Country Music Blog: Kenny Chesney

In an age when Kenny Chesney, Brad Paisley and I all wear the same size jeans, it feels good to see Keith Anderson and James Otto so comfortable in their own bigness. It's tempting to get into all kinds of "size matters" and "live large" clichés, but I won't.
I will say, though, that I think these two guys have found the key to a woman's heart: the bigger you are, the more petite she'll feel. At least, that's my takeaway from their new videos.

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I didn't see any of Keith Urban's co-headlining dates with Carrie Underwood, but it appears after reading numerous reviews, they missed an opportunity to slip the same title into their set lists. Urban released "I Told You So" a year ago (April 17), and I remember at the time thinking when I first saw the title that maybe he was covering Randy Travis.

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In the end, it's all about who wore what. For some Web sites, anyway. Miley Cyrus, Carrie Underwood and Faith Hill and others get critiqued for their attire at the 2008 CMT Music Awards. But Hill's rep says a flowing tunic topic doesn't mean the singer is pregnant.

In more post-show news, Jason Aldean gushed over Snoop Dogg, remarking that when he calls you a pimp it's the ultimate compliment. Seriously?

And Taylor Swift gives her play-by-play commentary of the entire night, up until the part where she is FREAKING OUT.

Determined not to be pigeon-holed as just a singer/songwriter/actor, Tim McGraw has written a children's book due out this fall. And his latest greatest hits package is due out later this month.

Yes, Kenny Chesney is known for his stadium shows. But what if you could see him in a small room with only a few hundred people? If you live in Chicago and listen to radio station WUSN you can.

And Billy Ray Cyrus tells OK magazine he's trying to be Miley's BFF. Get in line, dad.

Brad Paisley and Gretchen Wilson weigh in on what makes for a good country video -- in the latest edition of USA Weekend.

For you guitar freaks, Paisley also gives his opinion on why multiple amps and in-ear monitors are so important to his sound.

Josh Turner is the latest country artist to set his sights on acting with his appearance in Billy: The Early Years, the upcoming film about Billy Graham.

There's a new artist growing up out of the band behind Kenny Chesney. His name is Tim Hensley.

"Awkward" and "fun." Those are just a couple of the choice words Carrie Underwood uses to describe what it's like to be famous, in this story from the Baltimore Sun.

Us magazine readers now have a forum for choosing Underwood's next crush. See if you agree with them.

It was completely unintentional. It's not like I went into rehab to kick my country-music habit. What I did was go away for 10 days and didn't hear any country music. Not one single solitary song. No fiddle. No banjo. No stories about drinkin' and cheatin' and fishin'. It never occurred to me how hard the withdrawal symptoms would be.

When we arrived in California (alive and well despite my fears), I realized I'd forgotten my iPod. Surely there would be some good country stations out there, I thought. But since our rental car had two major drawbacks -- no DVD player and no third-row seat -- that meant all three of my kids were about four inches from my head with their own portable DVD player blaring. That was the one thing that kept them quiet on our excellent adventure driving up the Pacific Coast Highway. So, no country radio.

Still, I assumed the beach towns we visited would be filled with a little Kenny Chesney or some other tropical-leaning country. By the time we got to San Francisco, I saw a man busking with a violin and I thought I'd finally hear some good, down-home stuff. But he had different stuff in mind, like the entire soundtrack from Phantom of the Opera. Nice, but not when you're craving Keith Urban, Sara Evans and Jason Aldean.

The minute we got home yesterday, I turned on our local country radio station. Trace Adkins, Taylor Swift, Carrie Underwood and Jack Ingram coursed through my veins and instantly cured me of my symptoms and put me back into a state of country euphoria. That certainly must qualify me as an official addict. I'm totally OK with that. Of all the things to get hooked on these days, country music's probably the healthiest one.

Can you prove that you are Keith Urban's biggest fan? If so, enter a new sweepstakes on his Web site.

Kenny Chesney rustles up his famous friends for this 40th birthday celebration. Check out the guest list.

Mindy McCready seems to have a lot going on, like filming a reality TV show and coming up with awful nicknames. ("Flem"? Accch.)

Toby Keith remakes the Barry White classic, "Never Gonna Give You Up," as a duet with former NBA player Wayman Tisdale.

Narvel Blackstock, Reba McEntire's husband, possesses a secret talent - interior design.

Who among us hasn't fantasized about being married to a country music star? We all do it. Men. Women. Teenagers. Seniors. No one is immune to that cowboy-take-me-away fantasy. I know, because I've seen the marriage proposals on signs at concerts. And I've heard people wondering out loud what life would be like on the other side of Nashville.

That got me thinking.... What is it really like to be hitched to a country star? Like when his latest single tops the Billboard chart, would he ignore your requests to take out the garbage? When a promoter writes a check for an 85-city tour, would you still question why she needs yet another pair of True Religion jeans? And when he's named one of the Sexiest Men Alive by People magazine, would you still be too tired for sex? God only knows what happens when two stars are married to each other. Does the one with the most awards get free back rubs for a month?

Certainly, there's a point in your musical career when household chores become someone else's job. But what about all those common courtesies that spouses do for one another? Brad Paisley knows all about those. He even wrote a song about one. How what his wife wants -- more than jewels, fancy cars and romantic dinners -- is for him to just put the toilet seat down. Little things like that could wreak havoc on a star-studded relationship. I wonder if being married to Kenny Chesney would mean he'd roll his eyes when you asked him to put the peanut butter back in the pantry. As if to say, "I'm the CMA Entertainer of the Year. Do you really expect me to clean up after myself?"

Kenny Chesney turns 40 today.

Sometime in the next decade, he may reach that midlife point where he's not sure why he's doing what he's doing anymore and need to rethink it all. That's what people do in their 40s. And he'll likely end up doing exactly what he's doing now, maybe just for different reasons, because that's something else people do in their 40s.

What's particularly predictable for Chesney is that his crisis will revolve around home and nesting. His songs, when they're not party-themed, are inevitably about domestic partnerships -- "Don't Blink," "You Had Me From Hello," "Me and You," "The Woman With You," "There Goes My Life," "The Good Stuff" -- but Chesney's never gotten the good stuff he keeps singing about. There was an engagement in the 1990s that went sour before they tied the knot and the much-publicized marriage to Renee Zellweger that ended in an annulment.

The Eagles' song "Lyin' Eyes" contains that familiar line, "Late at night a big old house gets lonely," and at some point, Chesney is going to wake up and feel like all the work he's done at building his career -- and he's done a huge amount of it -- is just a bit hollow because there's no one to share it. Or he might discover that the fans and the musical camaraderie are enough, and then immerse himself even more in the music. Producing a Willie Nelson album and inventing his new Big Star Contest to discover new talent suggest that might be a route. One way or another, he's likely to go through some sort of transition, because that's what people do in their 40s. Even multi-platinum people.

Happy birthday, Kenny. And hang in there. It'll be even better when the transition ends.

As I've blogged before, I am not a fan of flying. I'll do it if I have to, but only short little flights to nearby hot spots like Nashville. But now I'm about to board a flight for California. A four-hour flight. If you know anything about aerophobia, you know there's a strong correlation between the length of the flight and the increased risk of death. In my mind, anyway. Since I may not make it back, I wanted to put in writing how I'd like to be remembered. Basically, I just want country music to sing me home.

I know funeral services are usually steeped in religious tradition but I'd like mine to be steeped in a more twangy, banjo-rich tradition. With lots of fiddle and steel, too. Lyrically, I'd like for my services to tell the stories of my well-lived life, cut tragically short while on a family vacation. Which is why I think the mass should open with Kenny Chesney's "Who You'd Be Today."

Then Tim McGraw's "My Old Friend" could bring my loved ones back around, telling them that "The love and the laughter/Will live on long after/All of the sadness and the tears." While I'm sure the priest will say a few words about the final destination of my soul, I'd prefer a religious requiem from the lips of Brad Paisley and Dolly Parton, singing about what's in store for me up there with "When I Get Where I'm Going." Gary Allan's "Best I Ever Had," Andy Griggs' "If Heaven" and Vince Gill's "Go Rest High on That Mountain" are must-haves, too. I'd probably want the day to end with "Prodigal Son's Prayer" by Dierks Bentley. Even though I'm nobody's son and have not led a particularly rebellious life, this gospel-bluegrass number sends a beautifully simple message that if you ask for God's forgiveness, you can ask him to keep a spot open for you in heaven. Because my God is a devout country fan, He will have no problem welcoming me with open arms after a funeral like that.

Every week, I like to see who's at the top of the country sales chart, even though it's usually the same folks - Kenny Chesney, Carrie Underwood, Taylor Swift, etc. But this week I decided to start from the bottom up. You might be as surprised as I am at these low sales by familiar names.

Let's start with the hits compilations released late last year. Faith Hill's The Hits isn't even halfway to a half-million copies, so no gold album there. Back in 1999, Breathe sold more than seven million copies. Meanwhile, Trisha Yearwood's Greatest Hits hasn't cracked 90,000 copies yet. Songbook: A Collection of Hits, from 1997, sold more than four million copies. Both of these singers have released some amazing songs over the years, and they put on a good face for country music (even when that face is screaming out, "WHAT?!?!?) but I think they simply waited too long. Their careers have kind of cooled off in the last few years. Plus, in the digital age, if you already have the older albums on your computer or iPod, you can just add the new tracks for a few bucks.

I would imagine that Blake Shelton and Joe Nichols will release Greatest Hits albums in the next year or so, because their current albums simply aren't moving. Shelton's Pure B.S. is just under 265,000, after nearly a year on the chart. You can add about 11,000 copies to that total when you consider the additional sales of his Collector's Edition, which certainly includes repeat buyers. Nichols is being outsold by Jason Michael Carroll and Bucky Covington, although they're toward the bottom of the chart too.

And who's at the top? Alan Jackson, with Good Time, showing that there is still a place for longevity on the country sales chart - but not as much as you might think.