The UK’s country music scene has never been bigger. Collaborations between Justin Timberlake and Chris Stapleton (‘Say Something’) and Bebe Rexha and Florida Georgia Line (‘Meant To Be’) have climbed the charts and received heavy radio play, while the success of Ward Thomas and The Shires has demonstrated that domestic artists can breakthrough in a major way. That huge public interest can be further seen by the success of the Country 2 Country festival which packed arenas in London, Dublin and Glasgow earlier this year.
It’s the perfect context for the return of superstar Kenny Chesney with the July 27th release of his new album ‘Songs For The Saints’. Kenny Chesney is one of the biggest artists in the world, with 30 million album sales and 2 billion track streams. Eight of his albums have topped the Billboard 200 – a total that puts him alongside Eminem, Kanye West, Madonna and U2
As friends were being airlifted off the Hurricane Irma-toppled Virgin Islands – a place that has helped shape him into the artist that he is – Kenny Chesney was in the studio recording his response to the destruction that swept through in the Caribbean. Those recordings became ‘Songs for the Saints’. Immensely personal, but more importantly, deeply committed to the healing of the people who live in the U.S. and British Virgin Islands, the project goes past the trauma to focus on their indomitable spirit.