Paul Pace

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.