Kenny Chesney has happily courted an image over the last several years that frequently includes beer, a beach and a hangover waiting to happen. It's a lifestyle that his fans dream of — and he has no problem providing the vicarious thrills.
But even Chesney's never-ending party has to pause sometimes. When he recently called from a Nashville studio where he was working on a few songs, Chesney was fishing a sugar-free Red Bull from a vending machine — but he wasn't topping it off with rum, one of his cocktails of choice.
"I wish," he said, with a laugh. "You kiddin' me?"
Chesney laughs a lot, and for a guy with a hammerlock on country music, he comes across as earthy, humble and with a perspective rare among superstars. He swears he has never forgotten where he came from and how far he has traveled.
Chesney has sold more than 25 million albums and has won eight entertainer of the year awards, four from the Country Music Association and four straight from the Academy of Country Music. He has had 11 gold or platinum albums and 30 Top 10 singles, 16 of which went to No. 1. And every summer he hits the road with a huge production that is invariably the season's highest-grossing tour.
This summer's Kenny Chesney Corona Extra Sun City Carnival tour arrives at Papa John's Cardinal Stadium on Saturday with Montgomery Gentry, Sugarland, Miranda Lambert and Lady Antebellum.
Chesney has fond memories of Cardinal Stadium. In 1999, he was fourth on the bill for a massive George Strait tour that stopped in Louisville. It was a turning point in his career, Chesney said.
"That was where I got my first taste of this, you know," he said, meaning stardom. "I wasn't necessarily brand-new, 'cause I've been doing this since '93, but that was my first taste of the big time, and I got to see how it worked. That's where I first learned how to dream pretty big, to be honest with you, in that environment.
"It was an awesome thing to shoot for, never knowing that my life would turn out like it did. I realized that there was more to it, that if you worked really hard, and you recorded a bunch of great songs, and, more importantly, if you were able to connect in a certain way, that great things could happen to you — not just good things."
Within three years, those great things were well under way. Chesney shot from star to superstar with 2002's "No Shoes, No Shirt, No Problem," which defined the beach-bum persona that set him apart from his peers, and pulled in a classic-rock radio crowd raised on Jimmy Buffett. He has been on what seems like an unending roll, excepting the media storm around his four-month marriage to actress Renee Zellweger in 2005.
Chesney said he wonders if the fans who have come along in the last few years even know about his early years.
Chesney, 41, was born in Knoxville, Tenn., and raised in nearby Luttrell, which has a population of fewer than 1,000. He began playing music seriously while in college at East Tennessee State. After graduating in 1990, he made the three-hour drive to Nashville. It was the farthest he'd lived from home.
Chesney was first signed as a songwriter but by 1994 he had a deal with Capricorn Records and released "In My Wildest Dreams." It went nowhere fast — but his 1995 follow-up, "All I Need to Know," had three Top 10 singles. His first platinum album was 1999's "Everywhere We Go."
"For people who have just now gotten into our music, I don't know if some of those people realize how long I've been doing this," he said. "The one thing that has definitely kept us grounded is that we had the — I can say this now — we had the luxury of having to struggle for a long time, because that helped us appreciate what's happened to us over the last seven years. It's been one of the most amazing rides, arguably one of the best rides in the history of country music.
"Spending all those years not being successful, and struggling to get your songs on the radio and struggling to get somebody to come hear you play, that will definitely keep you grounded. To be honest with you, man, when I'm away from it, I really try to leave what's happened to us on stage. When I get off stage, I try to be normal Kenny, but that's become more difficult because people see me and they don't want me to be normal Kenny. They want me to be that Kenny, you know what I mean, and sometimes I don't want to be that Kenny," he said, laughing again.
Chesney laughs loudest and longest when it's gently suggested that he seemed a little unsure of himself at that 1999 Louisville show.
"Really?" he said with mock surprise. "Hahahahahahahahahaha!"
The difference between that 1999 Chesney and the entertainer of the year Chesney?
"I think it was repetition," he said. "The more we played, the more I learned how not to just get up there and play, but how to really connect with the crowd and make them feel something. When I look into their eyes out there in the crowd, I honestly believe that I make them feel it, and that is something that I couldn't do at all — didn't even know how to, didn't even know that it was a part of it — in 1999.
"When I'm able to allow a part of me into my music, that's when I started to connect."
