Kenny Chesney — Here and Now

Kenny Chesney is the only country artist in the Top 10 on Billboard‘s Top Touring Acts of the Last 25 Years, and his latest album is a testament to how an artist who has been headlining since 2002 can still thrive. You see, it’s about many things — the groove with band, the love of performing, the sheer professionalism required — but more than anything else, it is about the music. 

In a recent email to ParcBench.live, Kenny Chesney wrote, “This album, Here and Now, was a lot of fun to make because the songs were a lot of fun. There was a lot of living in every one of these songs and when you can take a collection of music like this into the studio and do your best to wrap your arms around it, you now, the creative process is pretty fun.”

The songs in Here and Now are just what you’d expect from Kenny Chesney. They are high energy celebrations of life as real people live it. He has a special gift. It’s almost a literary event set to music. By sharing his own perspective on the world, he connects the audience with their own a little more. No wonder he’s sold more than 30 million albums (and more than a million tickets on each of his headlining tours).

Mr. Chesney added, “Within the creative process when you start to make a record, you think about yourself being up there on stage and what kind of energy you want, you know, because whatever you leave the studio with is what you have to play up on stage. And in my brain I kept hearing a melody and this urgency and the angst of a song like ‘Here and Now.’ And I’m telling you, I cannot wait to do this song live. And what a great sentiment, really. Because we all try to plan ahead or we’re all living in the past and it’s really hard to live in the moment and to live in the here and now. And in my opinion there’s no other place that happens, for me anyway, and what a beautiful place for that to happen, than on stage in front of so many people that’s living in the here and now with you.”

When things get back to the way they should be — when audience can share the country music together again — the Kenny Chesney tour will be worth wait. In the meantime, we have this album full of future hits. Here’s to the here and now.