Brad Paisley photo courtesy of Sony Music Nashville.
"This is my favorite thing I’ve ever written," he says simply. A song detailing the twists and turns of life on the smallest and largest human scales, it is Brad’s take on a world where change and fear can lead to change and progress, a world he urges all of us to embrace and celebrate. It’s a song that touches on painful moments from our past, but acknowledges them with a genuinely real spirit of hope in the recognition of how we’ve overcome, "and with an eye on the future even though we’re talking about how we’re already there."
The album’s title is Brad’s nod to "the one night of the week everybody is willing to be entertained, to let loose and forget about what’s going on during the rest of the week. I want every night of this year’s tour to feel like Saturday night for people, and this album is filled with that feeling of weekend camaraderie – even in the more serious ones. It’s about all of us celebrating life in 2009."
Brad is a man whose connection with fans and sense of history were both earned in front of the microphone. His teen years on the WWVA Jamboree USA were a veritable master’s degree in country music.
"That sort of on-the-job training when you’re really young is a good thing," he says. "I mean, I was 13 the first time I played on the Jamboree and I was 20 when I left. I opened for Jimmy Dickens and Steve Wariner and Roy Clark and Charley Pride – they all came through there. I met them and watched them all play and learned as much as I could possibly learn. I’m not the same guy I would have been if I’d started playing at 20, and wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing right now. That kind of experience entertaining an audience even goes into making an album, because I’m not one of these guys that wants my record to be background music for somebody. I don’t make dinner music."
His lifelong musical journey began at age 8 in Glen Dale, West Virginia, when his grandfather, a fan of Chet Atkins, Les Paul, and Merle Travis, gave him a guitar and taught him to play. He was accompanying himself at local events at 10, and he was in his first band, the C-Notes ("You could get us for a hundred bucks"), at 12 with his guitar teacher and mentor Hank Goddard. He followed his father’s advice to strive for excellence and began his long apprenticeship at the Jamboree, playing for six years at the annual Jamboree in the Hills in Wheeling, as well. He cites the community’s support for his early career as invaluable in his development.
