Mark Chesnutt

Mark Chesnutt, whose neo-honky tonk approach drew on deep familiarity with traditional country, converted that foundation into repeated chart dominance across the 1990s. He arrived in Beaumont, Texas, in 1963 and absorbed the music from Bob Chesnutt’s large collection of country albums while growing up. Bob had performed locally with some success yet never achieved major recognition, so he earned his living selling used cars. Chesnutt acquired skills on guitar and drums, then made his first paid appearance singing with his father’s group at age fifteen in nearby clubs. He briefly left high school to focus on music before returning to complete his diploma, and during the same period Bob began escorting him to recording sessions in Nashville. In the 1980s Chesnutt issued singles on regional labels such as Axbar, the San Antonio imprint that also released his full-length album Doing My Country Thing, and Cherry, the Houston-based company. He further became the regular featured performer at Cutter’s in Beaumont, where his band frequently included future star Tracy Byrd. Nearly ten years of steady work culminated when favorable word of mouth earned him a contract with MCA.

His first MCA album, Too Cold at Home, appeared in 1990 and its title song became his initial hit by reaching the country Top Five. Blending the styles of George Jones, Merle Haggard, and Bob Wills, Chesnutt added four further Top Ten singles from the project: the number one “Brother Jukebox,” “Blame It on Texas,” “Your Love Is a Miracle,” and “Broken Promise Land.” Once that sequence concluded he completed his next release, 1992’s Longnecks & Short Stories, which supplied four additional Top Five entries: “Bubba Shot the Jukebox,” one of his signature recordings, “Old Flames Have New Names,” the chart-topping “I’ll Think of Something,” and “Ol’ Country.” He sustained his run of successes with 1993’s Almost Goodbye, yielding three more number ones—the title track, “It Sure Is Monday,” and “I Just Wanted You to Know.” The 1994 set What a Way to Live delivered the number one “Gonna Get a Life” together with the number two “Goin’ Through the Big D.”

For 1995’s Wings, MCA briefly revived its Decca country imprint and positioned Chesnutt as its lead artist; although the album did not duplicate the commercial output of earlier efforts, reviewers often described it as one of his most varied and cohesive collections. To regain commercial traction, MCA released Greatest Hits in 1996, and the newly recorded “It’s a Little Too Late” advanced all the way to number one. 1997’s Thank God for Believers returned Chesnutt to MCA Nashville and produced a number two single in the title song. With 1999’s I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing he explored crossover territory, especially the Diane Warren ballad of the same name that Aerosmith had already turned into a major hit. Critics frequently commended the relative restraint of Chesnutt’s reading, which led the country charts for a month and crossed into the pop Top 20. Despite that achievement the remaining singles from the album fared less strongly, and his 2000 follow-up Lost in the Feeling underperformed relative to his prior releases. Chesnutt and MCA then ended their association; he moved to Columbia for 2002’s Mark Chesnutt, which achieved respectable sales without restoring his earlier level of success. Audience loyalty nevertheless remained intact, leading to Savin’ the Honky Tonk on Vivaton Records in 2004 and Heard It in a Love Song on Cbuj Entertainment in 2006. Rollin’ with the Flow arrived in 2008, followed by 2010’s Outlaw, a set of covers drawn from outlaw country classics. Six years after Outlaw, Chesnutt issued Tradition Lives, his first group of newly written original songs in eight years.