Nashville, TN. (Top40 Charts/ BNA Entertainment) - You can take the boy out of the country, but you can't take the country out of the boy. After an out-of-the-chute glitch that found Kenny Chesney's 'Never
Wanted Nothing More' hitting radio the weekend before release date, triple and reigning Academy of Country
Music and double and current Country
Music Association Entertainer of the Year sees his first new music in two years close out the country radio panel and arrive at No 13 in only its second full week of airplay.
'This song just felt really good,' Chesney - in the midst of his Flip Flop Summer 2007 Tour, headed to the Philadelphia NFL Stadium this weekend - says, clearly thrilled by the response. 'I think there are certain things that're just who I am... and this song sure captures a lot of 'em! I remember getting that first car and driving around with my buddies, with a special girl. That's what being young and free is made of, and I think that's why people are loving this song so much.'
It doesn't hurt that the East Tennessean, currently gracing the cover of People's Hottest Bachelor's issue with Mathew McConaughey, Jake Gyllenhaal and Justin Timberlake, has figured out how to put the sonic boom of rock and roll right into a stone country arrangement of a song by no less than bluegrass stalwart Ronnie Bowman and breakout hard country writer Chris Stapleton. With clean, clear production that packs a wallop along with a banjo, 'Never Wanted Nothing More' embodies the breezy, easy feeling of summer.
'It's funny,' admits the high-energy performer. 'This one took off so fast, we haven't even had time to get it worked up. I mean, I thought people would like it - cause no matter where they are in their life, everybody just about is living some part of this song - but I don't think anyone was expecting it to hit so fast and so hard. Just goes to show you the power of a great song.'
Having logged three multiple week No 1s - 'Summertime,' 'Living In Fast Forward' and his own solely-penned 'Beer In Mexico' - from his triple platinum The Road & The Radio, his fall release Just Who I Am: Poets & Pirates is off to a quick start. Mining songs from David Lee Murphy, Scooter Carusoe, Don Schlitz, Brett James, Bill Anderson, Jon Randall and a few fascinating surprises, it's perhaps the easy-going superstar's most fully realized project to date.
'The trouble with making a few records,' Chesney concedes, 'is that as you go along, it becomes harder to stay fresh, to find things you haven't already said. And for me, especially, I'm trying to look for songs that're true to who I am... songs that say something about how I live my life, who I am, who I was and especially I'm becoming. I think the fans, or I should say a lot of my fans are having the same experiences, whether it's laughing and running around with their friends or wondering what the future holds, so I think this record is gonna speak to them on a lot of levels.'
Obviously, given the response to this first single, they couldn't want nothing more.
