Kenny Chesney has had to overcome some tough moments. Ahead of the release of his memoir, Heart Life Music, the country star spoke to CBS’ Sunday Morning about hitting a low point in his career.
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The moment occurred during a 2009 concert in Indiana, at which he broke down crying while on stage.
“In that moment I was so exhausted and numb to all of it, that it wasn’t making me happy,” he said of touring and performing. “I wasn’t creating the same way. I wasn’t connecting to the audience. It just hit me.”
So what turned things around? “It took sports to get me out of that funk,” Chesney revealed.
Shortly after his negative onstage experience, Chesney became aware of a song called “The Boys of Fall.”
In addition to recording the track about high school football, Chesney began interviewing coaches and players about the sport. Eventually, those conversations turned into an ESPN documentary.
“I needed Joe Namath, I needed Bill Parcells,” Chesney explained of the legendary quarterback and coach, respectively. “I sat in [coach] Bobby Bowden’s living room and he talked to me like a deacon in a Baptist church!”
After that experience, Chesney said, “I woke up one day, and I went, ‘I’m back.’”
Kenny Chesney on His Storied Career
Since then, Chesney has taken the world by storm. The six-time Grammy nominee won multiple ACMs and CMAs, landed 23 No. 1 hits on Billboard‘s Hot Country Songs chart, had a successful residency at The Sphere in Las Vegas, and was recently inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame.
“It takes a certain amount of ego to be up there on stage and to do what I do, right? But I try really hard to leave that person up there,” Chesney said. “I can’t live that person every day. And I don’t want that person in my life every day, but I’m really glad to meet him when I go back up there.”
Chesney put many of his experiences into his forthcoming book, which is due out Nov. 4.
“When I was growing up lying on the ground in my grandmother’s back yard, I couldn’t have been further away from this moment,” Chesney previously said in a conversation about his memoir. “If you’re out there and you’re lying in the backyard staring up at the stars in the sky with a dream, I’m telling you, it can happen.”
“It’s not for free,” he added, “but this book is proof, I am proof, that the journey is worth it.”
Photo by Jason Kempin/Getty Images
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