Read Online Diary of a Player by Brad Paisley - Free Book Online Page B

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 gotto 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 stillhas 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 teenagerwho 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