Kenny Chesney Photo Courtesy of BNA Records
Kenny Chesney’s love affair with the ocean goes back almost as far as his first breakout hits, and it certainly colored his Billboard Top 200 #1 debut, Be as You Are: Songs from an Old Blue Chair, an intimate collection of self-penned songs celebrating the life the Luttrell, Tennessean found in the Caribbean. Now, with Lucky Old Sun, Chesney’s created a project that not only honors the time he’s spent on the water, but also dives a little deeper into the essence of the man he’s become there.
"I could’ve done a ‘greatest hits,’" allows the man who just notched his 15th #1 single and has more Top 10 country hits than any artist this century. "But I think to really be an artist, you have to stand in your now. So as a songwriter, I felt it was more important to offer this picture of me now rather than later.
"These songs are more relevant to me and my life today and over the last 3 years ? where I’ve been in my life, what I’ve done, who I’m becoming. So I wanted this to be less of a blueprint of where I hang out and have a few beers, I wanted it to be more the map of my soul."
Whether it’s the pensive retreat and exhale of "Way Down Here," the suspension of time that defines "Nowhere to Go, Nowhere to Be" or the philosophical resilience of "I’m Alive" – originally recorded by Willie Nelson for his Chesney co-produced Moment of Forever – these are songs about digging a little deeper, letting go of what you know and trying to find the peace within. Indeed, in many ways, working with Nelson – who duets on the Tin Pan Alley standard, "That Lucky Old Sun" – was pivotal in this project’s evolution.
"[Co-producing Moment of Forever] gave me a real artistic shift," Chesney confesses of the collaboration that saw the men embracing songs by Bob Dylan, Randy Newman, Guy Clark, Kris Kristofferson and Nelson himself. "I came away from those sessions more inspired as a songwriter. I found I was eager to tell stories, to try to find more commonality with people through my songwriting.
"If there’s one thing I learned from Willie – beyond to truly breathe – it was his gift to touch people where they live. If Be as You Are represented something that was personal, I think this one just seems more honest and truthful. It comes from a deeper place, from who I am when I’m still."
Still is hardly a word for the four-consecutive Academy of Country Music and three-time and current Country Music Association Entertainer of the Year who’s sold in excess of a million concert tickets each of the past six years – and is on track to make it seven in a row – and who plays football stadiums the way most headliners play regular arenas. So even at his most kicked back, it’s a good bet that the Luttrell, Tennessean will kick up a little dust.
Certainly the freewheeling redux of Shel Silverstein, "Ten with a Two" – in all its far-flung, beer-goggled glory – or the Calypso-drenched "Everybody Wants to Go to Heaven" reflect the wide-open exuberance that has made Chesney’s legendary concerts the official marker of summer across the country. Laughing, he says, "Even when I’m trying to be serious, I can’t help wanting to have fun ? or to rock. I think that’s one of the greatest gifts of music: no matter how bad you feel, it can lift you up out of it. This is a very serious record, but I wanted to make sure people remember there’s always light – no matter how dark it might seem."
For Chesney, "Everybody Wants to Go to Heaven" provided another gift: the opportunity to work with the surviving members of Bob Marley’s Wailers. Inviting the Jamaican legends to appear with him in the video, the chemistry between the country superstar and the storied reggae musicians was so strong he asked them to sing on the actual track.
"When you think of the way the Wailers music has lasted, the messages that it carries," Chesney explains, "it’s such an honor for me to have them be a part of this. And I got to spend a couple days with them, got to interview Family Man about ‘One Love’ and just talk about life. Those are the moments that the islands are filled with ? and that I hope I’m able to get on this record."
Certainly the gift of free-flowing friendship is a cornerstone of the project. In addition to Nelson and the Wailers, old friend Mac McAnally – who penned the Chesney signature "Back Where I Come From" – and new friend Dave Matthews also join the quiet singer/songwriter on Lucky Old Sun.
"Dave and I have been crossing paths for the last several years, and when I was listening to ‘I’m Alive,’ I just thought it needed something. Willie Nelson’s a hard act to follow – and it’s such a different song from where I live, but when I was thinking about who else would understand what that song is really about, I realized that Dave would get it on a much deeper level.
"And Mac ? well, I think Mac is what every songwriter hopes they can be: simple and honest and real. I’d been wanting to cut ‘Down the Road’ for a long time, but it just never quite fit the albums we were making. And while it’s not really a song about life on the water, it is a song about true contentment, knowing what you want and being at peace with all of it.
"That Mac came in and sang on it with me, well, I can’t think of a higher compliment."
There may be one compliment that could be higher: inspiring Chesney to write. While "Nowhere to Go, Nowhere to Be" is absolutely a day torn from his too crazy life that became a total pause, and "Way Down Here" embraced the healing nature of life on the water, "Boats" came from a real-life encounter with a man who’d lost everything, sold what was left, bought a boat, and put his life back together sailing down the Atlantic coast.
"You don’t realize ‘til you start talking to people who live on boats, they fill a lot of gaps – and they answer a lot of questions over time," Chesney says. "When I swam over to that guy’s boat, it was ‘cause he kept watching us with binoculars. But once we started talking, hearing the story of losing his wife, that’s when I realized just how powerful these vessels can be in terms of sorting your life out, figuring where you should be and healing your pain."
Healing is a big subtext to Lucky Old Sun. Not that the man who’s become the soundtrack to coming of age in America’s heartland ever eschewed being serious, it’s just that on the records people expect from the good-timing musician, it’s never quite this thoughtful or soul scraping.
The quiet "Spirit of a Storm" looks at the restless place inside us all, and tries to reckon with that rootlessness. A song that would have been perfect for the late Keith Whitley, it portrays the places few artists ever reveal – and does it in the name of seeking a more all-encompassing truth.
It is the perfect counter to "The Life," which looks through the yuppie achiever’s eye at a Mexican fisherman who’s living the life all his high pressure striving’s supposed to eventually provide. "The joke’s on the guy," Chesney admits. "Because your life is right now; it’s right here. You have to live it all in the moment, because that could be all you’ve got."
Those moments, though, add up to lives. In the full spectrum of living fully, there are tears to go with the salt water, being at odds as one melts into the endless sky. In the balance – or perhaps relinquishing what bothers you – that’s where Lucky Old Sun sets sail.
RSS Feeds