For Immediate Release
15 June 2005
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Kenny Chesney Covers ASCAP's Playback for Spring
Spirited Conversation with Songwriting Icon Rodney Crowell Goes Deep, Addresses Fame, Large Frame Connections + The Creative Process

   Nashville: While Kenny Chesney is considered to be a world class entertainer -- and recently paired his coveted Country Music Entertainer of the Year Award with the very same honor from the Academy of Country Music -- he came to Nashville as a songwriter first, and enjoyed his initial break as a staff writer at Acuff-Rose, home to no less than Hank Williams, Sr. With the platinum Be As You Are: Songs From An Old Blue Chair, the soul-searching self-written project that debuted at #1 on Billboard's all-genre Top 200 without the benefit of a single or a tour, Chesney solidly re-established his voice as a writer -- and that milestone helped catalyze the American Society of Composers, Author and Publishers decision to put the Luttrell, Tennessean on the cover of their quarterly Playback magazine.

   "In my heart of hearts, I'm a songwriter," says the only country artist to headline stadiums -- in Washington, DC, Boston and Pittsburgh -- this year. "I remember all those lunches at Mac's Country Kitchen, listening to people like Dean Dillon talking about songwriting, just soaking it all in. And that time in my life doesn't just effect me as a songwriter, it also has a lot of impact on the songs I choose. The thing about great writers -- you can always learn from them."

   To that end, ASCAP enlisted American songwriting icon Rodney Crowell for the task of two songwriters addressing their muse, their music, their process, fame -- and the inherent tug of success on Chesney's level with the reality of what it takes to connect with one's soul and one's audience. Conducted earlier this spring, the largely Q&A -- billed as "a candid conversation" -- forges into previously uncharted waters for the man whose CMA Album of the Year When The Sun Goes Down has already spawned three multiple week #1s.

   Of the risk and the reasons behind Be As You Are, Chesney tells Crowell, "I wanted people to see what I was feeling, to see where I'd been. I wanted them to meet people. For the first time, I felt like I was saying something that I'd never said before -- painting a picture. That's what I learned from some of the songs you've written, and that Willie Nelson's written, and songs like on Springsteen's Nebraska..."

  And on the breakthrough single that really consolidated his audience, the man who sold 1.4 million concert tickets last year offered the Grammy-winning writer artist this: "Take a song like 'Tractor' -- I was smart enough to record that song, but I was also smart enough not to record another one like it or make a living on it."

   Playback will be issued to ASCAP writers, publishers and through it's offices sometime next week. For more information about this provocative and prestigious interview, www.ascap.com.

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