by Wayne, Jimmy
So much for the idea that if you have a number one hit song, you can get away with just about anything. I sure didn’t.
IN OCTOBER THE RECORD LABEL HOSTED A “#1 PARTY” FOR “Do You Believe Me Now?” at the Nashville BMI building. It was a great celebration, and the best part for me was that John Oates was there and sang with me.
A few months later Cindy Watts, a journalist from Nashville’s local newspaper, the Tennessean, called me. She was writing an article about artists’ New Year’s resolutions and wanted to know mine.
I told her I wanted to go on a full-blown major tour since I’d never been on one, other than my acoustic tour with Lonestar. Cindy included my comments in her article, and by the end of the week, I received six missed calls in rapid succession from Jenny Bohler, who, along with Mike Kraski, was now managing me.
When I finally called Jenny back, she called Mike Kraski, and we were on a three-way conference call. Jenny said, “Brad—” and before she could say another word, Mike jumped in excitedly and said, “—Paisley,” and then they both nearly shouted the rest of the sentence in unison, “wants you to go on tour with him starting in June!”
I could hardly believe my ears! I was so excited. Brad was selling out concert halls and arenas around the country, and his American Saturday Night Tour was an opportunity of a lifetime for any artist. I’d have to put together a band and cancel a lot of the county fair dates that the William Morris Agency and I had been booking, but we all felt the incredible exposure with Brad would be worth it.
My career had been stuck in neutral for far too long; I was excited to get things back in gear and rolling again.
Thirty-eight
SECOND CHANCE
WHEN I CAME OFF THE ROAD WITH LONESTAR IN 2004, I felt almost as if God was saying to me, I gave you this marvelous opportunity, and you squandered it away, so I’m going to put you on the shelf for a while to think about how you have handled what I’ve given you. Nearly five years later, when the call came for the Brad Paisley tour, I felt as though God was saying, Okay, I’m going to give you another shot. I knew I wasn’t perfect, and I still had a lot to learn, but by that time I was a different person with different attitudes. I had learned some hard lessons, and I was thankful for the new opportunity.
As I put together my band for the tour, one of my first calls was to Rob. We had played together in Fantasyche when we were seventeen, and while Rob had never given up hope of making it in the music business, it hadn’t happened for him, so he had taken a job with a roofing company. “Come play guitar for me,” I asked him. For either of us to get out of our small town and perform on a Brad Paisley tour was a miracle, and it was gratifying for me to share the opportunity with Rob.
I found Jake Clayton, a great young utility player, in a club in Illinois. Jake played keyboards, fiddle, mandolin, banjo, dobro, and just about anything else he put his mind to playing. Jake was incredibly talented. Studio drummer Johnny Richardson played drums, and Luis Espaillat played bass, and of course, I played guitar. We weren’t the greatest band ever assembled, but we worked hard, and the guys learned the songs exactly like the records, and that’s what the fans wanted to hear.
It didn’t take me long on tour to realize that my acoustic rendition of “Sara Smile” still had a special touch to it. I smiled to myself when I thought of how many industry insiders warned me away from performing the song. One pro told me point-blank, “If you ever want a career in Nashville, stop singing that song!” But I loved the song and did it anyhow, and it was constantly requested everywhere I went. I got to be known around town as the “the guy who sings ‘Sara Smile,’ ” which was okay with me. Besides helping me land my recording deal, the song was also instrumental in my meeting one of the most respected songwriters in Nashville.
I was participating in a writer’s night at the Bluebird Café, one of Nashville’s best known listening rooms, where songwriters gather to perform in the round in a “heroes behind the hits” sort of format, with each writer performing his or her own songs as well as accompanying the other writers on theirs. The Bluebird boasts that it was the venue where country stars, such as Kathy Mattea and Garth Brooks, were discovered, and it is still a place where great songwriters go to play and to listen.
After playing a few of my own songs, as I usually did, I said, “I didn’t write this song, but I like it,” and I played and sang “Sara Smile.” People loved it! Listening at the Bluebird that night was Pat Alger. Pat approached me afterward and said, “We need to write! I’ve only asked one other person to write together, but I’d like to write with you.”
The only other person of whom Pat had made that request was Garth Brooks.
Pat and I worked together on “Summer of ’85,” a poignant song describing one of the most chaotic periods in my life. One line in the song is especially meaningful to me: “The reason for the pain was to lead me to the cure.”
I performed “Summer of ’85” at an event in Nashville; also in the show that night was the renowned singer-songwriter Jimmy Webb, who had won Grammy Awards for songs such as “By the Time I Get to Phoenix,” “Wichita Lineman,” and “MacArthur Park.” His songs have been recorded by music superstars, including Glen Campbell, The Supremes, The Fifth Dimension, Art Garfunkel, Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra, Barbra Streisand, Carly Simon, and a virtual who’s who of contemporary artists.
After I had performed “Summer of ’85,” Jimmy Webb gave me one of the most meaningful compliments of my career to date. In front of the entire audience, Jimmy looked at me and said, “You’re in.”
NOW THAT I WAS ON TOUR WITH BRAD PAISLEY, PEOPLE still wanted to hear me perform “Sara Smile” all the more, so much so that Scott Borchetta was willing to recruit Dann Huff, one of Nashville’s top musicians and producers, to help me rerecord the song. Scott knew that we were leaving money behind every night because we didn’t have “Sara Smile” on CD, so he was willing to risk it.
As soon as I knew we were going into the studio—in mid-August—I called John Oates and told him. John seemed delighted; he’d heard me sing the song a number of times now, and he knew I always handled it with special care. Nevertheless, I was still a little nervous when I broached an outlandish idea to him. “Hey, John, what would you think about you and Daryl being on the song with me?”
“Oh, that’s going to be hard. I don’t know, Jimmy,” John replied. “I’d enjoy it, but you know Daryl doesn’t do much of that sort of thing.”
“Yeah, that’s what I was afraid of . . .”
“But you never know,” John said. “I’ll try. Let me mention it to him and see how he responds.”
A few days later John Oates called me back. “Who loves ya, baby? Who loves ya? We got Daryl to sing on the song.”
Although I had made several attempts now to record “Sara Smile,” Dann Huff caught it in a fresh way, and the song came out better than we could have imagined. Adding the background vocals of Hall and Oates, with a few vocal twists of my own, made for an incredibly special piece of music.
We titled the album Sara Smile and surrounded the title cut with some great songs, including “Just Knowing You Love Me” and “I’ll Never Leave You.” In my album notes, I addressed words of thanks first to God and then to Bea and Russell Costner.
ONE OF THE HIGHLIGHTS OF WORKING WITH BRAD PAISLEY was getting to know his dad, Doug Paisley, who was out on tour with us for every date. He was always there for everyone. It wasn’t just me; Doug Paisley was good to everyone on the tour. Before I joined the tour, during a show in Wichita, an arena worker collapsed one night with a heart attack. Doug performed CPR and saved the man’s life, keeping him alive until the paramedics arrived. When people started calling him a hero, Doug characteristically replied, “A lot of things came together. There’s nothing heroic about this. Heroic is when you’re standing on the front lines in Afghanistan or Iraq.” That was typical Doug.
Brad’s dad took a liking to me, and I enjoyed talking and interacting with him. He c
alled me his “second son,” and I really appreciated that, especially since I never knew my real dad. Doug noticed that I carted a beat-up bicycle in the bay of the tour bus. When we rolled into town, I enjoyed riding around and seeing the sights, rather than merely hanging out in the bus all day. Doug bought me a brand-new bike as an early birthday present; it was a nice bike too. How cool was that? My own dad never bought me a birthday present of any kind in my entire life, but Brad Paisley’s dad bought me a bicycle.
Brad himself was straightlaced, quiet, and businesslike on tour. He allowed no groupies backstage or on our buses. Backstage was extremely controlled; no one was permitted to linger without a reason for being there. He’d joke around a bit, but it was usually one-sided.
Brad treated his team to the very best food backstage, all day long. We had steak, chicken, lasagna, lobster, salads, special desserts—an entire feast every day on the road. Everyone, from the musicians to the sound and light guys to the roadies, was welcome to the backstage banquet. Someone said that Brad spent nearly eleven thousand dollars a day on food for his team. Brad usually ate with us, and mealtime was always a good time. It’s a wonder we all didn’t put on twenty or thirty pounds during the tour.
Brad, of course, was in tip-top shape, partly because as soon as we rolled into town, his crew guys set up a small portable gym on a rolling cart. Brad was disciplined about working out, and that’s probably one of the reasons he is so successful as a performer.
Brad was a prankster, too, but it was hard to get him back. The closest I came was during the encore of his song, “Alcohol,” when Dierks Bentley and I joined him onstage. On more than a few nights, rather than singing “Alcohol,” I sang “Al Capone.” Of course, with the crowd going wild and Dierks and me traipsing all over the stage, Brad never noticed. Till now. Gotcha, Brad!
Working with Brad Paisley was an education in how to do things well in the music business. I learned so much from him and will always be indebted to Brad for helping me see what really matters. I enjoyed every single tour date with the Paisley team, but after five fabulous months on tour, culminating in the amazing night at Madison Square Garden, I was ready to get off the bus and get my feet back on the ground. I just had no idea, at the time, how many new steps I would take and how far I would go in seeing America from the ground up.
Part Four
THE WALK
Thirty-nine
WALKING AWAY OR WALKING TOWARD?
WHEN MY STINT ON THE PAISLEY TOUR CONCLUDED IN Connecticut at the end of October, I woke up on November 2, 2009, in the Litchfield Hills, with breathtaking views of the Berkshires’ fall foliage. That afternoon a chauffeur picked me up in a limousine at Interlaken Inn and Resort and drove me to the home of Daryl Hall, where I was to appear on his television show, Live from Daryl’s House.
Along with some great musicians, I met Daryl in his home studio. He greeted me, wearing his sunglasses. “Hey, man,” Daryl welcomed me in his aloof sort of way. “Glad you’re here.” The idea of the show was for Daryl and his studio pros to jump in and sing along on some of my songs, so we recorded all afternoon. By evening we had knocked out a great show of music, the highlight again, for me, was Daryl and me singing “Sara Smile.”
I received a phone call a few weeks later from John Oates. “How’d it go, man?”
“It was a dream come true,” I said, “to sing with one of the greatest vocalists of all time.”
“That’s awesome,” John said. “I’ve been fortunate to sing with Daryl a long time. I’m glad you got the opportunity.”
JOHN AND I HAD ESTABLISHED A GENUINE FRIENDSHIP, SO it made sense for me to contact him early in December when I decided to walk halfway across America to raise awareness about foster kids aging out of the system at eighteen with nowhere to go. “Foster kids don’t want a free ride,” I explained to him. “They are just looking for someone to meet them halfway.” I told John that I was thinking of calling my walk “Meet Me Halfway” because I hoped to walk seventeen hundred miles from Monroe Harding foster center in Nashville to HomeBase foster center in Phoenix—a distance equivalent to walking halfway across America. John caught the vision immediately. “I want to get started by the first of the year,” I told him. “That way I’ll be done by the time the spring and summer tour season starts. I think I can write some new songs along the way.”
I asked John if he had any connections with a company that may be willing to endorse the walk. Sure enough, John had an idea. “I know someone at Marmot,” John said. “Let me reach out to my friend there.”
I was familiar with the outdoor sports equipment and apparel company, but had no contacts with them at the time, so John’s reaching out to them was a tremendous help. On December 6, 2009, John wrote a personal e-mail to Alison Smith at Marmot:
A. My good buddy Jimmy Wayne (country singer) has a very cool project he is doing to promote awareness of homeless kids (read his story) around the country. . . . He had a huge #1 single this past summer, and his version of “Sara Smile” is in the top 30 on the country charts right now. He wants to walk around the country and sleep on the streets with kids and talk / sing to them and share their stories. . . . I thought you / Marmot might want to get involved with outfitting him and cross-promoting this. Pls. check out his sites. His bio is below.
By 10:30 a.m. the next day, Alison responded to John’s request:
Subject: Re: Oates idea
Good morning,
That is a great idea and a perfect cause for us to support. I will review with my marketing team this week and get back to you.
P.S. I love Jimmy Wayne’s music and am very familiar with him. And his version of your song definitely honors your work and brings a new audience to that great music.
Did you check out the new Marmot store on Galena? Soft opening last Friday.
Talk soon. Alison
Although Alison’s note implied that it might take a week or longer to broach the subject with her marketing team, she must have been incredibly persuasive because before that day ended, she sent another note to John Oates.
Subject: RE: Oates idea
Hi there,
We are happy to participate in this cause. Do you want to send me the contact info, and I will pick it up from here?
Looking forward to helping out.
Alison
Amazing! But not so unusual for people such as John—someone who is willing to work behind the scenes, to lend his celebrity to help people whether he receives any acknowledgment for it or not—and Alison—someone who knows how to make things happen and is willing to throw her energy into doing it with excellence. Within days Marmot sent me more than ten thousand dollars’ worth of materials—pants, shirts, jackets, windbreakers, a backpack and tent, flashlights, everything I could possibly need for surviving out in the cold Tennessee terrain, and lightweight clothing for the superheat of the Arizona desert. Their generosity was astounding!
When I told friends about my idea, some people tried to talk me out of it. “Jimmy, that’s just too far!” they cautioned. But I’d traced it out on the map on the Southwest Airlines napkin, and it didn’t look too far to me. More important, I could no longer avoid the conviction I felt about not keeping my promise to help those foster kids, and I was convinced that I wanted to do it.
In mid-December it occurred to me that I probably should do some conditioning before I attempted to walk across the country. I wasn’t in bad physical shape, but after several months on the road, eating at the Paisley backstage banquet every day, I was in need of some vigorous workouts. I certainly wasn’t in the condition of a marathon runner or even a baseball or football player. I was a musician! And starting in the midst of the Christmas season didn’t exactly help matters.
A few days before Christmas I made an announcement to the media regarding the proposed walk, inviting the public to “Meet Me Halfway.” Scott Borchetta called me the next day, praising the concept. “I love this idea,” Scott gushed. “We’ll have the entire l
abel staff out there to walk the first mile with you on January 1.”
I spent New Year’s Eve in my upstairs bedroom, rolling every item of my clothing—my Marmot shirts, pants, jackets, and Smartwool socks, even my underwear—and then placing each piece of clothing into its own Ziploc freezer bag. This was a trick I had learned while living outside in the cold as a fourteen-year-old. Rolling the clothes made it possible to get more into a tight space, and the plastic bags kept my clothes dry, even in the rain or snow. Packing everything I owned in plastic is how many of my childhood poems, drawings, photos, official documents, and prison letters survived all the years of my disjointed living.
I couldn’t help reliving some of those experiences, even as an adult in my nice warm townhouse, as I carefully packed each plastic bag into my backpack. When I finished packing, I turned off all the lights in my master bedroom and gazed out the large window. From my location I could see downtown Nashville’s New Year’s Eve celebration, which included a huge fireworks display, the dark night sky bursting with umbrellas of color every few seconds. A part of me wished I could be out there, celebrating the beginning of the new year with everyone else, but I knew I needed to get a good night’s sleep. Tomorrow was going to be a big day.