Kenny Chesney: From East Tennessee to the Country Music Hall of Fame

Kenny Chesney walks around Newsweek’s office on the 72nd floor of One World Trade Center in New York City, peering out the floor-to-ceiling windows in search of his skyline barometers—the Statue of Liberty, the Brooklyn Bridge and one of his favorite places to perform, MetLife Stadium. 

Both a sports stadium and concert venue, MetLife blends the two passions that built the music giant who was once a small-town football dreamer. Eight times MetLife has played host to a sea of fans—No Shoes Nation devotees—who came to soak in Chesney’s unique blend of country, rock and island music, paired with his positive, easy energy. His most recent show there in 2024 drew his largest crowd at the venue, with more than 61,000 in attendance. 

“It’s one of the most amazing nights of the summer,” Chesney told Newsweek’s editor-in-chief Jennifer H. Cunningham about his MetLife performances. “It reminds me of being in a Southern Baptist church with my grandmother. And when it’s really good and everybody’s feeling the Holy Spirit, you don’t wanna be anywhere else. It’s amazing. It’s the same way with the show.” Each one, he says, has a different pulse, bringing together new people and energy, creating an irreplaceable thrill. 

From MetLife to Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts, to the Sphere in Las Vegas, millions have turned out across the country for an artist who has repeatedly topped the charts, sold more than 30 million albums, launched a radio channel and been named Billboard’s Top Country Artist of the 21st Century. The eight-time Entertainer of the Year—four each by the Academy of Country Music awards and the Country Music Association—has racked up 33 No. 1 hits on Billboard’s Country Airplay chart. His most-streamed track on Spotify, “American Kids” (2014), has netted nearly half a billion listens. 

“I have an insane amount of gratitude. But it still doesn’t feel real,” he tells Cunningham in October, a week before accepting his latest accolade—his induction into the Country Music Hall of Fame, alongside the late June Carter Cash and Tony Brown. Chosen by an anonymous CMA panel that annually names three inductees, Chesney secured the 2025 Modern Era Artist title, joining just 158 artists to receive the genre’s highest honor. “So, honestly, I haven’t emotionally and mentally accepted it yet,” he adds. 

Days later, Chesney, who routinely puts music legends on a higher register than himself, posed with nearly two dozen Hall of Famers at the ceremony, including Randy Owen of Alabama and the “King of Country Music” George Strait—who were both profoundly formative and inspiring to Chesney in his childhood and early career days. 

Alabama was one of Chesney’s first concerts as a kid, a foundational moment of his childhood that he details in his new memoir Heart Life Music, written with Holly Gleason. Their helicopter entrance, the live music, the lyrics—everything cracked open a world that resonated with him. 

“I’ll never get over the feeling,” he writes of that first Alabama concert. Beyond the music, he remarked on the band members’ grounded presence, noting they were “rare because they felt more like us than fancy stars,” an inspiration he’s carried forward in his own casual demeanor. 

Both Alabama and George Jones took Chesney on the road in his early days and showed him the ropes. Chesney filled an opening slot on Strait’s Country Music Festival tour, in a run that coincided with the popularization of his 1999 song “She Thinks My Tractor’s Sexy.” Chesney knew it had landed when a group of high school students in tuxedos and dresses sent a video of themselves riding John Deere tractors to prom with the song blasting. That connectivity fueled him further. 

Chesney told the audience during his Hall of Fame induction speech: “Walking into that rotunda and taking the group shot with a lot of my heroes and a lot of my friends—it was the first time that I have ever felt accomplished in my life….With every cell in my body, I feel the gravity of this moment.” 

But success and fame haven’t shaken the 57-year-old from his small-town East Tennessee roots, nor his character. He appears unassuming in a beanie, hoodie, pants and white sneakers when he arrives at Newsweek’s global HQ for his Newsmakers interview. At times, with his easy demeanor and beaded bracelets—a nod to his life away from the limelight in the U.S. Virgin Islands—he barely seems to register his acclaim and the weight of his accomplishments. 

But after changing into a cream, long-sleeve shirt for the interview and photoshoot, Chesney sets his signature sandy, woven cowboy hat on his head. Touching the speckled brim of his Stetson, he explains that it transforms him: “So this turns me [from] the kid that dreamed in East Tennessee, to the guy up there on stage. It’s two different personas.” 

“I like this guy,” he says of his cowboy hat-wearing self, adding, “but I like the other guy, too….If I carry the persona with me all the time, it would exhaust me.” 

The hat changes his silhouette and reinforces his star aura, but doesn’t shift the person and values underneath. Chesney stays grounded, grateful and faithful, in pursuit of the simple joys in life, living largely by the mantra of his memoir, Heart Life Music. 

That laidback manner belies an ambition and drive that powers Chesney. Widely listened to for decades, his staying power comes from his plainspoken nature, genuineness and relatability as much as his determination and hard work. 

The son of a teacher and sports coach dad and a beautician mom who split up before his first birthday, Chesney credits his parents with instilling important values in him early on—grit, faith, community and love. 

As a kid surrounded by women—his grandmother, sister, cousins, aunts and his mother’s beauty-shop regulars—Chesney soaked up stories, gossip and themes he’d later fold into early songs, even thumbing through Cosmopolitan for inspiration. “Part of being a songwriter is to listen, read, hear all the stories, watch the people and make something out of it,” he writes. 

Beyond the beauty shop, the football field and church were formative sites. For the teenager, putting on his helmet to play football on Friday nights wasn’t just a celebration of the sport, it was a showcase of community and hard work. He still calls those Friday nights some of his happiest moments. 

Church, a temple for spiritual guidance and community, was also an early sonic site for Chesney, describing it as “the first place I truly ‘heard’ music and realized the way it can lift you up.” He’s chased that same bright, collective lift for his fans ever since. 

Flush with a string of hit records now, the early days weren’t quite as easy. One of his first songs, recorded on a cassette, was flat out rejected by “Amy,” a crush from his persuasion class at East Tennessee State University. There, he joined the ETSU’s prestigious Bluegrass Band, which somehow landed him in Russia for a gig, and started out his first solo stint at a Mexican restaurant fielding endless “Margaritaville” requests. 

After graduating in 1990, he moved to Nashville, Music City, picking up performances at local bars. Three years later, Chesney secured a contract with Capricorn Records, with his debut album In My Wildest Dreams released in 1994. Momentum came when Alabama’s manager, Dale Morris, took Chesney under his wing, the two trusting each other enough to not formalize it with a contract. 

Early on, Chesney made long journeys on the road to play half-empty venues and dealt with promoters mixing up his name with country singer Mark Chesnutt, calling him Kenny Chesnutt or Mark Chesney, hoping the mistake would drawn in Chesnutt fans. 

But his perseverance paid off. By 2002, Chesney was on his first true headline tour in West Palm Beach, Florida, before about 12,000 people, a milestone he remembers in his memoir. It proved to be a career turning point. 

“I wrote a contract with my soul that night,” Chesney writes. “Sitting alone in the back of my bus, idling in the parking lot, I made a commitment. No matter what it took, demanded, or required, I was going to give everything to this.” 

Chesney has stayed true to his word and poured his all into his work, which may be why he rarely pauses to bask in the acclaim. He doesn’t take his success for granted, telling Newsweek: “This hasn’t been easy for me on any level,” later adding: “You have to have a certain discipline, and I learned that discipline from where I grew up and from my family. I’m very, very proud of that.” 

Crystallized in his 1996 hit “Back Where I Come From,” Chesney often uses the word “pride” to describe his roots and upbringing. Never taken much with material things, Chesney says: “The thing I’m most grateful for in my life is the gift of creativity. I’m so happy about that. To give the world something that didn’t exist yesterday is a gift.” 

Why Music Is Like a Sport for Kenny Chesney

While he hung up his cleats after his senior year of high school, he didn’t leave behind the lessons of football and often compares his band and crew to a team. 

“What I learned in sports,” he tells Newsweek, “is that when you try to accomplish something together, it is really magical when you do it. And doing what we do out there…every night and playing the places that we play, it’s not an individual sport.” 

In both his book and interview, Chesney frequently frames success as “our” and “we,” constantly crediting his team and those who have supported him as part of the play. During his Country Hall of Fame induction speech, he said, “I might be the one the spotlight’s on, but I didn’t get here alone. I know I didn’t get here alone.” 

Even more than the team aspect, Chesney’s life resembles the flow of sports. He tells Newsweek: “My life is just like a baseball season, as far as the timeline. We got six months on and six months off.” 

When he’s not on the road performing, he’s often at what he calls “paradise”—the Virgin Islands. The place holds a special spot in his heart for its beauty, spirit and community, he says: “Yes, it’s paradise, but paradise is not the same without the people.” On the island, Chesney is just another neighbor, with his feet in the sand, trading easy hellos with locals over drinks. 

“The island songs—all that’s really authentically written and lived,” he says. Part of the power of music is its ability to transport people, Chesney says, noting that his 2004 hit “When the Sun Goes Down” takes him to a “bow of a boat in the Virgin Islands.” 

Another sunshine-filled, beachy hit was born near the equator shortly after, when Chesney performed at Van Halen star Sammy Hagar’s highly sought-after birthday bash in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. Beyond the flow of tequila, party and music, Chesney, then 36, was taking stock his life: feeling the weight of expectations and the push and pull of fun and having life “figured out.”  

His 2005 hit “Beer in Mexico” was born that weekend, written under the Mexican stars in one night. While many hear it as a party track, it’s “about a real transition in my life,” Chesney confesses. 

“We all think we have to have our life figured out by a certain time. And I was nowhere close. I’m still learning, honestly,” he says. But in that moment: “All I need tonight is my guitar, my friends and this beer in Mexico, and it will come. And so that’s one of my favorite songs I ever wrote.” 

Chesney’s No Shoes Nation Fan Community

As Chesney’s unique blend of country and rock kept climbing the charts, his crowds began to swell, especially after his 2002 album No Shoes, No Shirt, No Problems, which sold more than 4 million copies. 

Maintaining his connection with fans starts long before the first note of the night. Chesney says his favorite moment is in the buildup to a performance. He often climbs to the nosebleeds of the stadium he’s playing to “that seat as far from the stage as you can possibly get,” he writes, to gauge the distance, the feel and figure out how to reach the people there. 

The ritual seems to trace back to Knoxville, Tennessee, when a young Chesney found himself with last-minute tickets on the backside of a concert, an experience he recalls in his memoir: “For me, I never want anybody left out, because I’ve been there.” 

His inclusionary sentiment also applies to No Shoes Nation—a stadium-size fan community bound by a shared vibe and a long-running affinity for his music and outlook. Chesney says No Shoes Nation is more than a group of people, it’s a “state of mind, it’s a positive energy, full of love state of mind.” Fans are connected online and in person, often coordinating and tailgating together before shows. 

“It’s the music that brings us all together. And I think that’s very powerful,” he says. 

As he puts it in his book, his mother “showed me that good energy multiplies. It draws people to you, because there’s nothing better than someone who makes you feel good.” It’s a thread that carries through his music and his effort to bring people together. 

“The secret to writing any song is finding commonality with people,” he tells Newsweek, a through line in his work. Chesney has found this in collaborations with other artists, including Uncle Kracker on the hit “When the Sun Goes Down.” With his tattoos, gold tooth and a raspy voice, Kracker looked and sounded different from Chesney but “common ground came from the soul, how you lived and what you listened to. Not how you were marketed,” he said. 

He’s tipped his hat to his heroes too, lacing his country sensibilities into Bruce Springsteen’s “One Step Up.” Springsteen, having been sent the cover by Chesney, wrote an affirming letter back, acknowledging the “sensitivity” and “care” Chesney brought to the song. 

Chesney’s care and authenticity are core to his brand. He credits his fans with holding him accountable, saying: “I think that your audience, people out there that consume music, they are truly suckers for the truth. And they can smell a rat when it comes to being disingenuous really quickly.” 

As a performer, Chesney remains himself without oversharing, separating the personal from the political and the public, focusing instead on offering his fans an escape. 

Politics has repeatedly bled into country music, both in the lyrics and in the stars who sing them. Artists like Kid Rock and Lee Greenwood performed at President Donald Trump’s inauguration events, and Jason Aldean’s 2023 song “Try That in a Small Town” ignited a summer firestorm with allegations of racism and xenophobia. Last month, young country star Zach Bryan stirred a heated back-and-forth over his new song “Bad News” and its lyrics critical of ICE. Yet, despite several country artists using their platform to push political agendas, Chesney avoids the fray, seeking to bring happiness and connectivity to his fans rather than ideology. 

He even put that practice to melody in his 2018 hit “Get Along,” which focuses on shared, everyday gestures—love, dance, call your mom, make friends—and a chorus that says, “We ain’t perfect, but we try.” His songs seek to unite people over life’s simple pleasures and moments of joy, rather than divide over politics. 

“I have never been the kind of artist to use my platform to tell people how to think or how to vote. I don’t think it’s my place. I don’t do it,” he says. In a polarized moment, Chesney aims for something simpler: a real community—safe, open and built to experience the music together. 

Like any artist, he wants his songs to be remembered, but more than that, he tells Newsweek he hopes his legacy showcases that he “truly cared about people. Loved music, loved sports and loved his family,” themes heavily encompassed in his work. However, Chesney is nowhere near hanging up one of his many iconic cowboy hats, adding: “I sincerely hope I haven’t written my best song yet.” 

Update 11/04/2025 9:30 am: Some elements were updated for clarity.

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