Pickle Barrel
TORONTO'S PALAIS ROYALE is packed
with hundreds of cowboy-hatted
country music fans. Onstage,
surrounded by cameras and bright
lights, country chanteuse Carrie
Underwood is giving an interview. A
few years into her post-American Idol
career, the tremendously successful
big-voiced blonde looks like a star -
shiny hair, designer shoes, flawless
makeup - but she hasn't quite
developed the bubbly rapport of many
of her colleagues.
She doesn't go out of her way to steer the conversation anywhere, and delivers most answers in a relaxed monotone. By her own admission, she gives a pretty mellow interview.
To her left is Paul McGuire. The Edinburgh-born, Thornhill-bred Country Music Chanel host has the task of spinning this chat into an hourlong special.
Perched keenly on the edge of his stool, he quickly wins over the crowd with his bright, beaming smile and effervescent, self-deprecating style. Before long, by peppering a slate of well-researched questions with plenty of good-natured jokes, he gets Underwood to open up about potentially touchy subjects like her childhood, love life and family.
It's funny, compelling and infinitely more watchable than it would have been in lesser hands. In short, it's great television.
This is what McGuire does best. In his 35 years, he's built a tidy career out of creating engaging dialogue with fascinating folk.
"The interview is a dance. When you go in, you hope that the other person is going to be willing to dance as well," he says. "And when they don't, you have to adapt. That's when you hope you've done your research."
McGuire took the CMT gig a few years ago, and has since helmed the network's flagship program (CMT Central), traveled the country for an instantly successful upstart series (Karaoke Star) and held his own in one-on-one sit-downs with some of the genre's biggest heavyweights (Brooks and Dunn, Keith Urban and Underwood).
No small feat for a man who, prior to landing the job, scarcely knew his Tanya Tucker from his Travis Tritt.
McGuire's interest in entertaining goes back to his childhood in Thornhill, where his family settled shortly after moving to Canada when he was a small boy. His memories of the community are tinged with plenty of nostalgia - biking down tree-lined streets, playing hockey at the Thornhill Community Centre, visiting the Thornhill Festival (and trying to use a fake ID to get into the beer garden).
"I can't think of a better place to raise children," he recalls. "The idea I have in my brain of the Thornhill I grew up in is literally like a little village… It was such a great place to live."
Now living downtown, he finds the pace at which his hometown has changed a little jarring.
"Thornhill is definitely not exempt from all the development that's been happening in the area. It makes me a little bit sad that my little Thornhill doesn't exist any more, but I know it's still a good place."
At St. Robert's Catholic High School he discovered what would become a life-long love of music. He became heavily involved in both the school band and his own group, Mr. Clean and the Dirtbags (he still plays drums with his high school bandmates).
He also dabbled in drama, and was even cast as the lead in a school production of Little Shop of Horrors.
"I was cast as Seymour," he recalls. "We went through all the rehearsals, but nobody bought tickets, so it got cancelled. True story. Everyone went to see the rugby team, everyone went to see the hockey team, everyone went to see the soccer team, but nobody would come to see our play."
The experience left few lasting bruises, however, and shortly after leaving York University (which he attended largely because it meant he could stay in his band) he decided to pursue the bright lights in earnest. He moved downtown, got an agent and lined up a few commercials.
This led to a gig as host of a game show called Clips, which aired on YTV. Top brass at the children's network liked the fresh-faced young host's style, and soon offered him what would become his most recognizable gig - as host of the wildly popular Breakfast Zone and Zone programs. To this day, an entire generation of Canadians knows McGuire as PJ Paul, or simply, "YTV guy".
Hosting suited McGuire. The joy of making kids laugh was a rush, and the small YTV community allowed him to nurture other creative impulses like writing and producing. But he really hit his stride with his on-air conversations with celebrities.
Gradually, through rounds and rounds of press junkets with movie stars and musicians, he found that his natural interview style - affable and chatty, but informed - was remarkably effective at coaxing interesting responses from subjects usually programmed to recite stock answers.
That approach was enough to convince CMT that hiring a country greenhorn as a new host was a good move.
"[Country music] is a lovely, huge genre that, prior to working at CMT, I really had very little knowledge about," he says. "There's no denying that country music is home to the greatest musicians of any genre. These guys can play."
Surprising words from someone whose personal favourites include the Beatles, the Smiths and Oasis. But while he'll regularly poke fun at some of the genre's hokier videos and cheesier awards ceremonies on-air - a tendency that has irked some country die-hards - he has truly come to love the music. So when he sits down to talk to Nashville's finest, he does so with a healthy degree of respect. It shows.
"I try to forget the cameras are there, and try to make [interview subjects] feel relatively comfortable in what is by and large a very unnatural experience," McGuire explains.
"The viewing public appreciates it when they see someone who cares. The television dial is peppered with people who are host-bots."
CMT Central producer Joel Stewart first met McGuire 10 years ago on the set of a YTV program. He was immediately impressed with the young host, but circumstances kept collaboration on the back burner.
Years later, a producer job at CMT piqued his interest. Not because Stewart had any real love of country music (he didn't) or because he was particularly eager to uproot his family to Toronto (he wasn't), but because he wanted to work with the network's new host.
"I normally wouldn't have been very interested at all, but when they said, 'we've hired McGuire,' I thought 'we have the chance to do something good here,'" he says.
Together, the two have put CMT on the country map.
"I can put him in front of anyone," Stewart says. "Sometimes you meet on-air people who are one way on-air and one way off-air. Paul is equally charming and equally engaging in person. Because he's so good with people - be it movie directors or grips or whatever - he doesn't have to fake anything."
Stewart is enjoying the partnership while he can; he mentions his host in the same breath as David Letterman and Edward R. Murrow, and figures that if larger (read: US) players had any smarts, they'd hire him away in a second.
McGuire admits to having been tempted by Hollywood's lure in the past. But with work he loves, a fiancŽ and a new home just a quick drive from where he grew up, Toronto is exactly where he wants to be.
"I have an amazing history in this
city. Toronto is home," he says. "My
family is here. My friends are here. I
want to be around them as much as I
can. I've worked really hard in my 30
years here in Canada to build up that
group. Why would I want to give that
up?" 
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