Try as I might, I couldn’t plug either of my new amps in. So we ran down to the hardware store to try to get some kind of adapter. By the time we got back and got the right AC cords attached, it was so late that I could barely turn the amps up because of old Mr. and Mrs. Cerra next door, but at least I was touching my amp and it was powered up and I could sneak off a few notes. I played three chords, they rang out like the sounds I imagine Saint Peter will greet us all with when we reach the pearly gates, and it was just too much. I blew a fuse. No, seriously, I blew a fus
e in the amp. As it turned out, the next trip to the hardware store would be for fuses. We got to know the chap at True Value well over the next few days. Anyway, I had discovered my sound. My tone. It had arrived here by boat, from the United Kingdom, much like my own ancestors centuries before.
As I prepared to graduate from John Marshall High School and think about my future, there could be no doubt that, musically speaking, my fuse was now already lit.
Guitar Tips from Brad
LESSON # 4
Don’t play mad—but if you do, play furious.
5
THE CLIFFS OF ROCK CITY
Everything I ever really needed to know about playing guitar I learned before I graduated from high school. All those days and nights when I was so busy not doing my homework and not going on hot dates, I was actually doing something very important. In retrospect, I was growing the deep musical roots that have put me where I am today—wherever that might be.
Back in junior high, most other kids weren’t all that impressed by this little odd kid with big ears and an even bigger guitar who had somehow developed the bizarre ability to “chicken pick.” It was pretty hard to excite my peer group by playing a jazz standard like “Cherokee” or maybe some blue-grass classic like “Salty Dog” that they didn’t know.
My musical repertoire back then was decidedly too old-fashioned for their young ears and more likely to thrill my teachers, my parents, and even my grandparents than it was to charm my classmates. I was a young man out of time and out of fashion. So as high school rolled around, I began to expand my horizons. I had to come up with some way to impress my classmates, especially the female ones. And it wasn’t going to be with “Wildwood Flower.”
