CMT has a great writeup on Kenny Chesney’s longtime producer Buddy Cannon, and how the two came together:
[Chesney] had just signed a publishing deal with Acuff-Rose, whose offices were across the street from Mercury’s offices, over there on 17th Avenue,” Cannon explains.
“I knew Kenny as a rookie songwriter. He would walk across the street and hang out in our lobby, shooting the breeze with our receptionist. He’d be in there every day, once or twice a day. … I had no idea he was trying to be an artist.
“One day, he came in and asked me if he could see me in my office for a minute. He told me he’d just gotten signed with Capricorn Records, and he said, ‘I would love for you and Norro to produce my first album.’”
Cannon says he knew that couldn’t happen, given Shedd’s restriction.
“So I had to tell him no, which killed me,” he said.
Barry Beckett was then hired as Chesney’s producer and helmed the young artist’s first two albums.
Cannon says it gradually became clear to him that he would have to leave Mercury if he was ever going to get back to his goal of producing.
“So I quit,” he recalled. “I said, ‘I’m outta here. I’m getting nowhere in the direction I want to go.’ I went to Warner/Chappell. They gave me a publishing deal that would give me the ability to financially survive for a couple of years.
“Maybe a month or two months after I quit, I got a phone call from Renee [Bell] over at RCA. She said Kenny [who had by then signed to the RCA Label Group's BNA label] wanted her to ask me and Norro if we’d be interested in producing his next record. … That was about 1995.”
In a press release today, Kenny Chesney confirmed that his next single will be “You and Tequila,” and he and Grace Potter have been shooting scenes for the music video:
With three diverse # 1 singles from his critically acclaimed Hemingway’s Whiskey, Kenny Chesney continues to showcase the album’s depth with the release of “You And Tequila,” which will ship to radio later this month. Written by Matraca Berg and Deana Carter, Chesney features singer-songwriter Grace Potter on the recording which the New York Times declares, “it’s one of the finest songs of Mr. Chesney’s career, a sudden bolt of darkness disrupting a blissful summer sky.”
Of the tune Chesney says, “I’ve always loved the song “You and Tequila.” I’ve had that song for years and lived with Matraca’s demo for a long time. After the tour in 2007, I rented a house in Malibu, California right on the cliff of the ocean and I would drive up the Pacific Coast Highway right at sunset. I remember I’d roll down the windows and I would just listen to music. I would listen to Tom Petty, The Eagles, I would listen to so many songs that would kind of fit that moment. It was therapeutic.”
“When we were putting together Hemingway’s Whiskey,” Chesney recalls, “somebody brought up ‘You And Tequila’ and when I listened to the demo again, it was just like I was driving up the Pacific Coast Highway at sunset with the window down and that’s why I recorded the song.”
“I was looking for somebody to record it with me and I thought of Grace Potter because I love her singing and love her records,” Chesney continues. “I didn’t know her, but I got in touch with her, played her the song and literally three days later she was in Nashville, and we cut it. Still, every time I hear the song, I go straight to driving up the PCH at sunset- got the windows down. I love that feeling.”
Chesney returned to Malibu last week to shoot the music video with Grace Potter. Shot in multiple locations, the video will be released next month. Chesney currently resides at #1 on the singles chart with his 22nd chart topping song, “Live A Little.”
It’s another number one hit for Kenny Chesney! His latest single “Live a Little”climbed to the top of the Billboard Top Country Songs chart this week, giving him a total of 22 number ones.
“Live a Little” is the third single released from Kenny’s latest album Hemingway’s Whiskey. The other two singles, “The Boys of Fall” and “Somewhere With You” also hit number one.
After writing ‘Live a Little,’ which takes the listener back to carefree summers and yearning for them again, the performer knew there was a perfect place for it in his live show. “When we were done with this song, I knew where it was gonna fit in my show,” says Kenny. “I knew that … this defines our show. This is classic, the two hours, summertime, time of the year when we strap on our guitars and go out there and let them have it. This song is going to fit very well.”
Kenny Chesney’s latest single, and the opener on his tour, “Live a Little,” has climbed to the number two position this week on the Billboard Top Country Songs chart.
Darius Rucker is at the top this week with “This,” knocking the Zac Brown Band from the number one slot.
Preview and download the song below through Amazon or get it at iTunes.
Nashville.com has an insightful interview with longtime Kenny Chesney album producer Buddy Cannon. He goes down a list of Kenny’s biggest hits and gives a few tidbits on each:
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.”
On Wednesday night in Nashville, Kenny Chesney celebrated another number one hit. The party for “Somewhere With You” was held at Cabana, and songwriters Shane McAnally and TJ Harding were in attendance:
(Chesney with songwriters Shane McAnally and JT Harding. Photo from Digital Rodeo)
McAnally offered a tearful round of thanks to family members and business associates who’d bolstered him along the way, recalling a tough time in his life and career when he thought to himself, “If I could get a song to Kenny Chesney, everything would change.”
“It took a lot longer than I wanted it to,” he said, eyeing Chesney and laughing.
BMI vice president of writer and publisher relations Jody Williams shared a few highlights from Harding’s rock ‘n’ roll background — which includes songs cut by Uncle Kracker and the Jonas Brothers and a stint as the personal assistant to the superstar Williams cheekily called “country great Marilyn Manson.” That background fed into a country hit that Williams categorized as the “freshest, coolest and most different-sounding song on country radio” — a sentiment country megastar Chesney seemed to agree with.
“I realized that it was such a unique song and a lyric that everybody has lived with,” Chesney said of the first time he heard “Somewhere,” which traces a deep, lovelorn longing. “…I’m awfully glad that I’m the guy who gets to sing this song for the rest of his life, I’ll tell you that.”
Kenny Chesney’s latest single “Live a Little” was the greatest gainer of the week, climbing from #29 to #20 on the Billboard Top Country Songs chart.
“This song will be in our show forever, it’s going to be a staple,” Chesney says. “I’m going to keep reminding people through music that you’ve got to love life, and you’ve got to live it, and you can’t work all the time. And the tempo and the edginess of this song reflects our show to a tee.”
At number one this week is Jason Aldean and Kelly Clarkson with “Don’t You Wanna Stay.”
Preview and download the song below through Amazon or get it at iTunes.
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CMT has a great 
In a press release today, Kenny Chesney confirmed that his next single will be “You and Tequila,” and he and Grace Potter have been shooting scenes for the music video:
It’s another number one hit for Kenny Chesney! His latest single 
