For Immediate Release
3 May 2005
For More Information
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Wes Vause for BNA Nashville
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Kenny's "Anything But Mine" Has An Idle Hour
Juke Joint Celebration for Summer Memory's Multiple Weeks #1 Is Decidedly Down Low

   Nashville: The quietly acoustic, massively yearning "Anything But Mine" is hardly the pumped-up sort of thing people expect from Kenny Chesney, yet it just came off two weeks at #1 on Billboard's Country Singles chart -- and to celebrate the unlikely chart-topper, the song's publisher decided to throw a somewhat offbeat party. Rather than the standard caterers and circumstance, Carnival Music took over one of Music Row's longest running -- and recently relocated -- juke joints, the Idle Hour where the beer is cold and the people are friendly.

   "This is a song I think everybody everywhere has lived," Chesney said. "I fell in love with a girl from Georgia for a week once in Fort Lauderdale, and when I heard this song, I just fell in love with it, with her all over again, with everything. I love everything about this song -- and how it makes people feel. Even if it's not obvious -- or something that seems like what we do live -- that heart, that soul, that sense of how it feels really connected with people -- and connected people, too.

   "So as much as it doesn't seem like a typical Kenny Chesney single, I am honored -- but not as surprised as some people -- that it went to #1."

   "Anything But Mine," written by the tender-hearted Scooter Carusoe, marks the reigning Country Music Association Entertainer of the Year's 10th #1. It's also the third multiple week chart-topper from Chesney's CMA Album of the Year When The Sun Goes Down, now closing in on quadruple platinum.

   "About two years ago," admitted publisher Frank Liddell with a laugh, "Scooter Carusoe made a copy of this song, got some of our stationery, wrote a letter and signed my name to it. And when Kenny called me to tell me he really liked the Scooter Carusoe song on the comps we'd sent him, I had no idea what he was talking about. But he suggested we get a couple copies of it over to (RCA Label Group A&R head) Renee Bell, so we did."

   Mined out of a beach bar with salt in the night air and the sound of the ocean underneath the carnival sounds and cover bands, "Anything But Mine" marks a far younger, more innocent time for Carusoe. It also marks his first #1 record.

   "There are a lot of things I could say," the visibly moved songwriter noted, reading from a small list he'd tucked in his pocket, "but Kenny Chesney, you changed my life."

   The collected friends, business associates, studio musicians, producer Buddy Cannon and artists Dierks Bentley, Scotty Emerick and Shannon Brown burst into applause -- and plaques featuring a photograph taken by Carusoe of a midway at midnight and the lyrics in wood block print were passed out to writer, artist, producer, label and a few far flung believers.

   "It's a funny thing about the real deep truths," Chesney noted as he was leaving the building. "People know the difference -- and they respond. This song shows you that; because it's too long, too slow, in some ways too sad. But when you're this real -- and it's the kind of ache that reminds you how sweet life is, you just can't stop it."

   Look for Chesney's Somewhere in the Sun Tour to roll in full-stun mode -- including stadium shows in Washington, DC, Boston and Pittsburgh -- as well as performing "Anything But Mine" on the Academy of Country Music Awards live on CBS May 17th, where he's nominated for Entertainer, Album, Male and a pair of Vocal Events. Chesney will also be in the June/July issue of Details, the July issue of In Style and on the cover of ASCAP's quarterly Playback with a provocative Q&A with Grammy-winning songwriter Rodney Crowell.

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