Las Vegas: Anyone who knows Kenny Chesney offstage understands that the singer/songwriter from Luttrell, Tennessee is a quiet soul who prefers being laidback to all-out - and when it came time to launch Blue Chair Bay Clothing, the line inspired by his music and life, the man who's currently in the midst of his high impact Sun City Carnival Tour, which will land at dozen NFL stadiums in places like Boston, Pittsburgh, Detroit and Seattle, he was looking to do something more in keeping with his soul for the annual Magic Marketplace tapparel trade show in Las Vegas.
To that end, the man known for his beach time took over the Hard Rock Café's storied pool and staged an intimate 30 minute set for an invitation-only audience. With his guitar, a keyboard player and second guitarist, Chesney treared the 1000 clothing industry tastemakers to as stripped down a show as the man whose pensive self-penned “I'm Alive,” originally recorded by Willie Nelson for his Moment of Forever, is currently rising up the country charts as a duet with good friend Dave Matthews.
“The idea of these clothes has nothing to do with what we put out onstage,” Chesney explains. “In fact, it's the exact opposite. These are the clothes you wear when you've got nowhere to go and nowhere to be… Everything in Blue Chair Bay is stuff I'd wear when I was hanging out, and I wanted the people who were coming to forget about what they might know about me, and feel what I feel when I'm out on my boat somewhere, or down in Mexico or Florida just kinda taking it easy.
“When you look at it like that, it's a no brainer,” continues the man who won 4-consecutive Academy of Country Music and is the 4-time and reigning Country Music Association Entertainer of the Year. “At my heart, I'm a songwriter who likes to kick back and get away from it all. To me, to be able to do that in Las Vegas is the ultimate escape.”
Under a starry sky flanked by two story cabanas on one side, Kenny Chesney reinforced the attutude of his Blue Chair Bay khakis, button down shirts, t's and shorts with a collection of songs that had the same comfortable familiarity of your favorite jeans. Mixing old favotites with some of his more personal songs, Chesney offered the crowd - from a guest list that had had to be cut down three times - a sense of how good it feels to be alive in his unguarded moments.
With his Greatest Hits II on the charts, a record-breaking tour on the road, the launch of Blue Chair Bay and the debut of “This Is Our Moment” on ABC and ESPN's College football broadcasts this weekend, Kenny Chesney's year is slowing down just a bit. There is still Hard Rock Ambassadors of Rock show at New York's Time Square location Sept. 15th - before his final tour stop in the college town of Bloomington, IL Sept. 17 then onto the Lucas Oil Field Sept. 18 in Indianapolis.
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