By 2009, Brad Paisley had sold more than seven million albums and piled up 14 No. 1 singles. But when People magazine asked about his beginnings, he brought up an unpaid debt. He called his father, Doug Paisley, his “first roadie,” and said the man never asked for a cut. Not even gas money. Brad joked that he still owed him.
The bill went back to the 1980s, to a small Ohio River town in West Virginia and a Saturday night radio show in Wheeling.
The Firefighter From Glen Dale
Brad Paisley was born in Glen Dale, West Virginia, on October 28, 1972, the only child of Doug and Sandy Paisley. His mother was a teacher. Doug worked for the West Virginia Department of Transportation.
That was only part of his life. Doug Paisley was also assistant chief of the Glen Dale volunteer fire department and an emergency medical technician. The firefighter life ran all through Brad’s childhood. Even on family vacations, his father would track down the local fire department and ask to look over the trucks.
Doug also made a choice early on. He once said he gave up his weekend military service because it gave him more time with his son.
A Rotary Club Song and a Radio Invitation
Brad got his first guitar from his grandfather, Warren Jarvis, when he was eight, and took lessons from a local player named Clarence “Hank” Goddard. In junior high he wrote his first song, “Born on Christmas Day.” His principal heard it and asked him to play it at a Rotary Club meeting.
Sitting in the audience was Tom Miller, program director of WWVA, the big country station in Wheeling. Miller invited the boy to guest on Jamboree USA, the station’s long-running live show. After his first appearance, the show asked him to join its weekly lineup. By 14 he was the youngest regular cast member in the show’s history, and he stayed for eight years.
Those were serious stages for a kid. Over the years he opened for acts like George Jones, the Judds, Ricky Skaggs and Little Jimmy Dickens. On the weekends he wasn’t on the bill, he hung around backstage and picked up whatever the veterans would teach him. He would later become the youngest person ever inducted into the Jamboree USA Hall of Fame.
Five Songs, a Few Jokes and $55
None of it happened without a ride, and a ride meant Doug. Brad started playing out at about 12, and his father became the one who hauled the equipment and got him there and back. Brad remembered how the math worked on those early nights:
“I’d sing five songs, tell jokes and be $55 richer.”
Every dollar stayed with the kid. Doug never asked for a share, and never asked for gas money either.
By the time Brad told that story, he had two young sons of his own, and he said he related to his father in a different way. Doug, for his part, gave himself a little credit for the kind of dad Brad turned out to be, pointing back to the weekends he had chosen to spend with his boy.
“You Won’t Be Cute Anymore”
Doug Paisley was not just the driver. He was also the one who told his son the truth. In a Father’s Day interview, Brad recalled the warning he got from his dad while he was still a kid on local stages: he was pretty good for 12, but by 18 he would have to be a lot better, because “you won’t be cute anymore.”
Brad said that blunt advice really helped him. Years later, he was still passing the same idea along: don’t chase a few seconds of fame, go get good at something.
Still on the Road
Doug kept showing up long after the Jamboree years. Before a 2010 show in Wichita, a guard at the venue collapsed. Doug performed CPR until paramedics arrived. Brad said his father jumped in and started giving orders, and that he basically saved the man’s life.
In 2014, Brad wrote and recorded “All In” for Disney’s Planes: Fire & Rescue, a film built around firefighters. He made it clear who he had in mind.
“My father’s a firefighter. He was my whole life.”
In July 2021, Doug Paisley rolled into Tuscaloosa, Alabama, on the morning of a concert, riding his son’s tour bus while Brad flew in from Nashville. On local radio that day, he talked about how proud he was of Brad’s work with St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and of The Store, the free grocery store Brad and his wife, Kimberly Williams-Paisley, opened in Nashville in March 2020.
Decades after those $55 nights, the first roadie was back on the road with his son. This time, he had a seat on the bus.