Kenny Chesney Takes His Tractor To Farm Aid

Source: Kenny Chesney Official Website - kennychesney.com

CMA and ACM Entertainer of the Year Joins Willie, Neil, John & Dave Sept 18

Tinley Park, IL: Having a breakthrough hit with "She Thinks My Tractor's Sexy," reigning Academy of Country Music and Country Music Association Entertainer of the Year Kenny Chesney obviously has an affinity for America's family farmers. And on September 18, Chesney will put that commitment to work when he joins Willie Nelson, Neil Young, Dave Matthews and his friend John Mellencamp to participate in the 20th anniversary of Farm Aid Concert.

"I remember the first Farm Aid, and the spirit of all those musicians coming together to be the voice of the families who made their living as farmers -- and had for generations," says the Luttrell, Tennessean. "And what I love about Farm Aid is, even beyond raising money -- and they've raised over 27 million dollars -- they make sure that America doesn't forget about the people who are a lot like the folks where I come from, who grow the food that we eat and think about it as something they'd feed their families. Now that's powerful."

The 20th Anniversary Farm Aid Concert will be held at the Tweeter Center in Tinley Park, Illinois -- located in the same kind of heartland country as 1985's original concert in Champagne, Illinois. This year's show is being sponsored by Silk Soymilk.

The man whose quadruple platinum "When The Sun Goes Down" is the CMA Album of the Year and whose introspective "Be As You Are: Songs From An Old Blue Chair" became Chesney's third album to debut at #1 on Billboard's all-genre Top 200 first met Farm Aid board member Mellencamp when the two performed on CMT's "Crossroads" two years ago.

Chesney is in the middle of quite a year. In addition to appearing at Farm Aid this year, Chesney's current Somewhere In The Sun Tour -- at this point, the concert tour that's sold more tickets than any other act on the road in America, ahead of U2 by over 200,000 tickets -- heads into Boston on July 23 for the second of three stadium shows this summer. His July 30th stadium concert in Pittsburgh -- also featuring ACM Top Male Vocalist Keith Urban, ACM Top Female Vocalist Gretchen Wilson, multiple Grammy-nominee Pat Green and urban pop/rapper Uncle Kracker -- will be captured for Chesney's "Somewhere In The Sun" ABC special, which will air on the network Nov. 23.

"You don't really think about what's going on when it's happening," says Chesney of the success. "You see the faces. You hear the screams. You play as hard as you can. But when you can give back, especially to something like this, you just want to. So I'm glad we're able to take part."

Tickets for America's longest running benefit concert series go on sale July 30 at 10 a.m. CDT and are available at all Ticketmaster outlets, the Tweeter Center box office, charge by phone in Chicago at (312)-559-1212, or online at www.ticketmaster.com. Ticket prices for Farm Aid 2005 presented by Silk Soymilk begin at $30 for lawn seats, $65 for pavilion seats and $85 for corn belt seats. For more information about Farm Aid's 20th anniversary concert and events, visit www.farmaid.org.

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Meeting Kenny Chesney

My wife, daughter and I were on vacation for the past week or so and our last stop was Greenville, SC. We stayed at the downtown Hyatt like we did 2 years ago -- I get a good deal as I work for Hyatt. We had a really nice time there since we really love the area and people there. A few weeks before our trip, I had found out Kenny Chesney was coming to Greenville around the same time we were taking our vacation. I then looked into getting tickets as soon as I found out. For some reason I thought I had read on Ticketmaster that his concert was on Saturday, July 9 (the day we were leaving SC) and did not buy the tickets. When we arrived in Greenville, I discovered that Kenny's concert was actually on Thursday, July 7. Needless to say, I was pretty dissapointed that I didn't get the tickets.

My wife and I had just seen Kenny in concert in Ft. Lauderdale the night before he and Rene Zellweger said their "I do's", so I wasn't that pissed I didn't get tickets to his Greenville show -- Pissed nothertheless. By the way, his show in Ft. Lauderdale was friggin' AWESOME!

So, on the night Mr. Chesney is to perform (July 7, 2005), my wife, daughter and I headed out of our hotel room and was on our way to dinner at one of our favorite Greenville restaurants. We jump into the elevator and we see this young man wearing a Kenny Chesney shirt, cowboy hat, and jeans. My wife asks, "Are you going to the show tonight?" The guy says, "Yep, and Kenny is right downstairs in the lobby." We both are like, "GET THE CAMERA!" So, I make a b-line back to the hotel room and grab my camera. My wife suggested I get my Kenny Chesney shirt for him to sign -- I grabbed that too.

We hopped back into the elevator, went down to the lobby where he was sitting and I said, "Hello Mr. Chesney." He slowly (at least it seemed like it was in slow motion), looked at me and smiled. I offered him my hand and we shook hands. I said, "I know you get a lot of people asking for pictures and stuff, but would it be okay?" Kenny says, "Sure no problem." He was so cool about the whole thing. I know it's not such a big thing for him to see me, but it was for me. I was pretty nervous and started talking about how I didn't get tickets to his show. I did let him know that we saw him in Ft. Lauderdale though. My wife said that he had changed our lives. Kenny said, "God bless you guys." He has changed our lives in a way... His songs do bring our family closer together and I think about my daughter a lot with his songs. I started getting a little emotional after my wife had said that.

Kenny was with two other folks, possibly tour managers or maybe relatives. We had the nice lady take our picture and I also asked Kenny if he could sign my shirt. We looked for a pen from the hotel personel, but then Kenny was like, "I found one." I plan on getting the shirt framed along with the picture we took with him.

If you ever read this Kenny... Thanks again for meeting with us!

New Kenny Chesney Album Set To Be Released

Kenny Chesney has set the release date for the follow up to When The Sun Goes Down and we’re certain that the sun is still gonna be shining on this one. The release date is set for November 8th and the album is called The Road & The Radio. The title track was written by Kenny himself and hopefully the whole album has as much success as Kenny’s last release! “We’ve been keeping plenty busy,” Chesney said. “But I think by now everybody knows, not a day goes by that I’m not thinking about the music. And it seemed like we started looking for songs almost as soon as ‘Sun’ dropped, and we got to hear some pretty great stuff, too.”

I can't wait to hear this one!

*** Statement from Kenny's Official Web Site: kennychesney.com***

Kenny Chesney Set To Release The Road & The Radio Nov. 8th
Follow-Up To The Quadruple-Platinum CMA Album of the Year Ramps Up

Nashville: It's been 17 months since the release of When The Sun Goes Down, Kenny Chesney's last full-on studio release, but the time between has been well-invested in writing, listening and making music. With final tracking just completed, Chesney and co-producer Buddy Cannon are preparing for the Nov. 8th release of The Road & The Radio -- the follow-up to the Luttrell, Tennessean's quadruple platinum Country Music Association Album of the Year, which features the 3 multiple week #1s "There Goes My Life," the Uncle Kracker duet title track and "Anything But Mine."

"We've been keeping plenty busy," Chesney says with a laugh. "But I think by now everybody knows, not a day goes by that I'm not thinking about the music. And it seemed like we started looking for songs almost as soon as Sun dropped… and we got to hear some pretty great stuff, too."

The title track -- about seeking one's truth behind the wheel with the radio as one's truest companion -- was written by Chesney.

"You know," says the reigning CMA and Academy of Country Music Entertainer of the Year, "when I looked at what my life was and how it is, there are a few things that have remained constant. You can find your answers out on the road -- or listening to the radio, and it's certainly they way I've always lived my life. Touring around and listening to the story people tell me about the songs I've cut, I realize a lot of other people live their life between the white lines and the grooves in the road, too."

Drawing on some of Nashville's best writers - and looking at three songs from his own pen -- Chesney put a lot of thought into how he wanted the follow-up to his critically acclaimed introspective Be As You Are: Songs From An Old Blue Chair when he made his return to a straight-ahead commercial project. For in what could be deemed his singer/songwriter record, the man who has won the Academy of Country Music's Top Male Vocalist and Single of the Year Awards found a whole new dimension to self-expression.

"After Be As You Are, it made me realize how much of yourself you can invest in a record," says the man who's hit with "I Go Back," "Young," "The Good Stuff," "How Forever Feels" and more. "You don't realize how specific in your life can be exactly the specific stuff in other people's lives… and in that, it made me challenge myself to go deeper. I wrote some of the songs that ended up on When The Sun Goes Down because I needed to say certain things… Everything about The Road & The Radio is about that, which made the process harder, but also more fulfilling in a strange way."

Look for Chesney's next album Nov. 8th. In the meantime, the man who's currently inside USA Today with a full page examining what goes into taking his SRO tour stadium-sized is slated to get up close and personal with CBS News' Rita Braver for a "Sunday Morning" piece slated to air July 24.

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