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Bio You walk into a bar, and there's this guy on a stool by the window, crouching over his guitar. And you just know he's going to try to cut through all that noise with something like "Boot Scootin' Boogie" or "It's Five O'Clock Somewhere," anything to grab the crowd's attention. But this one doesn't. Instead, with the softest of strums, he eases into a satin-smooth version of Don Williams' "Lord, I Hope This Day Is Good." Slowly the chatter at the bar trails off, and heads begin turning his way. Now he's got them. The singer is Paul Pace, and this is the kind of vocal magic he works every time he performs. To top it all off, he knows country music like a librarian knows books. Two songs later, he's resurrecting Bobby Bare's "Tequila Sheila," a song so seldom heard these days that even Bare has probably forgotten it. Pace grew up on a farm near Cattletsburg, Kentucky, in the same area that spawned Ricky Skaggs, Keith Whitley, the Judds, Loretta Lynn, Patty Loveless, Dwight Yoakam and Billy Ray Cyrus. At home, he was steeped in music. "My dad and mom had a big record collection and this old console stereo," he recalls. "Dad had all of the Merle Haggard, George Jones, Marty Robbins and Buck Owens records. Mom had the Ray Charles, Peter, Paul & Mary and Perry Como stuff. I was watching TV once and saw Merle Haggard singing in front of all those people. Right then I decided that's what I wanted to do." In support of his musical ambition, Pace's mother enrolled him in piano lessons when he was in the second grade. "So I started on the piano," he says. "I always wanted a guitar, though, and they finally got me one when I got to junior high school. By the time I went to high school, I wanted to play in bands. So I started playing the guitar more and singing more." Although his was a minority opinion in high school, Pace says he never wavered in his love for country music. "Everybody was listening to AC/DC and Ozzy Osbourne, and I was saying, 'No, man, you ought to be listening to this George Jones guy and this George Strait guy.'" Pace planned to go to college and major in agriculture, but he changed his mind at the last minute. "Instead of studying Ag, I enrolled in a small college Cumberland College in Williamsburg, Kentucky, and studied opera there for six years. I really enjoyed that. It was a good experience. I met a lot of good people and, as a vocal major, learned a lot about music. I used some of the techniques they taught me for opera to sing country music in bars on the weekends." Urged on by Judy Jennings, then the general manager of radio station WTCR in Ashland, Kentucky, Pace entered the local division of the True Value Country Showdown in 1991 and won. Then he competed at the state level and won there as well. Emboldened by his success, he began commuting to Nashville. Jennings introduced him to the legendary Jack McFadden, who was so impressed by Pace's powerful voice and stage charisma that he offered to manage him. "Judy promoted me as if I were a national act," Pace says, "and she continues to support me and play my songs." McFadden had become famous managing Buck Owens and, years later, Keith Whitley and Lorrie Morgan. Unfortunately for Pace, McFadden was also handling another newcomer at the time, Billy Ray Cyrus. When "Achy Breaky Heart" broke the following year and McFadden found himself riding a superstar, Pace knew it was time to move on. By this point, Pace had become a formidable songwriter. To develop that talent and pursue a recording career, he relocated to Nashville in 1995. Since then, local gigs, songwriting sessions and an occasional show "back home" have kept him busy. But he's even busier now recording his first album for Labeless Nashville, with Buddy Hyatt producing. "Buddy knows everything there is to know about making a record," Pace marvels. "He's got great ears." As for his own musical direction, Pace's vision remains clear. "You want to know who my heroes are. I can name them to you in order: George Jones, Merle Haggard, Keith Whitley, Don Williams and Alan Jackson. And I love Ronnie Milsap and Conway Twitty, too. I grew up in the middle of country music, and I can't get enough of it." |
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