Chesney, Kenny

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Kenny Chesney

Singer, songwriter, guitarist

Me and You Brings Chesney’s First Gold

Blessed with a voice that sounds older than his years, Kenny Chesney is a country vocalist in the hard-core country sense. Heavily influenced by such classical stylists such as Merle Haggard and George “the Possum” Jones, he appreciates the country rock of Charlie Daniels and his band as well. Through Chesney’s talent and his dogged persistence in the face of a first recording contract that didn’t pan out, the singles off his more recent albums for BNA have consistently charted in the Top Ten. “I want a 20-year career, not just a few records that go gold and then are gone,” Chesney told Michael A. Capozzoli Jr. in Country Weekly. Since the singer/songwriter first hit the streets of Nashville in 1991, he has shown that he has what it takes to make that wish a reality.

Chesney was born March 26, 1968, in Lutrelle, a small town near Knoxville, Tennessee, that is the famed birthplace of guitar virtuoso Chet Atkins. As a boy, he listened to country and bluegrass music along with his friends, but his own dreams were of becoming a star athlete—may be a baseball player—rather than a country singer. By the time he reached high school, his family had moved to Knoxville, and Chesney became serious about football. He also had his first flirtation with music: he and a friend joined the local choir, and were inspired by the choir’s director with enthusiasm for melody and vocal harmony.

In 1986, after graduating from high school, Chesney enrolled at East Tennessee State University in Johnson City, where he decided to pursue a degree in business. Then, on Christmas Day of his sophomore year, he received a guitar as a gift. With his earlier enthusiasm for music renewed, Chesney learned enough chords to work out the Eagles’ “Tequilla Sunrise.” “I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do,” the singer told Linda Burchfield in Country Song Roundup. “Until I got my first guitar, and then I was hooked.” Pretty soon he was entertaining his friends with his singing and was writing his own songs as well. Encouraged by his roommates, he got a gig at a small restaurant near campus, but was disappointed by the lack of response from the restaurant’s rowdy Saturday Night studentcrowd. However, Chesney didn’t give up; he continued to play at small restaurants and clubs near campus. Eventually he rented some studio time at Classic Recording in Bristol, Virginia, and laid down an album’s worth of self-penned tracks. Sales of his tapes at his shows were so successful that Chesney was soon able to buy himself a brand new Martin guitar with the profits.

Chesney’s fan following expanded as he moved further from his base on campus and began playing venues in Virginia and the Carolinas. Even though the music bug

For the Record…

Born March 26, 1968, in Lutrelle, TN. Education: Eastern Tennessee State University, B.S. in marketing, 1991.

Began performing in small clubs, Johnson City, TN, 1987; moved to Nashville, 1991; signed with Acuff/Rose, 1992; signed with Capricorn, 1993; released debut album, In My Wildest Dreams, 1994; signed with BNA, 1995.

Addresses: Record company —BNA Entertainment, 1 Music Circle North, Nashville, TN 37203-4310. Management —Dale Morris Agency, 818 19th Ave. South, Nashville, TN.

had bit hard, he fought the urge to quit school and move to Nashville. Graduating from East Tennessee State with a degree in advertising and marketing in December of 1991, he wasted no time in pulling up stakes and moving to Music City to become a songwriter. Playing clubs at night and parking cars by day, Chesney kept the bills paid while doing his homework on the country music industry. “I read every book about the music business that I could get my hands on,” he told Burchfield. “Then I just picked up the phone and called [BMI publishing executive] Clay Bradley.” Bradley helped the young newcomer get a songwriter’s contract with Acuff/Rose publishing in 1992.

After an appearance at a local songwriter’s showcase in 1993, Chesney landed a recording contract with Capricorn Records’s new country division, and released his critically acclaimed debut album, In My Wildest Dreams. The 1994 album, features Chesney’s first recording of “The Tin Man,” which made itto number 70 on the charts. Unfortunately for the young artist, Capricorn disbanded its country division shortly thereafter, leaving Chesney with a record but no promotional help. By that time, however, his talents as a songwriter and vocalist were well known in town, and BNA was waiting in the wings. That label, which signed Chesney in 1995, also purchased the master disks to In My Wildest Dreams. Chesney’s first record with BNA, All I Need To Know, would feature a reprise of “The Tin Man” as its first single.

1995’s All I Need to Know, produced by Barry Beckett, showcased Chesney the traditionalist, backed by fiddles, steel, and a whole lot of country flavor. The vocalist sounded as equally at home on such emotion-filled love songs as the title track, Fall in Love” and “Honey Would You Stand by Me” as he did on ballads like “The Tin Man” and “Grandpa Told Me So.” One of the recording’s highlights is “Between Midnight and Daylight,” a honky tonk’s “last call” before it closed down the bar. Taken as a whole, All I Need To Know, on which Chesney co-wrote four songs, reflects the artist’s traditional sensibilities and would result in Chesney’s first two top ten hits: “Me and You” and “When I Close My Eyes.”

Since his first album was released, Chesney has spent most of his time on the road, touring with artists like Aaron Tippin, Confederate Railroad, Jones, Trisha Year-wood, Clay Walker, and Patty Loveless and otherwise promoting his work. In addition to his own songs, he covers hits by Keith Whitley, Jones, and Haggard in his stage show—in fact, the singer’s all-time favorite song is the Hag’s “That’s the Way Love Goes.” Chesney’s favorite venues are fairs, festivals, and roomy honky tonks where he can perform a show of more than two hours and pull out all the stops.

Me and You Brings Chesney’s First Gold

Me and You, released by BNA in 1996, would be a more pulled-together effort than its predecessors, but would remain solidly in the country camp. It would also be Chesney’s first gold album. The album’s first single, “Back in My Arms Again,” quickly climbed the charts, and “When I Close My Eyes” made it all the way to the Number One spot. In addition to releasing Me and You, Chesney continued to tour with Alabama, with whom he had been opening for crowds of 15,000 fans a night since 1994. With that kind of exposure, sales of his third album continued to rise.

Chesney co-wrote three of the eleven tracks on 1997’s I Will Stand, which was fronted by the single “She’s Got It All” and the momentum of his gold-stamped Me and You. “I went through a lot of stressful nights, wondering which songs to keep and which to let go, because this is a very pivotal album for me,” Chesney told Deborah Evans Price of Billboard about his third BNA effort. He explained his personal songwriting goals to interviewer Dixie Weathersby in Close Up: “As a songwriter and an artist, I want to try to make somebody laugh, I want to try to make somebody cry, I want to try to make somebody remember their first girlfriend or their first kiss. You want to try to make them miss somebody or want something. That’s what I try to do when I… write songs.” In addition to pulling emotions from his listeners, Chesney also wanted to cut a tune or two that was hard-core country, regardless of whether country radio played it or not. ” Hillbilly Heaven with Their Honky Tonk Hell” was that song, which features backup vocals by both fellow Young Country artist Tracy Lawrence and “The Possum” himself, who Chesney maintains is “the best country singer there ever was.” Of additional interest on the album is the acoustic version of Chesney’s hit “When I Close My Eyes,” which he performed live for several years prior to recording it.

Rather than try to make a big splash, Chesney has remained conservative in planning his career. “I am glad I have taken really small steps,” he told Weathers-by. “I have learned something in every step that helped me get to the next one…. Shoot, if I get to do this for 20 more years, and I am still taking these small steps, then that is what I’m going to do because I love country music. That is what brought me to Nashville—songs and the love of songs. That’s probably what is going to keep me here.”