“He's a Positive Force All Over the World”: Mac McAnally Offers Heartwarming Tribute to Kenny Chesney

While chatting to Holler about a range of topics, such as his longstanding friendship and collaborative relationship with the late Jimmy Buffett, as well as his stellar 2020 album, Once in a Lifetime, Mac McAnally has paid homage to Kenny Chesney.

Mac McAnally and Kenny Chesney have been good buddies for years now, with the latter having covered ‘Back Where I Come From’ for his 1996 album, Me and You, before teaming up with McAnally for a revamped rendition of his 1990 gem, ’Down the Road’.

It finds the two trailblazers trading verses, as Chesney steps into the shoes of a young man falling in love with the girl ‘down the road’, before McAnally offers the perspective of the girl's father, who's nervous about what life holds for her ’down the road’.

It's a beautifully written track, with Chesney and McAnally regaling the listener with a simple, sepia-tinged tale, yet one that is deeply relatable and wonderfully wholesome.

McAnally begins by reflecting on how that collaboration came about, “Well, I'm a dad, and that song was written in the wee hours of Christmas morning, and sometimes dads of young children are doing some assembly that they're not necessarily adept at”.

He goes on, “That's what was going on with me. I was trying to put some stuff together and make some bells ring and some whistles and lights flash like they were supposed to, and I had to go out and chase down some batteries that I did not know I needed in the middle of the night. I got back and got everything working like it was supposed to, and I was excited about my kids waking up and looking under the Christmas tree in a couple of hours. I only had maybe 90 minutes before the sun was going to come up. My kids are early risers on Christmas, so I decided to forego sleep and just pick up the guitar and noodle around”.

He recalls, “I started thinking about family and how proud I am of my family from Mississippi...my kids and all the hope and love I've got for wherever they wind up in the world. It was just a really good family feeling. That song fell out really easily - it was written in about 20 minutes...That song sat around for 21 years, and Kenny just calls me out of the blue - we're friends, and I'm always happy to hear anything from Kenny - but he said, ‘Can you come to the studio tomorrow?’ And I said, ‘Sure. What are we going to do?’ And he says, ‘Well, we're going to cut one of your songs, and I don't care which one’. As a songwriter, for 50 years, nobody has ever said that to me, ever, except Kenny. And if you're going to hear that, Kenny's a great guy to hear it from! So I get up and go to the studio the next day, and I say, ‘What are we going to do?’ He says, ‘What song do you want to sing? I know a whole bunch of your songs’. And I said, ‘It doesn't matter to me, Kenny, I know a whole bunch of my songs too...You can pick”.

McAnally endearingly concludes, “And he said, ‘Well, I don't have any children yet, but if and when I do, I would love to say to my kids what you said to your kids in that song, ‘Down the Road’. Let's do that...It was written in less than an hour, and it was recorded in less than an hour, and we had a No. 1 record and a Grammy nomination. I remember backing out the studio that day, thinking to myself, ‘That sounds pretty good. I think maybe if you didn't have me on it, it might be a hit...’ But it turns out I was underestimating Kenny, because he was able to drag me all the way up the charts to No. 1, like I was an ankle weight or something...and we got to sing it in NFL stadiums and SEC football stadiums - and so many blessings came from that song. But my favorite of all those blessings is the way it made me feel Christmas morning right before the sun came up, and that I got an exactly correct picture of family, and what that means to me”.

Elsewhere during our conversation, Mac McAnally touches on the way in which Kenny Chesney felt inspired by Jimmy Buffett, with Chesney modelling his career on Buffett.

“There are certainly worse people to emulate than Jimmy”, McAnally admits, “He always treated everybody well. He wanted us to stay in the same hotels as him, and we flew on his private plane. We were so spoiled, because he wanted the people that he loved to be around. On most tours, the star stays somewhere and gets there a certain way, and everybody else gets there on a bus...Jimmy was like, ‘We're going to play music, we're gonna have fun. We're only gonna play three shows a week, because I want to experience all these cities’. So it was never a gruelling tour...We got the benefit of that wonderful way to work”.

He offers a heartwarming homage to his ’Down the Road’ collaborator,, “Kenny, like Jimmy, is a sweetheart. He's a good soul. He's a positive force all over the world, and he's patterned much of how he does his business after the way Jimmy did his, so there was a natural affinity. Jimmy grew up down on the salt water - he was always a boat guy. He was always a sailor. Whereas Kenny and I grew up in landlocked poverty in Appalachia. He's said it a million times that ‘I wouldn't have a boat, and I wouldn't know about the water if it wasn't for Jimmy Buffett’”.

Chesney teamed up with McAnally as recently as this summer, with the two pals hitting the stage together during the former's blockbuster Sphere Las Vegas residency to perform ’Down the Road’, Shenandoah's ‘Two Dozen Roses’ - which McAnally co-wrote - and one of Buffett's many iconic hits, the wistful ’Come Monday’.

Their friendship radiates throughout every performance and duet, and we're hoping we'll get to see them join forces once again during Mac McAnally's North American tour with Buffett's Coral Reefer Band, which continues throughout the Fall.

Read Holler's full interview with Mac McAnally here.

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