I was quite impressed with Kenny Chesney when his album “Hemingway’s Whiskey” hit the number 1 spot on both the Soundscan Top 200 and the Country Albums charts. Now, the country singer’s success continues as his single “Live a Little” has become his 20th number 1 on Billboard’s Country Songs airplay chart. The song also marks Kenny’s third number 1 country songs hit from “Hemingway’s Whiskey”. Congratulations to Kenny on his success! He continues to impress and I don’t think he’s going to stop impressing any time soon. Are you among the people who have helped his song and his album reach this type of success?
Also Kenny Chesney got two nominations for CMT Music Awards for Video of the Year, Male Video of the Year
Nominees announced for 2011 CMT Music Awards
The 2011 CMT Music Awards are scheduled to take place on June 8 in Nashville, Tennessee.
Complete list of 2011 CMT Music Awards
Video of the Year:
Jason Aldean
Kenny Chesney
Lady Antebellum
Miranda Lambert
Rascal Flatts
Sugarland
Taylor Swift
The Band Perry
Carrie Underwood
Zac Brown Band
Female Video of the Year:
Sara Evans
Miranda Lambert
Reba McEntire
Taylor Swift
Carrie Underwood
Male Video of the Year:
Jason Aldean
Kenny Chesney
Toby Keith
Blake Shelton
Keith Urban
Group Video of the Year:
Lady Antebellum
Little Big Town
Rascal Flatts
The Band Perry
Zac Brown Band
Duo Video of the Year:
Steel Magnolia
Sugarland
The Civil Wars
JaneDear Girls
Thompson Square
USA Weekend Breakthrough Video of the Year:
Lee Brice
Aaron Lewis
Jerrod Niemann
The Band Perry
Thompson Square
CMT Performance of the Year:
Martina McBride feat. Train CMT Crossroads
Reba McEntire
Darius Rucker feat. Adele, “Need You Now”, CMT Artists of the Year
Keith Urban feat. John Mayer CMT Crossroads
Zac Brown Band feat. Jimmy Buffett CMT Crossroads
Best Web Video of the Year (new for 2011)
(best video created primarily for Internet streaming)
Jason Aldean – “My Kinda Party” (live from the CMT.com webcast)
Luke Bryan – “It’s a Shore Thing”
Lady Antebellum – “Stars Tonight”
Blake Shelton – “Kiss My Country Ass”
Taylor Swift – “Mine” (live from the Speak Now album release party)
Video Director of the Year
Deaton Flanigen (award-eligible videos include Kid Rock and Sheryl Crow’s “Collide” and the JaneDear Girl’s “Wildflower”)
Trey Fanjoy (award-eligible videos include Miranda Lambert’s “The House That Built Me” and Blake Shelton’s “Who Are You When I’m Not Looking”)
Chris Hicky (award-eligible videos include Carrie Underwood’s “Undo It” and Keith Urban’s “Without You”)
David McClister (award-eligible videos include The Band Perry’s “If I Die Young” and LeAnn Rimes’ “Swingin’”)
Roman White (award-eligible videos include Lady Antebellum’s “Hello World” and Kellie Pickler’s “Makin’ Me Fall in Love Again”)
You could say that Kenny Chesney, with a top tour, hit after hit and another multiplatinum album, enjoyed an amazing last couple of years ? but you’d be wrong. Yes, he accomplished all that. But, enjoy it? That’s another matter.
2006 was another pinnacle in the seemingly unstoppable career of the country superstar, but it also may have been his most frustrating time as an artist ? and a person.
Chesney was still reeling from his very public breakup of his brief marriage to Academy Award-winner Renee Zellweger (and the tabloid frenzy that followed), and felt particularly uninspired, even when it came to what he loved most ? touring.
“I wasn’t mentally ready to go on the road, after all the media stuff that happened with the breakup with Renee, I just mentally wasn’t ready to go, so all last year, even though I had fun and the whole tour was amazing … mentally I just wasn’t 100 percent there,” he admits.
He was even reluctant to work on a follow-up to his multiplatinum 2005 album, “The Road and the Radio,” which featured such hits as “Beer in Mexico.”
“Last year at the CMA Awards … he said to me, `I’m not sure if I’m going to be able to get this record done; I don’t know what I want to say,’” Joe Galante, head of Sony Nashville, recalls Chesney saying.
Galante didn’t want to push his superstar to make a record he wasn’t ready to make. But he told him to take a crack at it, and see if something might give him inspiration.
Just as Galante suspected, the inspiration did come ? though not from the usual sources. Chesney, who has written or co-written tunes for all of his previous albums, found the most personal and profound songs for his new disc, “Just Who I Am: Poets and Pirates,” from the pens of others. The album, on sale Tuesday, doesn’t contain one song written by Chesney. Even so, he considers it perhaps the one that reveals his true emotions more than any other, especially with songs like “Wife and Kids,” where he wistfully yearns for the perfect family life that now eludes him, and “Better as a Memory,” in which he lists his own shortcomings as a mate.
“This record opens me up a little bit more, and I’m letting that happen more and more, and that’s tough for a guy like me, who’s constantly got a wall up,” says the congenial Chesney, relaxing at a Manhattan studio a few hours before a concert at Madison Square Garden.
“There’s a piece of me in all of these songs, there’s a whole lot of me in the majority of them,” he continues. “`Better as a Memory,’ that’s probably one of the most brutally honest songs that I’ve ever recorded about me, and it’s a letter that I’ve probably written to a lot of girls before.”
As Galante puts it: “I think he let people into the issues that are facing him.”
Part of this newfound introspection, and willingness to put more of his emotions out for public dissection, came after Chesney began working with a country great who has endured plenty of triumphs and setbacks in the public eye ? legend Willie Nelson. Chesney is the producer on Nelson’s next record, due out next year.
“Every artist feeds off inspiration, and when I needed it the most, God gave me Willie Nelson,” Chesney says.
When Chesney began working on the album in late 2006, he hadn’t started working on his own record, and admits to feeling “pretty stressed out.”
