Normally when Kenny Chesney’s in the studio, there are multiple guitarists, a monster drummer and a whole lot of great songs. Not this summer. Just songwriter/superstar and a mic hit Blackbird Studios to capture an East Tennessee kid with a headful of wonder’s journey through a Nashville that was built on creative types at all levels seeking his fate.
From catching a spark playing for tips at various bars, as well as traveling to Russia with the East Tennessee State Bluegrass Band during college to then playing a destitute Lower Broadway, where the Ryman was on the verge of being torn down and characters populated the seedy bars, and being signed to a publishing deal at Acuff Rose, home to Hank Williams Sr. and Dean Dillon, it’s the power of curiosity to drive someone with nothing but a hunger to write and sing songs. It’s also an homage to perseverance when the going is more than rough, the ability to find laughter in the cracks and a will to keep going.
“It’s funny,” marvels the man whose stadium tours have become a rite of summer, “when you’re living it, it’s being in the moment. When we were writing it, it was looking back and really striving to get it right. But now, reading it, all of these stories become real again. I can see everybody, from the Turf and the Wheel, to (Capricorn Records founders) Phil Walden with all that charisma and (legendary producer) Barry Beckett telling me to ‘put a smile on it.’
“It takes a lot longer than I thought to record an audio book, or maybe it’s just I would get lost in seeing all the people and places along the way. In a way, it’s what I did with my summer vacation: visit all these adventures I’ve had, because when I started to hear the stories, I felt like I was living them all over again.”
Whether making unexpected music in Jamaica, the Kremlin, New England and Cabo San Lucas, drifting across the waters of the Caribbean, Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, Chesney will engage with a coterie of singular folks, friends and inspirations, as he embraces the unabashed joy of being alive. “Thinking about the moments, reading the stories, it all got very real for me – the blessings of so much wisdom people gave me and unthinkable things I got to do. I was here at an amazing time, got to experience a Nashville closer to Willie Nelson or George Jones when they were trying to make it happen – and I got to live this crazy dream alongside so many heroes, make great friends. Hearing it come out of my mouth, it’s a lot to take in; I almost wouldn’t believe it if I hadn’t been there.”
Written with longtime friend and collaborator Holly Gleason, Heart Life Music celebrates the life and rise of a man whose songs have set the tone and whose shows have anchored a world without borders for the last quarter century. From the road, stage quiet moments and unthinkable thrills, it’s a trip for anyone who’s ever wondered what the voyage to No Shoes Nation might be like.
Official Release Nov. 4; Preorders HERE
About the Book
Heart Life Music
by Kenny Chesney
with Holly Gleason
On Sale: Nov. 4, 2025 | William Morrow, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers
Hardcover ISBN: 9780063423107 | $32.50
E-book ISBN: 9780063423114 | $14.99
Digital Audio ISBN: 9780063423121 | $27.99
Preorder HERE
About The Authors
One of contemporary American music's biggest names, Kenny Chesney has been selling out major stadiums across the nation for two decades; playing to over a million fans every summer since 2002, prompting Variety to pronounce him “country music’s only true long-term stadium act.” He’s earned over 105 million RIAA certifications and won the prestigious Entertainer of the Year eight times, as well as being Billboard's Country Artist of the 21st Century as well as holding Billboard’s record for the most Country Airplay No. 1s with 36 chart-topping songs that define coming of age across America in the 21st Century. The game-changing superstar became the first country artist to perform at the groundbreaking Sphere, taking No Shoes into a whole new dimension. Creating a space to work hard, play hard, love hard and come together in the spirit of celebrating all the moment offers, his popularity continues to grow year after year. Heart Life Music is his first book.
Holly Gleason’s work has appeared in Rolling Stone, Los Angeles Times, New York Times, the Library of Congress’ National Registry of Sound Recordings, among other outlets. She was the LA Press Club’s Entertainment Journalist of the Year and the National Arts & Entertainment Journalism Association’s Independent Journalist of the Year. A former Rock & Roll Hall of Fame/Case Western Reserve Fellow, she’s the creator of Belmont Book Award-winning Woman Walk The Line, and co-authored Miranda Lambert’s New York Times best-seller Y’all Eat Yet as well as Prine on Prine: Interviews & Encounters.