Brad Paisley

Brad Douglas Paisley was born on 28 October 1972 in Glen Dale, West Virginia. His maternal grandfather, Warren Jarvis, gave him his first guitar, a Sears Silvertone, and taught him to play at eight. He took lessons from the local guitarist Clarence “Hank” Goddard, and at thirteen formed a band with him, Brad Paisley and the C-Notes. After the program director of a Wheeling radio station heard him at a Rotary Club meeting, he was invited onto Jamboree USA. He became a regular on the show and for eight years opened for acts such as the Judds, Ricky Skaggs and George Jones. He finished high school in Glen Dale in 1991, studied for two years at West Liberty State College, and then took a music business degree at Belmont University in Nashville in 1995. At Belmont he met Frank Rogers, who became his producer, and Kelley Lovelace, his main co-writer.

He signed as a writer with EMI Music Publishing the week after he graduated and wrote David Kersh’s hit “Another You.” Arista Nashville released his first single, “Who Needs Pictures,” in February 1999. He made his Opry debut on 28 May 1999, and before the year was out he had his first No. 1, “He Didn’t Have to Be.” In 2000 he won the CMA Horizon Award. Bill Anderson, Jeannie Seely and Little Jimmy Dickens inducted him into the Opry on 17 February 2001, and he wore a jacket that Buck Owens had worn for his 1966 Carnegie Hall live album.

His second album, Part II (Arista Nashville, May 2001), was his last in a strictly neotraditional style. It was cut largely with his road band, the Drama Kings, with Ron Block on banjo on two songs and guests Bill Anderson, George Jones and Buck Owens on “Too Country.” On it he sang Darrell Scott’s coal-country ballad “You’ll Never Leave Harlan Alive,” with Scott on banjo, Dobro and mandolin, Sonya Isaacs on harmony and Glen Duncan on fiddle. “I’m Gonna Miss Her (The Fishin’ Song)” from the album went to No. 1.

Mud on the Tires (2003) and Time Well Wasted (2005) were both certified double platinum. The first included “Whiskey Lullaby,” a duet with Alison Krauss that reached No. 3 on the country chart. The second, which won the CMA’s Album of the Year in 2006, included “When I Get Where I’m Going,” with Dolly Parton. That record began a run of ten consecutive No. 1 country singles that ended with “Then” in 2009. His first Grammy came in February 2008 for the instrumental “Throttleneck,” from 5th Gear (2007). Play (2008), a mostly instrumental guitar album, brought in James Burton, Vince Gill, Albert Lee, Brent Mason, Redd Volkaert, John Jorgenson, Steve Wariner, B.B. King and Buck Owens. Its “Cluster Pluck,” played with seven of those guitarists, won Best Country Instrumental Performance in 2009, the same year “Letter to Me” won Best Male Country Vocal Performance. The CMA named him Male Vocalist of the Year in 2008 and 2009 and Entertainer of the Year in 2010.

Later albums on Arista included American Saturday Night (2009), This Is Country Music (2011), whose “Old Alabama” featured the band Alabama, Wheelhouse (2013), Moonshine in the Trunk (2014) and Love and War (2017). In 2023 he moved to EMI Nashville. A second Christmas album, Snow Globe Town, followed in November 2025, and Tacklebox (Disc 1), mixing new songs with unreleased ones from the late 1990s, came out on MCA Nashville in July 2026. His 2011 book Diary of a Player, written with David Wild, traces how his guitar heroes shaped his playing.

• Grand Ole Opry member, 2001
• CMA Horizon Award, 2000
• CMA Album of the Year (Time Well Wasted), 2006
• Grammy, Best Country Instrumental Performance (“Throttleneck”), 2008
• CMA Male Vocalist of the Year, 2008 and 2009
• Grammy, Best Male Country Vocal Performance (“Letter to Me”), 2009
• Grammy, Best Country Instrumental Performance (“Cluster Pluck”), 2009
• CMA Entertainer of the Year, 2010