NASHVILLE, TN. (BNA Records) -
Kenny Chesney continues re-writing the rules for how country music in this country is consumed. One month after debuting at #1 on Billboard's all-genre Top 200 with over 311,000 copies of his deeply personal Be As You Are: Songs From An Old Blue Chair, his singer/songwriter-oriented project returns to #1 on Billboard's Country Album Chart.
"We had no idea what was going to happen when we put this thing out," says Chesney with a rolling laugh. "It was just something I wanted to do for me… and the people these songs are about. You know I've said it a bunch, these songs just kind of begged to be played together. I was very lucky that my label shared this dream with me… and they let me do something most people thought was crazy given where we are."
Part of where he is is in rehearsals for his upcoming Somewhere In The Sun Tour, the sequel to last year's 1.2 million-ticket-selling Guitars, Tiki Bars & A Whole Lot of Love Tour - which was outsold only by Prince's Musicology Tour. The reigning Country Music Association Entertainer of the Year - and American Music Awards fan-voted Favorite Artist of the Year - kicks off this year's tour with all the bells and whistles with a doubleplay March 10-11 in Green Bay, Wisconsin, following an appearance at the Houston Livestock Show & Rodeo.
Chesney did manage to carve out some time from rehearsals to go New York City to perform some songs from Be As You Are on "Good Morning America" and "The Late Show With Conan O'Brien." And while it made for a long day away, the results are in his return to #1.
"There were people who got to 'Good Morning America' at 2 o'clock in the morning - and I'm pretty sure we saw them when we left 'Conan'," Chesney says. "It's having fans like that… who help make records like this work. I did it as much to give people a glimpse into the serenity I found as anything, to share that piece of mind with them - and it seems like they like what they hear."
The response has been impressive. Although 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 after a scant three weeks, 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.
With the yearning "Anything But Mine" jumping from #14 to #11 with a bullet on both the Billboard and Radio & Records, his CMA Album of the Year When The Sun Goes Down continues going full bore towards the same quadruple platinum status his No Shoes, No Shirt, No Problems and Greatest Hits currently enjoys. Indeed, at this rate, his Old Chair could be Blue and gold and platinum all over.
