Kenny Chesney's 2010 CD, Hemingway's Whiskey. Photo courtesy of Sony Music Nashville.

"Sail away, sail away, three sheets to the wind
Live hard, die hard,
This one’s for him..."
-- Hemingway’s Whiskey

When Kenny Chesney pulled the plug on what would have been his 2010 tour in August of last year, he had accomplished almost unprecedented things. He’s played NFL football stadiums by the dozen, received 4 Country Music Association as well as 4 consecutive Academy of Country Music Entertainer of the Year Awards, had nineteen No. 1 singles, duets with Dave Matthews ("I’m Alive"), Mac McAnally ("Down The Road") and Uncle Kracker ("When The Sun Goes Down") and has sold over 27 million albums including the quadruple platinum CMA Album of the Year, When The Sun Goes Down, and the two highly introspective singer/songwriter-driven Be As You Are: Songs from an Old Blue Chair and Lucky Old Sun.

He co-produced a critically-acclaimed album on Willie Nelson and is the only artist in any genre to sell over a million tickets each of the past eight summers – and that was before the Sony Motion Pictures national theatrical release, "Kenny Chesney: Summer in 3-D," and the 90-minute documentary "The Boys of Fall," which showcases the impact of high school football and features some of the game’s most enduring coaches and players at the pro, college and high school levels. Now, Kenny has released what will perhaps become his most enduring album, Hemingway’s Whiskey.

"I just knew I’d had my foot on the gas for a long, long time," says the high energy performer. "I’d gotten signed to Capricorn Records in 1995, and I’d never let up. I was able to do things I didn’t even know to dream, but in the work and the rush of it, things started to become a blur ... and I knew it.

"I also knew that was not the reason I’d come to town: to just get on the treadmill and not look up," adds Kenny. "I loved songs, I loved artists ... and I loved the process of making music. Suddenly, it was all deadlines and it didn’t feel right. So I did what a lot of people have now told me was the unthinkable: I decided to stop everything for a year, to refocus on some personal projects and really think about my music and where I wanted to go. I am so glad that I did."

With his foot "off the gas," Kenny exhaled – and considered where the music had brought him, what it meant to the fans that came back year after year and how to expand on what is easily one of contemporary music’s most vital communities. "The more I thought about it, especially working on ‘Summer in 3-D,’ which is as much a love letter to the fans who’ve lived these songs and their relationship to the music, the more I realized: this music is something they live right where they are, too.