Kenny Chesney, one of American music’s most iconic songwriter/stadium fillers, will release his first book, HEART*LIFE*MUSIC, with William Morrow, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, on Nov. 4, 2025. The freewheeling take on the superstar’s journey from small town East Tennessee dreamer to commanding the largest stages across the nation will capture the sparks of creativity, venture to places long gone, make unexpected music in Jamaica, the Kremlin, New England and Cabo San Lucas, drift across the waters of the Caribbean, Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, encounter and collaborate with heroes, engage with a coterie of singular folks, friends and inspirations, and always find the joy of being unabashedly alive.
Raised largely by a single mother and extended family, Chesney’s life was built on sports, church, community – and the music he found everywhere. A gift of a guitar his freshman year and the resonance of East Tennessee State University’s Old Time Music and Bluegrass program sparked a passion no one saw coming. From playing for tips to trying to get a foot in the door, HEART*LIFE*MUSIC is a postcard from a Nashville that no longer exists: where songwriters define life, characters encourage young dreamers and a tenacious 20-something faced impossible odds and obstacles before starting to find a glimmer of success.
“This is not my memoir,” Chesney cautions, “but something far better. It is almost a love letter to people who shaped and inspired me, the fans who’ve been there from tiny bars, radio stations who believed when nobody else did, a team who just kept coming back, legends who gave me wisdom and opportunities and all the friends who’ve been there along the way. To me, that’s where the music came from – and this is the story of how it turned into the soundtrack for the way No Shoes Nation lives their lives, too.”
Whether playing for the homeless and hookers on a very different Lower Broadway in Nashville, a rickety Silver Eagle bus deemed “the Iron Lung,” seeing other young artists zoom by him, or sharing a renowned rock record label with Widespread Panic, Col. Bruce Hampton & the Aquarium Rescue Unit and Gov’t Mule that had no country department, Chesney’s ability to lean in, believe and keep working forged a determination to withstand whatever happened. With an almost triple-Platinum Greatest Hits, it was the decision to make music for himself and the people like him that blew his creativity and career wide open.
Nine No. 1 all-genre Billboard Top 200 Album debuts, 17 No. 1 Country Album debuts, 8.6 billion on-demand audio streams and over 1 billion on-demand video streams is a lot of music made, played and ingested by a fan-base that Variety proclaims “a concertgoing community rivaled perhaps only by Parrotheads and Deadheads.” Moving at what seemed faster than the speed of sound, Chesney for the most part eschewed celebrity to keep his focus on the people; with songs that would resonate with them and a show that would not only give every bit of energy he and his band had, but provide a space for No Shoes Nation to converge, have fun, make new friends and revel in the glory of being who they were.
“I always said I’d never write a book,” he marvels. “Too many things happened almost to be believed, let alone lived, but I realized with the world moving in such fast forward motion, too much of what made Nashville, the music business and our lives great would be lost to the churn of the next click. To have been in a room as a kid writing with Dean Dillon, have Sean Payton call an NFL press conference to announce he’s drafting me to the Saints, be in Tuff Gong Studios with Aston “Family Man” Barrett and Alvin “Seeco” Patterson or on a private plane with George Jones after opening for him defies logic. So, for everyone in No Shoes Nation, I realized: you deserved to share the magic.”
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 book for anyone who’s ever wondered what the trip to No Shoes Nation might be like.
