BIOGRAPHY
"I grew up in a very small town,
went to a small elementary, then high school --
and got to play football as a starter.
I skinny dipped and fished in a lake, had my heart broken by my high school
girlfriend.
I've lived like a lot of guys listening to my music live…
And I think that's why people buy my records,
Because they can relate to the guy singing those songs:
They feel like the songs are about their lives, because they're about
my life
-- and I'm not all that different from them, even now."
Kenny
Chesney, the pride of Luttrell, Tennessee, is actually quite a bit different.
With back-to-back double platinum records for Everywhere We Go and Greatest
Hits, multiple week chart-toppers and career definers with "I Lost
It," "How Forever Feels," "Don't Happen Twice,"
"She Thinks My Tractor's Sexy" and "Fall In Love,"
the launch of his first true major headlining tour, he's theEveryguy who
proves that dreams can come true.
No Shoes, No Shirt, No Problems finds Kenny Chesney again holding a mirror
up to himself -- and all the folks back where he comes from. If the 12
songs contained herein are a little older, a little wiser, a little more
aware, they still capture the unbridled joy being young, life lived for
the pure feeling of it and the unburnished emotions of people who prefer
to experience rather than analyze what's happening to them.
From the opening notes of "Young," a song that celebrates the
thrill of all the things you can do before you know what you can't --
tempered by the acceptance that comes with the wisdom of being grown,
No Shoes is a record that looks at the phases of youth coming into their
own. Whether it's the haunted yearning of the Conway-esque "I Remember,"
the tortured understanding of Bruce Springsteen's conflict of faithlessness
and jagged hearts "One Step Up," the make-it-happen-in-spite-of-those-who-say-you-can't
feel-good anthem "Big Star" or the tropicali attitude adjustment
that informs the title track, Chesney understands the phases and stages
of growing up, the thrill of football and falling in love, the pain of
loss and regrets.
"I think I was strong enough to put more of myself in these songs.
. . because it's scary to put yourself out there like this," the
man deemed "Country's Hottest Bachelor" by Country Weekly confesses.
"To show people your doubts, your hurts, and even your mistakes,
to be willing to show people that part of yourself, the part that's so
human and raw and aching -- well, it's the hardest thing about this.
"But if you truly have the audience I believe I do, then you owe
them that. After all, I can't imagine giving them less than the truth
-- and since the last album, I lived a lot of life and learned a lot of
lessons. It's all here, if you listen."
- 1 -
Certainly "A Lot of Things Different" does that. Written by
Bill Anderson and Dean Dillon, the half-spoken, half-sung meditation on
passing up opportunities in the moment that might define one's life, "A
Lot of Things Different" is a plea to live every chance, savor every
sensation and to experience the richness of the journey so that one can
embrace the fullness of it all.
"Regrets are the one thing I believe most people live with in one
way or another," Chesney allows. "Everybody lives with it, because
we all have times in our life when we didn't take the extra step, didn't
go out on that limb -- whether it was asking that one girl out or standing
up for something we believed in. Whatever it is… so, you wonder what
if? And you wonder what it would have felt like.
"To me, we should live our lives to experience it all, to seek happiness,
to be the things we believe in. But it's scary, that sense of getting
hurt… so what did we pass up? And that is the real tragedy, far worse
than the longing for what wasn't. It's what drew me to 'A Lot of Things
Different' from the first line.
"You know, 'I'd've spent a lot more time in the pouring rain without
an umbrella, covering my head…' is almost like what it feels like
to be chasing your dreams. Being out on the road sometimes, you feel like
an astronaut, rolling in your own little world, going to another town
-- totally disconnected from anything resembling a normal life. You hit
that stage, though, and you see those people, hear them connecting with
your life, seeing their lives in these songs -- and you remember why.
"Being disconnected isn’t painful. You give some things up.
But look at what you gain: kinda like being out in the rain, without an
umbrella. It's not bad, really, and if you feel it for what it is, it's
actually pretty nice."
Not that everything Kenny Chesney does is seriousness on top of contemplation.
As he's the first to admit, "Not every song has to change the world.
I love serious songs, but people need a release, something that makes
you smile and laugh and forget about it. Those songs are important, too,
especially for people trying to make it all make sense.
"So if it moves you in the heart, or the soul, or the hips, then
we're connecting somehow, somewhere that works. And you know, it's always
been so."
With "Young" Chesney has found a way to merge content with that
infectious feel good beat. And the merger of groove and bigger reality
also informs "Never Gonna Feel Like That Again," a breezy song
about phases in a young man's life -- from playing football as a kid,
to falling in love and making love for the first time, to having to face
the consequences of two kids in lust in a way where ultimately each transition
leaves the singer richer for the passage.
There's even "Live Those Songs Again," a song capturing an aging
hippie, who finds his life's definition -- albeit a life that was much
less than he'd imagined post-Vietnam, post-Summer of Love, post-burn out
-- in the music that he loved. Riding a wave of glimpses of Creedence
and Buddy Holly and the Haight Ashbury scene, he can still go back to
a time when shooting out the lights was all that mattered and escape the
drudgery life can sometimes become.
Kenny Chesney knows about music's power of personal delivery. Arriving
in Nashville as the Garth/Clint/Vince/Alan wave was breaking, he knew
he wanted to sing. He also recognized that he didn't have any of the distinguishing
elements that set those artists apart. But he burned with his dream --
and as the world's smallest, slowest starting receiver ("It was a
tiny school," he laughs), hard work and staying at something you
want wasn't an alien concept.
- 2 -
"I made up my mind I was going to figure out how to make my living
playing music," says the veteran of Chucky’s in Johnson City
where he played 5 nights a week for tips while attending East Tennessee
State University. "Having done that, I figured I could scrape out
a gig somewhere in Nashville, anything playing music was fine."
When Chesney said anything, he literally found one of the most meager
homes there was: the Turf. A time-battered honky tonk on the worst part
of Nashville's once vibrant Lower Broad. If it was once a Ryman overflow
haunt, the Turf's times had grown rough -- mixing tourists with drunks,
dreamers that never made it, working girls and the faded refugees that
wanted their country music real in the truest sense of the word.
Kenny Chesney fit right in. A kid from a small town in East Tennessee
who loved Conway and Waylon, George Jones and Lefty Frizzell, Willie Nelson
and George Strait and Merle Haggard, Vern Gosdin and John Conley and whatever
else hardcore country fans wanted to hear.
"I played 5 or 6 nights a week if I could get it, 4 hours minimum
for five dollars an hour and tips," Chesney remembers. "When
you're making music in Music City, it’s all okay. I had a bad little
tape someone helped me put together. Clay Bradley, who was at BMI at the
time, helped me eventually get a publishing deal at Acuff Rose and that
kind of lead to my Capricorn deal.
"It was one of those things where, looking back, it’s hard to
believe you didn't get discouraged or doubt, but in the moment, it all
felt like it was happening, because you didn't know what happening really
was. It’s funny… I played the Gaylord Center
(Nashville's arena) on New Year's Eve and there were almost 12,000 people.
The Gaylord Center isn't 100 yards from where the Turf used to stand before
a tornado blew it away.
"I was onstage, looking at those people -- and it was like all of
a sudden, I remembered having that New Year's Eve gig at the Turf eight
years ago. It was like maybe 10 people, but it was such a big deal to
be working THAT night in Nashville… and in that moment, I just got
lost because it was all a blur, every last bit of it. And you know? I'm
not sure that the thrill -- even though the sound and the crowd's energy
was much bigger -- was all that different."
This is a confession not from a man who doesn't appreciate where he is,
but someone who's never lost touch with his core. Over the four years
since Everywhere established the quick-to-laugh, never-one-to-shy-away-from-what-needs-to-be-done
young man as a force to be reckoned with, he's still finding his fans
are as much a mirror of who he is as he is who they are.
"To me, everybody talks about what’s country? Well, I think
first and foremost, it's about being true, singing about people really
live their lives. And it can be some dumb little moment that maybe doesn't
seem like much, but is probably one of the moments that defines your life.
"I still am a fan -- and I know what mattered to me," he continues
softly but pointedly. "I used to be that guy out front in the baseball
cap, and I drove to see Keith Whitley at an (W)IVK listener appreciation
show by myself to hear him sing 'Don't Close Your Eyes' and 'Miami, My
Amy.' And you know? I still will, still do -- because music is how we
connect.
"Talking to people, especially about the stuff that matters, can
be hard. When you sing or listen to a song, it just opens up doors. Whether
it's something like 'I Can't Go There,' which is about not being able
to go places you love because the memories of what you lost are too strong,
or 'Young,' which is remembering how much fun being young is, or 'How
Forever Feels,' which is just the thrill of falling in love, it's very
real in a very basic way.
- 3 -
"I think people realize that. I'm not so different from them, they
hear it in the songs -- and I'm like their buddy. You know, it's not a
bad way to make friends."
For Kenny Chesney, of the nearly 8 million albums sold, the soon-to-be
arena-sized headliner, the inevitable chart-climber, that's all cake.
For him, it's about the guy in the baseball hat and the girl that guy
thinks is pretty. Real life the double platinum boy, who finds his solace
in the ocean, realizes doesn't always show up with the gilded edges and
profound pronouncements -- you gotta find the truth as it rolls by with
tan lines, an easy smile and a twinkle in its eye.
And you know, so far, that's worked just fine.
FACT FILE
Current Album:
No Shoes, No Shirt, No Problems
Produced by: Norro Wilson, Buddy Cannon and Kenny Chesney
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Previous
BNA Records Releases
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RIAA
Certified
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| Greatest Hits | 2X Platinum |
| Everywhere We Go | 2X Platinum |
| I Will Stand | Platinum |
| Me And You | Gold |
| All I Need To Know |
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AWARDS/NOMINATIONS:
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KEY
MEDIA:
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1997
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ACM Top New Male Vocalist Award | CNN Showbiz Today |
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1999
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CMA Horizon Award Nominee | Live with Regis & Kathie Lee |
| CMA Video Of The Year Nominee for "How Forever Feels" | The Tonight Show With Jay Leno | |
| WB Radio Music Awards Artist Of The Year (Country/Young Country) Nominee | Entertainment Tonight | |
| WB Radio Music Awards Song Of The Year (Country/Young Country) Nominee for "How Forever Feels" | Academy of Country Music Awards | |
| WB Radio Music Awards Favorite Driving Song Nominee for "How Forever Feels" | Country Music Association Awards | |
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2000
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Country Weekly Presents TNN Music Awards Male Artist Of The Year Nominee | TNN & CMT Country Weekly Music Awards |
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2001
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TNN & CMT Country Weekly Fast Track Award | E! Entertainment "Celebrity Homes" |
| ACM Top Male Vocalist Nominee | PEOPLE | |
| Blockbuster Entertainment Awards Favorite Male Artist – Country Nominee | USA Today | |
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R&R
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Top '99 of '99 - "How Forever Feels" ranked #2 song of the year | Country Weekly |
| Top '98 of '98 - "That's Why I'm Here" ranked # 4 song of the year | Country Music | |
| Top
'97 of '97 - "She's Got It All" ranked # 4 song of the year |
USA Weekend Billboard | |
| Associated Press | ||
DISCOGRAPHY
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