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Country music star is about as famous as a singer can get without crossing over
By Malcolm X Abram
Beacon Journal music writer
Published on Thursday, Aug 28, 2008
Brad Paisley is a country superstar you might not know.
While other country stars have crossed over such as American Idol winner Carrie Underwood, and of course Tim McGraw and Faith Hill — the 21st century version of a better adjusted George & Tammy — Paisley, who will perform Friday night at Blossom Music Center in Cuyahoga Falls, isn't as well known to noncountry fans.
For the past decade, the singer/songwriter/guitarist has been racking up hit after hit on the country charts with his often humorous and witty songs that incorporate pop and rock into an otherwise fairly traditional country sound.
Since his 1999 debut album, Who Needs Pictures, Paisley, 35, has stuffed his resume with 21 singles on the Billboard country charts, including 11 top hits. From 2005 to 2007, Paisley had a string of eight No. 1 songs in a row.
The West Virginia native's path was set early in life when at age 8 he received his first guitar and lessons from his grandfather. By 13, he was writing songs and opening for big acts such as the Judds and George Jones.
Paisley's career has been on a decade-long upswing, as has his personal life. He is married to actress Kimberly Williams-Paisley (Father of the Bride) who last February gave birth to their first son, William Huckleberry Paisley.
Paisley's hits include the affecting extended family saga He Didn't Have to Be, the more humorous I'm Gonna Miss Her (The Fishing Song) and his duet with Dolly Parton When I Get Where I'm Going. He has won seven Academy of Country Music awards and been named top male vocalist three times, including in 2008.
He has nine Country Music Association awards, including album of the year for his 2006 release Time Well Wasted and was named 2007's male vocalist of the year.
Paisley, like McGraw, is the rare country star who uses his touring band in the studio. He released his latest album, 5th Gear, in the summer of 2007. It continues his hot streak, spawning four No. 1 singles and adds several fine songs to his catalog, including Letter to Me, which finds Paisley offering his 17-year-old self advice on love and life, and the Internet geek-baiting Online, which contains zingers such as ''When you got my kinda stats, it's hard to get a date, let alone a real girlfriend. But I grow another foot, and I lose a bunch of weight every time I log in.''
As usual with Paisley's albums, humor and pathos mix freely among its 19 tracks. On Ticks (yep, another No. 1) he rattles off a litany of amusing and harmless come-ons such as ''And in the small, there, of your back, your jeans are playing peek-a-boo. I'd like to see the other half of your butterfly tattoo.''
Paisley also endears himself to millions of Skoal-chomping, deer-hunting, truck-driving men and the women who love them in the loping (and chart topping) I'm Still a Guy making light of the modern metrosexual male: ''These days there's dudes gettin' facials, manicured, waxed and botoxed. With deep spray-on tans and creamy lotiony hands, you can't grip a tackle box.''
Paisley also leans on his Grand Ole Opry buddies (he was inducted in 2001) for a fun, old-school, honky-tonk shuffle called Bigger Fish to Fry featuring the ''New Kung Pao Buckaroos'' — aka singer- songwriter Vince Gill (in place of George Jones) and legends Whisperin' Bill Anderson and Little Jimmy Dickens.
Paisley also gets serious on the current single Waitin' on a Woman, a classic sentimental country story and love song and It
Did, another detailed power ballad about a couple falling in love and growing together.
Throughout the album, Paisley doles out healthy heapings of his facile and flashy guitar picking — particularly on the uptempo shuffle Mr. Policeman and the Grammy-winning instrumental Throttleneck.
Paisley has already begun to promote his next album, Play, due out on Election Day, and fans of his playing will be ecstatic as it will feature only four vocal tracks among its 15. There will also be a gaggle of legendary guitarists both young and old, including B.B. King, the late Buck Owens, country pinup boy Keith Urban, former Elvis sideman and rock hall inductee James Burton, Vince Gill and British bluesman Albert Lee.
Opening for Paisley will be former folk-pop chanteuse Jewel, who is in the process of remaking herself as a country-pop chanteuse with her latest album Perfectly Clear. Some folks might recall that in 2003 Jewel remade herself into a dance-pop chanteuse for her 0304, an album that found the Lilith Fair leader sounding uncomfortable over mechanized grooves.
A few weeks ago, Jewel married longtime boyfriend Ty Murray, a seven-time World Champion bull and bronco rider who gives her some country street cred.
Though the album has been heavily marketed to country fans and country radio, the reality is Perfectly Clear sounds a lot like an average Jewel record with a soft bed of pedal steel, dobro and fiddle layered in to remind listeners that it's supposed to be a country album.
Despite her rustic backstory (raised in Alaska, spent a few years living in her van), Jewel has a fluttery voice and pristine phrasing that still make her sound like she's sitting on a stool in a San Diego coffeehouse singing her diary entries.
Perhaps live, her backing band will help add some of the twang that flows so naturally from the evening's headliner.
Also on the bill are Chuck Wicks, who has a Top 5 hit with Stealing Cinderella, and country singer and award-winning ballroom dancer and Dancing With the Stars winner Julianne Hough who had a top 20 hit with That Song In My Head.
Malcolm X Abram can be reached at mabram@thebeaconjournal.com or 330-996-3758.
Brad Paisley is a country superstar you might not know.
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