Brad Paisley Celebrates the Power of Ten

Brad Paisley has come a long way in a decade. The country superstar says he's much more comfortable with combining his personal image and his career image today than he was when he released his first album 10 years ago. Paisley and a group of 200 friends celebrated his first decade in Nashville Thursday night. While friends munched on mini-hamburgers at Nashville's Radius 10 restaurant, hit song after hit song played, chronicling Paisley's career.

The party was called 'Ten to the Third Power,' because the singer was also celebrating 10 number one songs and 10 million albums sold. Brad did a round of media interviews before gathering with record company executives, his father Doug and his Opry pal Little Jimmy Dickens to talk about those career achievements. His dad told the crowd that he was proud of Brad for much more than just his career achievements.

"I'm proud of him for the dad he has become, for the husband he has become and the son he is," Doug said.

Paisley was presented with a cool piece of artwork done by Hatch Show Print, a company famous for making concert posters from the days of Hank Williams Sr. to now. The art depicted all of his albums and singles in the last 10 years. As he admired the artwork, Paisley said, "I don't have any million selling album plaques or awards on my wall because I never wanted to be that guy who, when you walked in his house, all you saw was all that stuff. But this is a very cool piece of art and I will definitely hang it in my house."

The country superstar went on to thank his father for all the times he drove him to gigs before Paisley had his driver's license: "It must have been a pain in the butt for him to do that, but he never complained." The singer choked up several times as he went on to talk about his acceptance in Nashville and how the city always felt like home to him.

"No one gets here on his own and I am totally blessed to be surrounded by these people who have helped me stand up here today," he told the party-goers. "This night is for everyone here."

In closing, Sony/BMG record label president Joe Galante told Paisley, "In one of your acceptance speeches we saw in the video you said you hoped you never let country music down. I'm here to tell you that you have honored country music and your fans throughout these past ten years. We look forward to the next ten."