NASHVILLE, TN. (BNA Records) - Somewhere In The Caribbean: So far, he's romped in the Hamptons, got cozy in Nashville and now reigning CMA Entertainer of the Year
Kenny Chesney heads to the Virgin Islands for his latest encounter with celebrity news weekly People. In the January 10th issue, which hits newsstands Friday, the man who sold more concert tickets in 2004 than anyone except
Prince gets philosophical about the islands' impact on his life, music and current success.
Confessing to falling asleep in an old blue wicker chair on New Year's Eve four years ago, Chesney tells People, "The next morning the sun came up over the hill, and that's when I realized I was going to have to make myself happy. I came back with a whole new outlook. Now I feel much more control."
Indeed, Chesney played to 1.2 million fans last year -- his second year of touring to over a million country music lovers - and his CMA Album of the Year When The Sun Goes Down has sold in excess of 3 million units making it the best selling country album released last year, right behind Usher and Norah Jones in all genres.
Chesney has also enjoyed two multiple week No 1s - the 8 week "There Goes My Life" and 7 week "When The Sun Goes Down" with Uncle Kracker" - and spent a demi-lifetime behind good friend Tim McGraw's career chart-topper and CMA Song of the Year "Live Like You Were Dying" with his solely self-penned "I Go Back."
"When I look at the year, I can't really believe it," Chesney says shyly. "And talking about it makes it even more like 'Are you talking to me?!' When we're onstage and everybody's rocking - me, the crowd, the band - you don't think about what it all adds up to, you just know it feels right!
Then suddenly, you're sitting in the islands talking to a reporter from People magazine, and it just becomes surreal - answering all these questions about the year and the tour and the awards and stuff."
People's feature hits on the brink of Chesney's completely self-penned Be As You Are: Songs From An Old Blue Chair, due to hit streets Jan. 25. A more acoustic-leaning recording, the 13 song rumination on the people, places and insights that the islands have offered him takes the man known for his turbo-charged live shows into the decidedly more introspective realm of the singer/songwriter.
With an appearance scheduled for NBC's "Tsunami Aid: A Concert for Hope," broadcast live on January 15, and a performance on "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno" Feb. 1, the man voted Favorite Artist over Usher, Outkast, Evanescence and Norah Jones at last year's American Music Awards is gearing up to be seemingly everywhere. With When The Sun Goes Down's "Anything But Mine" scaling the charts at country radio - and the decidedly intimate "Old Blue Chair" video (from both albums) arriving at CMT in power rotation, there's more than enough Kenny Chesney to go around.
"It may not be the conventional way, but I think it works," says the affable Luttrell, Tennessean. "Be As You Are is a different view of who I am, certainly more personal... If you want to really understand who I am and what my world beyond the tour bus is all about, it's all you really need."
