Brad Paisley, ‘Old Alabama’

Convincing Alabama to play on Brad Paisley's song 'Old Alabama' was the easy part. Writing the eventual chart topper proved to be much more difficult. Paisley tells Taste of Country the song began to take shape long before he invited the country legends to join him. "We were not really writing it the right way at the time," he says of the initial lyric-writing efforts. "When we turned it into this story about a girl who likes that old music, and then realized that the best way to really cap it off was to have them [Alabama] appear on it -- almost like sampling one of their old songs -- that’s when it became really unique."

"And now we’re rollin’ down an old back road / I got the steering wheel in one hand / We’ll find a hideaway / Where she and I can play / In Mother Nature’s band," Paisley sings during the second verse, before launching into the chorus. "Now we’re listenin’ to old Alabama / Parked somewhere in Tennessee / A little 'Dixieland Delight' and 'It Feels So Right' /And 'It’s Love In The First Degree-ee-eee.'"

"So, in the process," Paisley shares, "it was my co-writer Chris DuBois who said, “You know, the bridge from ‘Mountain Music’ is really the bridge we need for this song: If you really wanna turn her on, ‘Play some back home, come on music from the heart,’ all those words that they had written. So we contacted them and said, 'You guys wanna do this?' They were like, 'You know what? That sounds like fun.' It was as simple as that."

"Forget about Sinatra or Coltrane / Or some ol’ Righteous Brothers song / And Barry White, ain’t gonna work tonight / If you really wanna turn her on," the 'Old Alabama' lyrics go on.

"I guess I’m naive because it never occurred to me that they’d say no," Paisley admits. "And in retrospect, I realize what a little miracle it is." The work with Brad Paisley might fuel a comeback for Alabama, as the group recently announced they were looking to play 20 dates together in 2012.

Watch Brad Paisley and Alabama Perform 'Old Alabama'