NASHVILLE, TN. (Bna Records) - Though the Recording
Industry Association of
America requires 60 days to certify gold and platinum status on a record, you can't argue the scans. And at this point, a mere three weeks after dropping Be As You Are: Songs From An Old Blue Chair,
Kenny Chesney has surpassed the sales mark for gold with 508,855 copies already in the hands of his fans - and netting out as the year's third-best-selling release of 2005 behind The Game's Documentary and Green Day's American Idiot.
"One thing I can say about my fans," says Chesney, "they respond to the music - and they care about me. I have to say they let me know that it's not just the party we throw onstage every night, it's me and my life, too. So, this record I figured is something they'd want - because the songs were written mostly on my boat or the beach down in the Carribbean to share with my friends in the islands. It's about my life down there, and it's a place I go to get away from being 'that guy'...; but it's also something I'm willing to share with the fans, who aren't really so different from me."
When Kenny Chesney suggested releasing an introspective singer/songwriter album with no singles and no tour, especially in the midst of his CMA Album of the Year When The Sun Goes Down's 4th single, it seemed like a crazy idea. But with no concern for "the rules," only a wish to share a collection of songs that emerged from a period of intense self-discovery, the reigning CMA Entertainer of the Year asked his label to allow him to put Be As You Are: Songs From An Old Blue Chair out as a record for his fans.
"We didn't know what would happen," admits the soft-spoken musician from Luttrell, Tennessee, "and I'm not even sire we had goals. It was something I very much wanted to do... There was no precedent for it. A lot of people told me we were crazy to do this in the midst of the run we're having... But sometimes you have to follow your heart."
Following Kenny's heart is obviously something more than just a personal directive for the man who was the fan-voted all-genre American Music Awards Favorite Artist of the Year - over Usher, Outkast, Evanescence and Norah Jones - as over 311,000 fans turned out the first week to make Be As You Are Chesney's third straight Billboard Top 200 release, unseating The Game. And they're not just stopping with Old Blue Chair as When The Sun Goes Down, No Shoes, No Shirt, No Problems and Greatest Hits are all experiencing sales surges as well.
As the wistful "Anything But Mine" rises to No 14 with a bullet on both the Billboard and Radio & Records, Chesney gears up for his much-anticipated Somewhere In The Sun Tour, which has been selling out in a matter of an hour or two in most markets. On the heels of the 2nd biggest tour of 2004 with 1.2 million tickets sold, Somewhere In The Sun kicks off March 9th in Houston at the Livestock Show & Rodeo, then rolls into two days of full-production in Green Bay, Wisconsin.
