“Both Nervous and Happy”: How Kenny Chesney Ended Up Co-Producing Willie Nelson's ‘Moment of Forever’ Album

In his new book, HEART*LIFE*MUSIC, penned alongside his good friend Holly Gleason, Kenny Chesney reflects on encounters with a host of fellow music legends, ranging from classic groundbreakers like George Jones and Bruce Springsteen to more contemporary trailblazers such as Kelsea Ballerini and Megan Moroney.

But when we're talking about the most influential pioneers of country music, it doesn't get much bigger than Willie Nelson. During one fascinating chapter in HEART*LIFE*MUSIC, Chesney reflects on how Willie picked him and his long-time collaborator, Buddy Cannon, to serve as co-producers on his Moment of Forever album.

Arriving in 2008, Moment of Forever is a songwriting masterclass, and showcases Willie's trademark penchant for infusing playfulness and wit into his weather-worn narratives.

The project featured a Chesney co-write, ‘I'm Alive’ - which the ‘No Shoes, No Shirt, No Problems’ hitmaker would release himself later that same year on his Lucky Old Sun project - as well as a hazy, laid-back duet between Chesney and Willie, ‘Worry B Gone’.

In his book, which was recently crowned a New York Times bestseller, Chesney recalls that Willie was impressed with how he and Cannon had produced ‘Lucky Old Sun’, the title-track - featuring Willie - from Chesney's 2008 record, “In 2007, Willie Nelson was curious, thinking Buddy and I might be good producers. He loved the job we'd done with ‘Lucky Old Sun’. It struck something inside him, and I understood. I listened to our recording of the Ray Charles standard all the time”, expanding, “Considering he'd been produced by Don Was and Booker T. Jones, I was flattered. We made all the records together, so that was the team he loved. They'd have generational commonality and references that you can't fake. Buddy knew songs, pulling sessions together. Add my song sense, a few of my musical ideas, and it could be something special”.

Chesney pays tribute to Willie's unique musical ear, “No one sounds like Willie. He'd make music on his terms, creating the art in his soul since even before the days of ‘Waylon and Willie and the boys’. On the plane to Los Angeles, it got real. Buddy and I were meeting Willie at his bus at Shutters on the Beach, the breezy, white clapboard hotel in Santa Monica”, admitting, “I was excited, both nervous and happy”.

The Knoxville native fondly remembers seeing Willie's iconic tour-bus, “Pulling into the parking lot, Honeysuckle Rose was parked right where they said it would be. Willie may have houses in Texas and Hawaii, but his home is on that bus painted with the iconic Native American on his horse. Stepping on Willie's bus, all polished wood and leather, it's welcoming, but more you're walking into someone's favorite rooms where people relax and really spend time together. Willie was ready, smiling and excited to talk songs: the ones we'd brought, the things he'd written”.

Chesney muses, “The recording sessions were unlike anything Nashville had seen in years...this was about the hang...Willie told stories, made jokes, and that would double when Hank Cochran, who was a struggling songwriter in the ‘60s alongside Willie, stopped by. It was lived history from two Country Music Hall of Fame inductees”.

The ’I Go Back’ crooner concludes, “Moment of Forever wasn't a statement album, but it was serious. Good writers, classic songs, a little tongue-in-cheek vintage Willie”.

Since teaming up in 2008, Chesney and Willie have joined forces on a number of occasions, with the duo reprising their formidable partnership on the former's stellar 2013 album, Life on a Rock. They deliver ’Coconut Tree’, which carries the same enchanting spirit of herbally-infused weightlessness and levity as ‘Worry B Gone’.

They've extended their camaraderie to the stage, delivering a heartfelt tribute to Merle Haggard as part of the Merle tribute concert in 2017, performing ‘Pancho and Lefty’. Chesney also joined Willie for a live take on ’Last Thing I Needed First Thing This Morning’, taken from the latter's 1982 album, Always on My Mind.

Given how compelling ‘Worry B Gone’, ‘Lucky Old Sun’ and ‘Coconut Tree’ still sound to this day, we're hoping we get a fourth studio collaboration between Chesney and Willie in the near future. Willie is as prolific as ever, releasing a new album virtually every few months, while Chesney continues to fly the pirate-flag for his Jimmy Buffett-inspired, island-themed Gulf and Western brand of music. Their two styles mesh perfectly, and as Chesney explains in HEART*LIFE*MUSIC, the dynamic they have managed to capture in the studio is a coveted rarity.

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