True to the Roots (18 page)

Rodeo has its own collection of original names. They're very different from basketball, where one might see a Basker-ville Holmes at point guard or a Shaquille O'Neal in the paint.

But these names are just as original. In the course of only a few hours I watch in fascination as Speed Williams, Turtle Powell, Monty Joe Petska, Steve E. Dollarhyde, many of the aforementioned Codys, Ira Slagowski, Royce Ford, Cleve Schmidt, Luke Branquinho, Rope Myers, Spud Duvall, Ivan Teigen, Stran Smith, Jerome Schneeberger, and, in the barrel racing, Jolee Lauteret perform.

They come from places with names that include Roggen, Forepaugh, Bashaw, Belle Fourche, Bend, Checotah, Las Animas, Hereford, Sudan (Texas, not Africa), Llano, Paso Ro-bles, Didsbury, Crowville, Utopia, Geyser, Kaycee, La Junta, Wikieup, Hockley, Navasota, Ponca City, Winnie, Hermis-ton, Alamagordo, Okotoks, Alice, Spur, and Tonasket.

Few cowboys, it seems, hail from any of the five boroughs of New York, and I'm not sure whether Slagowski's hometown, Plain City, Utah, is named because it's on the plains or because it's just, well, really plain. I can tell you that Slagows-ki rides saddle broncs. There's nothing plain about that.

The highlight for me is the opening procession, although that term is a misnomer. It should be called the opening "haul-ass." Unlike the Olympics, where the teams of all the various countries parade into the stadium with one lucky athlete carrying the flag, at the NFR they roar into the arena at breakneck speed. A lucky cowboy carries the flag of his state, but the quarter horses behave as if they're leaving the starting gates at Ruidoso Downs.

The noise and excitement is nonstop, fueled in no small measure by the loud yet affable remarks of the public-address announcers. To great acclaim they introduce the various contingents of participating cowboys and, in the case of the barrel races, cowgirls. There may be five from Arkansas, three from Louisiana, a couple from Florida, one from Alabama, and then upward of a dozen from places like Montana, Wyoming, and Oklahoma. Then, in a flourish, the Lone Star Flag appears in the arena, followed by a horde of Texans that can only be compared to a cavalry charge. The sound that rises is akin to what would greet a basketball game-winning three-pointer by the home team. Soon even the announcers are drowned out by a deafening chorus of "The Yellow Rose of Texas" and Asleep at the Wheel's version of "Miles and Miles of Texas."

The following night I show up hours early at the Las Vegas Hilton, hoping that the long-awaited call from Brent Long will arrive and that there are no glitches in my cell phone service. It never rings. When I call him, I get the same embattled litany of how hard he's trying to "get me in to see Brad, and maybe we can get it done after the show, so be sure to come backstage for the meet-and-greets" because he's beneficently managed to get me on that list of chosen few.

All the while that sinking feeling is getting oppressive, and I'm thinking, what's the world coming to when you can fly all the way across the country and still not get a fifteen-minute interview?

The show is late because everything must revolve around the rodeo, and the timing has been designed to allow that horde to escape Thomas & Mack Arena and get to the Hilton in time to see first Green and then Paisley.

It's not just a rodeo crowd, though, and it's not a Pat Green crowd. It's a Brad Paisley crowd. The crowd is still drifting in when Green hits the stage. I encounter one woman who's come all the way from Minnesota with her daughter, who is confined to a wheelchair, and they've come here because they love Paisley and because it's difficult for her daughter to attend one of those concerts in Minnesota where "everybody rushes in."

Three young women from Washington—the District of Columbia, not the state—sit behind me, and they, too, idolize Brad. I briefly tell them of my frustrations, and one of them observes sagely of Paisley, "It's not in his personality to make waves."

The number of cowboy hats grows. There's a tiny little boy, hat bigger than he is, right smack in the middle of the front row. It strikes me that Fu Manchus are very popular with rodeo fans.

Green asks how many bull riders there are in the audience. Some of the hats raise their hands.

"Y'all some crazy sumbitches," says Green. "I grew up on a ranch, and my daddy would've whipped my ass if I'd thought about getting on one of those things."

Then Green and his band roar into "All the Good Things Fade Away," complete with the showy stage antics that one of my interview subjects later refers to as "fake fun." The crowd gets a rise when Paisley joins Green for the duet, "College," that is included on Green's latest album,
Lucky Ones
.

Finally, Paisley's concert begins, and it's as slick as Green's is raucous. I think to myself that Paisley isn't near the natural showman that Green is, but it's fascinating to observe just how meticulously rehearsed and practiced Paisley's act is. Every little wisecrack to the audience is carefully chosen, even though it's so well delivered that there is a facade of originality.

Paisley is a guitarist of righteous virtuosity. I've been told this before, but it's something that must be seen in person to appreciate fully. I'm so impressed that later I go on the Internet to review
Rolling Stone
's list of the hundred greatest guitarists ever and become more than a little pissed off when Paisley isn't listed among them.

All the while I think that, yes, this man, this Brad Paisley, could be the new savior. He's considered a brilliant songwriter by the people who decide such things from Nashville's perspective. The songs are all clever but hardly wise. He's got his heart in the right place, and he genuinely pays homage to the music's history and traditions. Everything about his act is so detached, though, and cliched.

I can't help but think about when I bought Paisley's most recent album,
Mud on the Tires
, earlier in the year and had the same reaction I'd had to the one by him that I'd bought before. The first song I like, then I listen to the second one, and it leaves another positive impression. But there's this slow, gradual descent that culminates in disgust when I listen to "The Cigar Song," which is derived from a familiar joke that's been circulated by e-mails for years now. It's about a man who tries to claim his Cuban cigars on his fire insurance because, well, they've burned up. I guess the same people who've forwarded this story to me five or six times might love the song, but I get so disgusted at what I consider to be the song's utter and complete silliness that, when I return home, I toss the CD into a box where I'm saving stuff I'm going to trade in at a secondhand store.

I'm happy to report that Paisley doesn't perform this song during his Vegas concert.

For all these reservations of mine that might be considered nitpicky, the Paisley concert leaves me with a positive overall impression. I've been snared and perhaps hoodwinked by the videos that accompany virtually every song, and I feel only mildly annoyed when the image of Alison Krauss shows up on the gigantic screens to sing an electronic duet, "Whiskey Lullaby," cowritten by Bill Anderson and Jon Randall, with Paisley. Live and Memorex, in one swell package.

Accompanying the title song of his CD, Paisley says: "I love it because we're those kinds of people. This if for all you rednecks who can't keep your trucks clean."

I just can't help but look at those carefully creased pants and hat and the starched collar without doubting the sincerity of his supposed ad-libs. Here is a man who stretches the bounds of his guitar without stretching the bounds of his music.

But then the band leaves the stage. Paisley trades his electric guitar for an acoustic, sits on the edge of the stage, and performs a touching rendition of "How Great Thou Art," and I'm captivated again.

When the show is over, I feel confident about the anticipated interview. I've taken good notes, and I prepared my questions in advance. But then I find myself in a line with about a hundred other people, and the ones closest to me are jabbering on about how great it is to drink a shot of Jagermeister. They're convivial drunks, all loaded down with cameras so that they can have their photos taken with Paisley. There are also eight-by-ten glossies, CDs, and all other manner of autographable goodies in abundance.

Ah, that sinking feeling again. I'm struck by how odd it must look to everyone else that I'm standing there in this interminable line with only a digital recorder and a notepad in my hands. A laughing man behind me—and there aren't many people behind me—starts to look a little nervous and is undoubtedly wondering why I'm scribbling furiously in the notepad. Then I realize that many of these people represent radio stations. I realize this because I can't help but overhear a conversation that I can't begin to understand:

"Lee is, like, ohmigod, have you been out with Mike?"

"Dude, you just don't get it!"

"He, like, said, 'Every time you see a skunk, you hit it!'" Everyone laughs but me. I'm sure my expressions betray me.

Finally, I arrive at the front of the line, where there to greet me is genuine, heartfelt, wholesome Brad Paisley and, just to the right and behind, genuinely nervous Brent Long.

I make a little joke about not having anything for him to sign and tell Paisley I'm in Vegas to do an interview, and then I briefly explain what my book is about and why I think it's important to have him in it. Long intercedes and says something like, "Yeah, Brad, you remember, I was telling you about it."

Paisley looks me right in the eye and says, "Yeah, I think I've heard people talking about that book. We'll certainly take care of it."

That's it. I move along. I play my final card by noting to Long that Paisley is scheduled to appear at the next night's session of the rodeo. Could we talk then?

"Yeah, I think that might work," says Long, and I think to myself that this is at least the third time he's said this to me. "Come see me at the rodeo."

The next night Paisley and Long appear on press row after Paisley's song opens the show. I walk a few steps toward them, raise my hand to draw Long's attention, and he returns the favor by making that signal that generally denotes a-ok. I monitor Paisley's presence, but that's difficult because on press row at the rodeo there's a need to make sure one doesn't get conked in the head by a flying cow turd or something just as unpleasant. I do notice, however, when Paisley rises and walks along with a small entourage into the bowels of the arena. I try to walk, not run, after them, but it's all done so swiftly. By the time I get out of the glare of the lights and into a short hallway where TV announcers interview rodeo cowboys, the star has been whisked away into the night.

At that moment I make a decision that I will make no more calls to Brent Long. Paisley has told me, "We'll take care of it," and now I wonder about the sincerity of that remark. Is he despicably nice? Has he avoided me by having his road manager put up smokescreen after smokescreen? Has there been a marketing survey of journalists that has revealed that telling them no causes too much irritation and that a more prudent course is just to avoid them endlessly? Or is this all just a consequence of having a road manager with much too much to do?

I wait a month before hearing again from Brent Long. In the interim I talk to Pat Green about Paisley. The two are friends. When I describe my frustrations, Green is vividly amused.

When I offer the opinion that Green is as spontaneous as Paisley is calculating, Green pokes fun at himself by saying, "There's a difference between spontaneity and cluelessness.

"Brad and I met because we were up for a Grammy two years in a row. Different categories, but we both lost both years, so that's kind of how we got to be friends. You can walk around in your life—I've seen a lot of guys walk around in their lives pointing the finger at people and saying stuff about them when they don't know anything about them.

"I was one of those guys. I used to throw my rocks at people that I didn't know. I found out that ain't a good way to do things. Hey, look, I didn't know Brad from a hole in the wall, but he had one song that I didn't think was that great, but then he had a couple of songs that I thought were number one, out of this world. I thought 'the fishing song' ['I'm Gonna Miss Her'] was funny as hell. So, when I had an opportunity to meet him and talk to him, I took it, and it turns out not only is he a great guy; he's a funny guy. He's really funny.

"I'm the self-professed, number-one drunk in town. You know, I can be a flat-out, roaring idiot, and he hasn't ever had a drink. We're complete opposites. He doesn't cuss a lot; I cuss like a sailor. We're two opposite people that came together, and, you know, when we got together to do a duet, we didn't even record the better song. The better song was 'Before December,' but it's not what the record needed. I tend not to think about myself personally when we're putting out a record. I think of the record as its own entity. That song 'College' needed to be in there. Our record, I felt, was a little bit overwhelmingly serious. I needed just a little levity to break things up so that people would go, 'Ah, ok, we still got that in there.'"

Amazingly, I eventually get my interview with Brad Paisley. It occurs in that soulless modern way—an exchange of e-mails—but I get the chance to ask the questions I had prepared two months earlier by scribbling them on a notepad, and Paisley's replies reflect a thoughtful, frank mind-set. He is, it seems, truly the nice guy I had hoped he was and not the good-natured marketing whiz whom in darker moments I had conjured up.