Born, raised, and still living in Beaumont, Texas, Mark Chesnutt is the epitome of classic traditional country music. With a career spanning over twenty-six years, Chesnutt has fourteen number one hits, twenty-three top ten singles, four platinum albums all to his name and was the winner of the CMA Horizon Award in 1993. After a six-year hiatus, Mark just released a brand new album, ‘Tradition Lives,’ which contains twelve new songs.
Chesnutt was brought up on traditional country music and listened to such artists and musicians as George Jones, Hank Williams Sr. and Keith Whitley just to name a few. George Jones holds a special place in Chesnutt’s heart as he credits him for helping to keep his sound true to who he is. “Two of my hero’s, George Jones, Waylon Jennings, said if I stood true to who I am, and keep doing what I am doing, and don’t let anyone steer you in a different direction, then you will work in this business for as long as you want to.”
Determined to keep his sound his own, Chesnutt is not influenced by fads or trends. In the 90’s when he was under the MCA label, he had to struggle to keep his music the way he wanted it to be. Country music was changing, and he was told his type of music was not selling anymore. But selling music is not that important to Chesnutt, then or now. “Sometimes it’s a struggle [staying true to his roots] but it’s all worth it. I know there are people all over the world who still want to hear my kind of music.”
Chesnutt likes all kinds of music and is not knocking other artists or their music. He has respect for anyone that has talent and wants to sing; however, his sound is good, old-fashioned honky-tonk country and that is the way he plans on keeping it. Every album he has released will show that about Chesnutt. His latest album ‘Tradition Lives’ is a perfect example of what Chesnutt is trying to portray, an album that was released on an independent label. The president of the label is Chesnutt’s longtime producer and friend Jimmy Ritchey. Chesnutt said it was nice not having big label people breathing down his neck, where everyone has an opinion about what songs he should put on his album. “This time I did it all on my own. Jimmy sent the songs to me and said go through them all. I personally picked every song on the record. It’s why it took so long to do it. It took almost three years. I took my time.”
Several of the tracks on ‘Tradition Lives’ have been picked out for a while. ‘Quarter In My Pocket’ was a song Chesnutt heard when he was touring with Gary Allan- Gary’s guitar player wrote the song and Chesnutt always loved it. He knew one day he would cut it and put it on an album. Another song, ‘Is It Still Cheating,’ is a very old-style hard honky- tonk song that he heard several years ago sung by Jamey Johnson.
At the end of the album there is a bonus track that Chesnutt says is probably his favorite. ‘There Won’t Be Another Now,’ originally sung by Merle Haggard, was never a big hit, but Chesnutt always loved it. One time while visiting Merle, Chesnutt told him that it was one of his favorite songs and Merle told him to record it. Under the title of the song on the album this is written; “A few years back, Jimmy Ritchey and I were at his home studio at about 2 am talking about Hag and his influence on us, and we thought it would be nice to add this song to the album as a tribute to him and to Red Lane. It’s just me with Jimmy on guitar. I hope you enjoy it.”
If you are lucky enough to catch a Mark Chesnutt show this summer, you will hear true Texas sound. Mark and his band have been together a very long time and are like a family. Each of his musicians are very talented and give their all to the band. Chesnutt has a fiddle and a steel guitar in his shows and plans on always carrying them with him for as long as he can tour and play music. If you expect to hear anything else but twangy Texas music from Chesnutt and his band, then you will be disappointed. “There won’t be any hip hop, bro country, dancing around. It’s going to be fun. A lot of country songs a lot of shuffle songs and Texas honky- tonk. It could get rowdy, but the music will always be there for you, right in your face.”
Chesnutt is proud to have been in the country music business for twenty-six years and believes that country music, like most music, goes through cycles. He has hope that something will happen to turn around the industry of country music again. Artists like, Alan Jackson and George Strait are still being played on the radio, and Chris Stapleton has the industry people taking another look at traditional country music. When Chesnutt opens for one of the new acts, they always come back to talk to him. They introduce themselves to Chesnutt and tell him that they grew up listening and singing to his songs.
“That just tells me that I’m carrying on some type of tradition and that’s why we used, ‘Tradition Lives,’ as the title of the new album.”
New England Country Music thanks Mark Chesnutt for taking time out of his busy schedule to share his musical story and telling us about his new album.
You can follow mark on his Website, Facebook, YouTube.
You can purchase an autographed copy of ‘Tradition Lives’ here, or on iTunes.
Artist interview conducted by Lorraine Frigoletto, contributing writer for New England Country Music. You can follow me on Twitter.