NASHVILLE, Tenn. — After he crushed “Life's Railway to Heaven” one Sunday at his hometown’s Methodist church, word spread quickly about the pint-sized guitar strummer and singer.
Brad Paisley became the most popular 8-year-old in Glen Dale, West Virginia, population 1,420.
Over the next few years, invitations for him to perform poured in from what felt like the whole town — the Elks lodge, community groups, the nursing home, political operatives and the respite wing of Reynolds Memorial Hospital.
The boy’s grandfather gave him his first guitar when Paisley was 8. Before long, he was opening for country stars like Charlie Daniels, Roy Clark and Ricky Skaggs at the nearby Wheeling Jamboree.
The little guy loved them all, especially the paid gigs — “In 1985, it’s 100 bucks? For a kid? Think about that!”
But the hospital’s respite wing housed stroke victims, Alzheimer’s and dementia patients, almost always people in their 80s and 90s who often were unable or unwilling to move or talk much.
One woman with short hair and thick round glasses slumped forward in her chair. All she ever said was OK.
How are you today? “OK.” Did you family visit this weekend? “OK.” What’d you have for breakfast this morning? “OK.”
After a staff member told Paisley what the woman’s favorite song was, he leaned over, playing and singing “You Are My Sunshine” to her.
The woman perked up and, as if she just woke up, sang every word softly with him. Paisley’s mother started crying.
The revelation that music can be healing has stayed with Paisley ever since.
“It became completely clear to me in that moment,” he said earlier this month.
“Music became something that felt like it had the power to heal people. It had the power to brighten someone’s day.”
Since becoming famous, Paisley has played hundreds of fundraiser gigs, built water systems for Haiti’s poor, launched a foundation for the needy in his home state of West Virginia and created a fishing tournament to help sick children at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis.
Earlier this year, Paisley and his wife, actress Kimberly Williams Paisley, announced plans to join with Belmont University to create a free grocery store for Nashville’s underprivileged.
That desire to serve others started with an elderly woman in a hospital hallway — and a nudge from his parents.
'I'm baffled, but I'm touched'
His dad, Doug Paisley, was a volunteer fireman for decades, and his mother, Sandy Paisley, was active in their church.
They wanted their son to think of ways to help others, too.
“Every night when I put Brad to bed, I would say, ‘Let’s pray, please make this world a better place in any way you can,' " his mom recalled.
And his parents made sure their son also played church picnics, nursing homes and the respite ward at Reynolds Memorial Hospital.
“I don’t know what it was about Brad, but I felt he had a purpose,” Sandy Paisley said. “There was a reason he was given this talent.”
He was a good kid, so Brad Paisley did what his parents asked.
Once in a while, though, the boy would drag his feet on the way to a hospital or nursing home, saying, “Dad, I don’t want to do that.”
The hesitation faded after Brad Paisley sang “You Are My Sunshine” with the patient who usually said only “OK.”
“She sings with me, every word — ‘You make me happy when skies are gray’ — sort of on pitch. And then she goes back to OK,” he said. “And that was it.”
The boy felt a rush of feelings that he couldn’t identify until much later.
“I’m emotionally touched. I’m baffled, but I’m emotionally touched. I’m not crying, but my mother is reduced to a puddle,” he said.
Sandy Paisley called the experience “spiritual.”
“I stood there in amazement that people were responding like they were,” she said. “Wow, I thought, there’s no better place to be than in this hallway with these people.”
'Music is the closest thing we have to real magic'
Brad Paisley didn’t miss a scheduled respite hall performance after that. He did pause now and again, but the memory of that “OK” woman brought him back.
“There were days when the last thing I wanted to do was go over on a hospital hallway that smells like antiseptic or worse,” he said, “but I knew I’d be the only way to get more than the word OK out of her today.”
In all, Brad Paisley remembers singing with that woman about six times. And then, one day, she wasn’t there. He doesn’t remember getting an explanation, so the boy thought she probably got moved to a different facility.
The boy kept playing for the elderly when he could, knowing he might never recapture the intensity of that first experience.
“You want to find other opportunities to make someone’s day. That was the moment that made me realize what I do can be very good for people if I use it the right way,” he said.
“Music is the closest thing we have to real magic.”
Those memories followed him into adulthood.
When each of his two sons were born, Brad Paisley brought a guitar into the delivery room and sang “You Are My Sunshine.”
And when his boys got older, he started asking them a question each night.
“Did you make the world a better place today?”
Reach Brad Schmitt at brad@tennessean.com or 615-259-8384 and on Twitter @bradschmitt.
