Click above for a photo gallery from 27th annual Sony Music Nashville "Boat Show." Here, Brad Paisley, left, jams with Kevin Cronin and Dave Amato of REO Speedwagon during the show aboard the General Jackson. (Photo: Alan Poizner for Sony Music Nashville)
So, how does it come to pass that REO Speedwagon comes to town to play a country music showcase?
Brad Paisley calls, that’s how.
It turns out Paisley and Speedwagon lead singer Kevin Cronin met years ago at a charity concert in L.A.
“Yeah, Brad gave me a call a few weeks ago,and it’s always been one of my bucket list items to hear a banjo solo on ‘Riding the Storm Out,’ so I figured this is my chance,” said Cronin after the the Thursday show in Nashville.
Wow, we didn’t see that one coming, but in a weird and charming way, it makes sense.
The show was part of the Country Radio Seminar, which brings in radio talent and program directors from all over the country. Sony Music Nashville, which has been hosting its showcase on the General Jackson for 27 years now, has a history of spicing its boat show up with surprise guests.
The pairing of Paisley and REO Speedwagon, though, served as a palpable reminder of just how much rock ’n’ roll has deeply impacted contemporary country music.
Paisley said that bands like REO Speedwagon were “hugely influential” on his development as an artist.
“I think the thing that stuck with me about that era was there were two really important things. One, was that it was a great song, and the other was there was a great guitar solo in it, and that still speaks to me. My whole career has been spent trying to adapt that kind of thinking to what I do.”
The next day, you could almost “hear” Paisley smiling over the phone.
When asked what it was like to be on stage with REO Speedwagon he said, “It’s like I was 10, in my bedroom, with a Walkman, a tape and a guitar, and I was practicing.”
Paisley said it was Cronin’s idea to keep his band onstage. “That was fantasy camp for all of us, really.”
It was especially fantastic for banjo player Kendal Marcy, who indeed fulfilled Cronin’s bucketlist wish by plucking away an inspired solo on “Riding the Storm Out.” “That was, as you can imagine, a huge thrill for him to be featured,” said Paisley, pausing and then adding, “and a little weird.”
Nashville, though, also inspired Cronin, who see’s the cross-pollination as perfectly natural.
“I’ve been coming down to Nashville since I was 17 years old, just to write, walk around Music Row, and dream about making a record some day,” says Cronin. “It’s about songs, sitting down with an acoustic guitar and writing. You put a pedal steel on it, it’s country. You put a stack of Marshalls on it, it’s rock and roll.
“I listened to Buffalo Springfield, Moby Grape, and there was a band in Chicago called Mason Proffit who were amazing. They had a banjo and pedal steel and I just liked how it sounded. I didn’t know that it was country. I just knew I liked it.”
Back to that banjo, though, and you can tell Paisley’s creative wheels were turning.
“You know, Kevin would be a good bluegrass singer. I’d be interested in hearing what he’d sound like on ‘Ruby’ or ‘Fox On the Run.’ I bet he’d nail it. What would their name be if they were a bluegrass band?” he muses.
“REO Covered Wagon.”
