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Jon Pardi’s favorite Christmas memories from his childhood might have helped inspire him to become the country artist he is today. The “Last Night Lonely” star remembered the first guitar he ever received, and now, he credits the gift with lighting a “spark” for him.
“One Christmas I got a guitar, but I was real young, so this guitar spent multiple nights in the backyard and probably got hit by a sprinkler,” Pardi recalled in a statement shared by his record label. “I was a kid. I didn’t know what to do with this thing. It was like I knew how to strum it, but I didn’t know how to take care of it. I must’ve been six or five, you know, I thought it was kind of a toy then, but it started the whole spark. So, I always kind of say, I always tell parents you just never know, if you get a little toy that’s a guitar or drum set, you never know what that’ll spark in a child’s mind. So, who would’ve (known) if I had never gotten that guitar.”
Pardi — who is set to become a parent in February 2023 when he and his wife, Summer, welcome their firstborn child — also developed a love of Elvis Presley music at a young age. He remembered an Elvis ornament that was always on his grandmother’s Christmas tree, and “you’d hit a button, and it’d sing ‘Blue Christmas,’” Pardi said, adding, “I think that’s probably why I like Elvis so much. ”