Richie fully expected Kenny Chesney to pick the good-timing ‘All Night Long’ to cover, so he was stunned when Kenny expressed his admiration for the ballad ‘My Love.’ Chesney’s adoration was so ardent, “he drunk dialed me at 2:00 AM and said he was going to sing the song to me,” Lionel recalls. He added that Kenny’s mom, who Kenny claimed had never attended one of his recording sessions before, dropped by to hear her baby sing with Lionel.

The album, titled Tuskegee, will be released in March. Pre-order now at Amazon.

Chesney will also duet with Richie at an ACM special the day after the ACM Awards are held. The program will be broadcast at a later date. Read more.

Country music legend Kenny Chesney is recording and mixing new material at Ocean Way St. Barths, the recording studio at the famed Eden Rock resort in the heart of the Caribbean.

Chesney is working with producer and songwriter Buddy Cannon (Riba McEntire, George Jones, George Strait) on his first album since 2010′s hit “Hemingway’s Whiskey.”

Chesney’s road manager, Malchijah Bailey, remarked, “The time we spent mixing at the studio was great. Anytime you can work all day, walk out of the studio and be greeted by an amazing beach, makes you feel like it’s not work. The vibe was awesome, and kept us all in good musical spirits.”

Here’s a look at the the different lists Kenny appears on:

Top Artists

In this all-genre category, Kenny Chesney was the fourth highest placing country artist, coming in at #28 (he was #54 in 2010). Adele was the top overall artist, and Taylor Swift (#8), Jason Aldean (#13), and Lady Antebellum (#20) placed ahead of Chesney.

Billboard 200 Albums

Kenny’s latest album Hemingway’s Whiskey came out in late 2010 so it only placed at #75 on last year’s list. But with a full year under its belt, the album comes in at #42 this year.

Top Country Artists

After being at #7 last year, Kenny Chesney dropped one spot to #8 this year. Here’s the top 10 country artists of the year according to Billboard:

1. Taylor Swift
2. Jason Aldean
3. Lady Antebellum
4. Zac Brown Band
5. Blake Shelton
6. The Band Perry
7. Rascal Flatts
8. Kenny Chesney
9. Brad Paisley
10. Luke Bryan

Top Country Songs

Chesney landed three songs on the Billboard Top Country Songs 2011 chart:

• 7. You and Tequila
• 31. Somewhere With You
• 46. Live a Little

The top country song of 2011? “Crazy Girl” by the Eli Young Band.

Top Country Albums

In the final list we take a look at, Kenny places #10 on the Top Country Albums 2011 chart with Hemingway’s Whiskey. Here’s the top 10:

1. Speak Now – Taylor Swift
2. My Kinda Party – Jason Aldean
3. Nothing Like This – Rascal Flatts
4. Need You Now – Lady Antebellum
5. You Get What You Give – Zac Brown Band
6. Own The Night – Lady Antebellum
7. The Band Perry – The Band Perry
8. The Incredible Machine – Sugarland
9. Get Closer – Keith Urban
10. Hemingway’s Whiskey – Kenny Chesney

You can peruse all of the Billboard end of year charts here.

Kenny Chesney’s latest album, Hemingway’s Whiskey, has been certified platinum by the RIAA for shipments of 1 million copies. The project is his 10th platinum album.

In addition, his duet with Grace Potter, “You and Tequila,” has been certified as a gold single for 500,000 digital downloads. The duet is the fourth single from Hemingway’s Whiskey, following “The Boys of Fall,” “Somewhere With You” and “Live a Little.”

Lon’s next question: I hear you have something blockbuster planned for 2012? “You may be right! I may be crazy.”

Will you have a new album in 2012? “Not sure. Depends on this fall, and how far we get. There’s gonna be an album at some point. I’ve got a few songs I really love and fit me. For me, I gotta find songs that push me and push the audience, but still be true to who I am. That’s a fine line for me, and do something I haven’t done before. So I’ve got all that in mind when I do that.”

In the interview, Kenny also talks about a gift that Zac Brown gave him on the tour:

When we caught up with Kenny at the Meadowlands Stadium, he was holding on to a very unusual coffee mug, and he told Country Countdown USA’s Lon Helton that it was a gift from Zac: “You see this glass right here? I don’t know what this is, but I think Zac made this thing. Zac can do everything. He’s a computer genius, great songwriter, great cook, I don’t think there’s anything Zac can’t do. We’ve had a blast with Zac and his band & crew. The moment they come on stage to do the encore, the fans love it. When the tour started, nobody knew “Knee Deep.” Now when we do Knee Deep and it’s incredible, people love that song, what a great record. I said to him ‘Thanks for doing Knee Deep, you made our show great!’ So we do that and a couple other things, and I respect Zac a lot.”

She’s Got It All — “This was the first single Norro and I produced on Kenny and Kenny said ‘I’ve got to get some more uptempos, my show is too boring’ so this was really the first uptempo hit he had had. The rest had been ballads. It had a crazy steel guitar solo in it that drove the steel player, Sonny Garrish, crazy.”

How Forever Feels — “That’s one of the songs I think we were kind of on the fence about cutting but it was one of the biggest songs.”

You had Me From Hello –“I love that song. Kenny and Skip Ewing wrote that and that was the first time we ever used a string section. We haven’t done that very much. He got that line out of the movie ‘Jerry Maguire’ ”.

The Good Stuff – Joe Gallante was the champion of that song. Kenny and I were on the fence about it and at one point decided we wern’t going to do it, but Joe heard something in there that he was willing to fight for so we ended up cutting it and it was a great big song.”

When The Sun Goes Down — “Man that was a fun record to make. Kenny cut it and it was great but he wanted to do something a little different with it. He had met Unckle Kracker through his frienship with Kid Rock so Unckle Kracker flew in from Detroit and they made it a duet.”

Living In Fast Forward — “I was going through Leadership Music in 2005 and Rivers Ruthorford was in the same class that I was in. We were leaving one of those meetings and we were walking through the Warner brothers parking lot and Rivers said ‘Hey let me play you this thing David Lee Murphy and I are working on.’ Rivers got his guitar out of his pickup truck and propped one foot up on the tailgate and played me a verse and a chorus of “Living In Fast Forward”. And I said ‘I love it, finish it’. They finished it the next day, brought it over and Kenny loved it.”

Summertime — “That’s one that Craig Wiseman and Steve McEwan wrote and there was a line in it about being down at the ‘tasty freeze’ or ‘Dairy Dip’ or something that Kenny didn’t like. And when Craig finishes a song he’s done. He’ll change them for you but he WILL argue his point before he does. (laughs) It’s still a big crowd pleaser.”

Down The Road — “That’s a Mac McAnally song and Kenny is a huge Mac McAnally fan, I mean everybody is, but Kenny knows all of his songs. Mac played everthing on that song except the percussion.”

The Boys of Fall – The first time the guys from Sony Tree played me that song I passed on it. That’s one thing that makes this whole thing with Kenny work. We both love songs. And if one of us is having a bad day and doesn’t hear it, it’s highly unlikley that it’s going to get past the filter of both of us. It’s kind of the running joke now that I passed on it.”

Read the full interview here.

He’s particularly proud of the Album of the Year nomination:

“In making Hemingway’s Whiskey, it was important for me to push myself and my audience while at the same time staying true to who I am as an artist. That’s why I’m so proud of this album and even more proud of the nomination for ACM Album of the Year.”

The 46th Annual Academy of Country Music Awards will broadcast live from Las Vegas on April 3 at 8:00 PM ET on CBS.

After selling 182,000 copies the first week to make it a number one debut, Chesney added 64,000 in week two. The 40,000 last week brought the three week haul to 286,000.

Rapper Lil Wayne came in at number one this week with 125,000 sold.

See Kenny’s full album and singles chart history here.

“I put it in my CD player and listened, and I called Buddy back before he’d even left the studio,” the country star said. “I said, ‘There’s 11 songs on this album, but we’ve really only got four.’ I wanted so bad to be finished, but it was a moment where I had to do some soul-searching as an artist. The songs sounded good, but they were passionless, and I knew in my heart that we didn’t have it.”

In an interview with Mix, Kenny fills us in on what those songs were that he kept and carried over to Hemingway’s Whiskey:

“Seven Days,” “The Boys of Fall,” “Live a Little” and… wait, there are only three actually. There was another song I was thinking of that we recorded that didn’t make the record.

So, we had to go to work again. I wrote “Reality” after that, and I was able to make this record pulling back from everything and not being on this cycle that we get so used being on of making records and touring. I had been going on the road on Thursday, Friday, Saturday night, coming home on Sunday, being in the studio Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. When we started over and made Hemingway’s Whiskey, I was off the road. Buddy and I were able to really dig in and work with the songs, work with the musicians and talk about the music and what it meant. It gave us a chance to sonically spend time on it. I think we spent more time mixing this record than any record ever, and I wasn’t doing it after flying in from somewhere. I had not really had that luxury since we made the No Shirt, No Shoes, No Problems album.

According to Hits Daily Double, Keith’s ‘Bullets in the Gun’ moved 69,000 copies while Kenny sold 64,000. That’s down from 182,000 in its first week.

Bruno Mars came in at #3, followed by Eminem at #4 and the Zac Brown Band at #5.

View Kenny’s full chart history here.