Kenny Chesney‘s brand new album Live! In No Shoes Nation features 29 songs collected from his tours from the past 10 years. Along with all the massive hits from his career, the collection also features several guest stars — Dave Matthews, Grace Potter, David Lee Murphy, Old Dominion, Eric Church, Mac McAnally, Taylor Swift and the Zac Brown Band. Kenny talks about the artists who join him and the songs they sing together.
Kenny Chesney talks about Dave Matthews joining him on his album Live! In No Shoes Nation. (:60)
“The earliest recording we have on this live album is from 2007 in Atlanta Georgia. It was the last show of the 2007 tour and Dave Matthews was playing in Atlanta the next night and he had the night off and he shows up at our show, and like I do when people show up at the show sometimes, we put them to work and David and I did one of his songs called ‘Where Are You Going’ and then we did Steve Miller‘s ‘The Joker,’ and then we did Bob Marley ‘Three Little Birds’ and those two songs and that medley ended up being on the live record and that kind of moment is one of the things I love about being on the road and the whole idea of live music because you never know from day to day who’s going to show up, who’s going to be on stage with you and where that collaboration will lead you.”
Kenny Chesney talks about David Lee Murphy joining him on his album Live! In No Shoes Nation. (1:23)
“David Lee Murphy has been such a big part of my life, the first song I recorded of his was a song called ‘Living In Fast Forward,’ and since that moment, David Lee Murphy and his creative spirit has been a constant in my life. In August of 2014 I played the Flora-Bama club in Perdido Key Florida and forty thousand members of No Shoes Nation showed up there on the beach and that afternoon I brought David Lee Murphy up there to sing ‘Dust On The Bottle’ which is probably one of the biggest anthems of our generations I mean it’s just a huge record for him and you hear that song in every bar all over the country on any given night and to be up there on stage with him, the guy that wrote it, was really really special so I felt it was really important to put ‘Dust On The Bottle’ with David Lee Murphy on this Live record just because it was such a fun moment. The setting was unbelievable had forty thousand people in front of us, the Gulf of Mexico to our left, hundreds of boats out there on the water and a lot of people in front of us that just loved the moment and love music, and that’s what I wanted this live album to represent is that heart and that connection and so ‘Dust On The Bottle’ with David Lee Murphy had to make it.”
Kenny Chesney talks about Eric Church joining him on his album Live! In No Shoes Nation. (1:19)
“Eric Church went on the road with us in 2013 on the No Shoes Nation tour. Now, before that tour started, Eric and I were pretty good friends but when that tour was over, I knew that I had made a lifelong friend. And what was special about that year is that Eric didn’t have to go on the road with us I mean he was then and he is now a headline act but he did it and we got to share a lot of great moments out there on the road together on stage together and it was a blessing to have him out there on the road with us. I appreciate his friendship, I appreciate his music and I really appreciated the fact that in the middle of my show in 2013 he would come up and we would do ‘When I See This Bar’ together, and man I miss that, every time I do ‘When I See This Bar’ I look to my left and I look for Eric Church and he’s not there but I’m glad we captured it and this live record would not be the same without Eric Church I can promise you that.”
Kenny Chesney talks about Grace Potter joining him on his album Live! In No Shoes Nation. (:43)
“The other collaboration from those three nights at Red Rocks that I had to have on this live record was ‘You and Tequila’ with Grace Potter. Grace brings more than her talent to the stage, she brings this beautiful energy that’s so contagious to everybody that’s around her. I know that the song ‘You and Tequila’ wouldn’t have been the same without her voice on it, my life wouldn’t be the same, my career wouldn’t be the same without that song and I absolutely love singing with Grace. But I got to say, one of my favorite moments with Grace Potter and a lot of really great moments was that night in the rain at Red Rocks singing ‘You and Tequila’ I’m so glad we recorded it.”
Kenny Chesney talks about Mac McAnally joining him on his album Live! In No Shoes Nation. (1:26)
“The last several years we played in Denver Colorado we’ve played the Denver Broncos football stadium, but in 2011 we did three nights in a row at Red Rocks outside of town and it rained from the moment we did load in to the moment we pulled out of that town and it never stopped raining. But I got to tell you, it’s still one of my favorite experiences that I’ve ever had because it was such a unique moment and nobody was going anywhere and you could just feel the energy grow from night to night. Everybody knew it was not going to stop raining, but everybody really wanted to be there. One song that is represented from those three nights is a song called ‘Down The Road’ that I did with my friend called Mac McAnally. Now Mac is one of my favorite singer songwriters ever and he is a member of Jimmy Buffets Coral Reefer band and someone that I really respect and someone that I look up to as a songwriter and a story teller and a creative person, and he recorded ‘Down The Road’ several years ago and it’s always been something that I loved and I asked him to sing it with me and I’m really glad he came to red rocks that night in the rain and top have him up there on stage singing this kind of song was just a joy and a blessing.”
Kenny Chesney talks about Old Dominion joining him on his album Live! In No Shoes Nation. (2:25)
“’Save It For A Rainy Day’ was written by two guys in Old Dominion, Matt (Ramsey) and Brad (Tursi), and I didn’t know a whole lot about those two guys or Old Dominion before we started touring together but it didn’t take us long to connect and it didn’t take us long to have a certain comradery out there on the road that sometimes you just don’t have with a lot of people out there, but we had it with them, me, my band, our crew, everybody out on the road just loved getting to know those guys and making music with them. But it was about half way through that first tour they did with us, that I went you know what, those two guys wrote the song, I sang the song, we’re on tour together, it might be a good idea if we do that song together during my show but it took us a couple of months to figure that out why I don’t know, but since we came to our senses and decided to do the song together, its become a really fun moment of the show, and when they come up there, we made it a habit to sometimes huddle and talk about what’s going on in the day and there’s a lot of laughter on stage there is a lot of just pure love for what we do and I really respect those guys as songwriters as musicians and they’re a great band and they’ve been out on the road now with us for a couple of tours and going back out with us again next summer because honestly I think our audience No Shoes Nation really loves them and they’re starting to build their own audience and it’s really special to see and we recorded this song save it for a rainy day several times but the best recording that we got of it was last summer in Pittsburgh at the Pittsburgh Steelers Football Stadium and it was a fitting moment because those fans there get ready for the show days in advance they put those boats out on the water and they have an absolute blast with our music with that weekend, there is so much love and so much energy exchanged during that show and it’s because they really care about the music and they care about living their life and they are about sharing that experience and we got to share that experience with Old Dominion in Pittsburgh last summer, ‘Save It For A Rainy Day’.”
Kenny Chesney talks about Taylor Swift joining him on his album Live! In No Shoes Nation. (:54)
“I opened the 2015 Big Revival Tour on my birthday and I had a lot of special guests that night, opening night, I had Uncle Cracker I had Joe Walsh I had David Lee Murphy… a lot of people showed up to help me celebrate but what would birthdays be without surprises, and that night my friend Taylor Swift showed up on my birthday and surprised me and she walked up on stage to sing ‘Big Star’ with me which was ironic because in a lot of ways that song and that lyric is Taylor’s journey in a way and she represented that song so well and sang it so great and it was a really special moment for me and a nice surprise and I’m glad I get to share that moment and my birthday present from Taylor with so many people.”
Kenny Chesney talks about the Zac Brown Band joining him on his album Live! In No Shoes Nation. (1:13)
“The Zac Brown band toured with us on our stadium run in 2011 on the Going Coastal tour, and there were a lot of late night jam sessions, there was a lot of laughter, and it was just a really fun musical summer. At the end of our show most nights they would come up and we would do four or five songs, we would do… I believe we did ‘Knee Deep,’ we did one of my songs and we did a couple of covers and then we would do ‘Everybody Wants To Go To Heaven’ which a song that I did a couple years back with the Whalers, and the last night of the tour that year in Foxboro Massachusetts we decided we might want to record this cause we didn’t record it all year but that night we did and I’m glad we did cause I love Zac I love all those guys and they brought so much to my life musically they brought so much energy to that summer and I’m really proud of them and I’m really proud of this cut of ‘Everybody Wants To Go To Heaven’ with the Zac Brown Band.”