Johnny Paycheck was a country music legend, probably best known for his 1977 hit single “Take This Job and Shove It.” But that song, which was written by David Allan Coe, was only one in a long line of singles that Paycheck had released (and had written or co-written) since the ‘60s. He sang background for Ray Price, played bass and steel for George Jones, and wrote songs that were covered by Jones and Tammy Wynette while he pursued his own career in Music City. The overall 1977 radio audience, especially the pop audience, really had little idea of the breadth of his background.
He sometimes had a reputation as an outlaw, and did a brief stint in prison before being pardoned. But before his death in 2003 he had helped his son learn the ropes of the music business. And while that son moved on to other endeavors after his father’s passing, John PayCheck has now decided to throw his hat back into the ring, releasing his own original music and hitting the road to play his own brand of neo-traditional country, while keeping his father’s name alive.
John PayCheck’s second studio album, More Days Behind, is due to be released at the beginning of November. Recorded at Nashville’s OmniSound Studios with producer Bill McDermott (Tim McGraw, Brad Paisley), PayCheck wrote most of the songs with longtime collaborator Scott Gabbey, and also covers George Strait’s “When Did You Stop Loving Me.” Several of the album’s tracks have already been released online.
A Music City native who has spent time all over the country, PayCheck travelled with his late father for reasons both domestic and professional. “I was born in Nashville, grew up in and out of Nashville,” he said. “I’d go to school, and then every summer went on the road with dad. It was like my summer job but it was the best way for me to spend time with Dad consistently, really that’s what it was. I think in junior high school I started on the road with Dad, trying to work my way up to the ranks. I was doing runner stuff for him and the band and kind of built my way up from there to become a guitar tech.”
“I think it was 2001 when dad came off the road,” he said. “His health was just too much and I was trying to encourage him to come off the road because he was having such a hard time. I was kind of angry at music in general, with the business here in Nashville, just kind of because of how I felt that Dad was treated. I was foolish, and angry at what I thought was an unfair position that dad had been put in here. But you grow up a little bit and you kind of look at it and go, Well, maybe your dad didn’t put himself in the best positions all the time.”
PayCheck’s own sound isn’t that far removed from the sound of his father’s heyday, with steel, fiddle, twangin’ Telecasters, and a touch of Western swing. “The sound that I’m looking for is kind of hard to classify,” he said, “but it’s really a kind of ’90’s country sound, and I do like to swing.” For his own artistic favorites PayCheck mentions singers like Collin Raye, Zach Bryan and the late Chris LeDoux, while he appreciates songwriters like Dean Dillon and Jason Aldean hitmaker Michael Dulaney. And of course, across the board, he’s a fan of his father.
As far as basically starting a new career in 2024, he said, “You can’t just be an artist today. Now you gotta be the business person as well. I harken back to Ernest Tubb, who I thought was really good at this. Because he got the record shop, he got that stage, he got the radio, took a lot of these things under his own power and it was like, Wow. I don’t know if Ernest saw the future or what.”
You can follow John PayCheck’s music and tour dates at johnpaycheck.com.
Be the first to comment