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An Interview with Mark Chesnutt
I Heard It In A Love Song
Windows and doors are closed in the Country Music industry, and oddly enough fresh air is not coming from the newest and youngest artists popping out of their latest just-signed record contracts, but from the vast legacy of songs left behind by those who once made Country Music proud of being just that, Country. And from those who dare to step aside and keep it, God bless them, Country. I was hoping to listen to a good Country Music album. After all, it was Mark Chesnutt’s new studio project after the perfect Honky Tonk exercise of “Savin’ the Honky Tonk” (Vivaton Records, 2004). Let’s be honest, he has always been a favorite to me. His phrasing, his aching way of approaching a sad Country song, his technically impeccable understanding of each and every verse. The best pupil George Jones has ever had. Ever since I first heard him singing that old “Welcome fool” a number of years ago, I knew he was born with one of those good real Country hearts. And he could naturally share his gift and beliefs with this amazed world of ours. There I was, waiting for the magic to happen one more time. And it sure did. I placed the CD in the player, turned the volume up, hit play, sat down and there he was. “Heard It In a Love Song” (CBUJ Entertainment) is still holding this man’s best Country tradition (that also includes some Western Swing on “That Good That Bad”), and I listened to the entire album with a big smile on my face while I heard myself whisper “thank you, man”. Ten songs, that is all it takes to state the importance of being true to your soul and to your music. Among them, Leon Payne’s “Lost Highway” (that Hank Williams endowed with an everlasting dramatic glow), Bobby Austin and Johnny Paycheck’s “Apartment # 9”, Merle Haggard’s “A Shoulder To Cry On” and even Hank Jr’ “You Can’t Find Many Kissers”. He still is as good as they come. A treasure to behold. The 1993 CMA Horizon Award winner and Billboard’s Ten Most-Played radio artist of the ‘90’s, four platinum albums and five gold ones, 14 No 1 singles and over 23 Top 10 singles, is back. Thank you Mark for keeping it so real. It certainly is hats tipping time. Esther Berlanga-Ryan - Who’s Mark Chesnutt today? Mark Chesnutt - I’m me, one hundred percent. E.B-R - What’s Country Music to you? M.C. - Oh, it’s George Jones and Merle Haggard and Hank Williams…All the great voices and song writers that have made Country Music what it really is. I am also a huge fan of Johnny Cash (silence). I got to meet him one time..that was special to me. I really think that if you are not a fan you are just not an American! E. B-R - And Honky Tonk music? M.C. - It’s how I am making my living, it is what I do. Honky Tonk and Country Music is what I do best, and unfortunately there is not many of us that do it anymore..so.. (silence).. I don’t know why it is that way today. A lot of guys these days didn’t grow up in the honky tonks, and they are not being raised on this tradition. It is a bit sad. Their roots go only as far as Garth Brooks. I guess they are not as old as I am…I don’t know…(laughs)… E.B-R - Why these ten songs for “Heard it in a love song”? M.C. - Well, some were already recorded and were waiting to be released already, like” Goodbye comes hard for me”, and the rest of them I just wanted to do some songs that I grew up singing, like “Apartment # 9”, songs that I was singing when I was a kid, and it really was something I wanted to do. I thought it was a good time to try to put them together now. I love those songs. It’s good, I’m really proud of it. It shows my roots, where I come from, the songs I grew up with, and a lot of people today haven’t heard those songs yet, they never heard of Johnny Paycheck or even an old Merle Haggard song. I think it is time for people to hear that kind of stuff….so I put some songs together for this album, and here we are. E.B-R - You co-wrote “That good that bad”, that you originally recorded for “Thank God for believers”. Why don’t we see more of you as a songwriter? E.B-R - I don’t know…I guess I haven’t developed that talent yet (laughs). I used to write a lot of songs, but I am not a songwriter. I believe I am more comfortable singing the songs somebody else wrote. There are not very many that I have written, I am not a Merle Haggard kind of guy.. E.B-R. - What’s keeping you so Country? M.C. - (laughs) Hell, I don’t know…it’s where I am from, it’s what I know, what I like. This is me, and I can’t be something or somebody else. E.B-R. - Do you miss the old days? What’s different today about the Country Music business, if anything? M.C. - Yeah, I think things were a lot different back then. We were on TV a lot more, things moved a lot faster back then. Now radio is corporate, and it seems like nobody really cares about Country Music like they used to. Before, we could put an album out every year, and we would have five songs as a single, and it ain’t like that anymore (Silence). We don’t have the exposure we used to have. Times just change…Big corporations are telling radio what they need to play and what they don ‘t need to play, instead of allowing artists to have a relationship with radio, like we used to have. It’s all about money now. E.B-R. - Does it bother you at all? M.C. - Hmmm…not as much as they would like me to. I don’t worry about it…I’m still working! (laughs). E.B-R. - What’s the best thing you have ever done? M.C. - Wow…Hmmm…I’m very proud about the fact that I have become friends with my heroes, actually. I have been friends with George Jones for over twenty years, and we talk and have dinner some times. I was friends with Waylon Jennings, and that was a very important and special thing to me. Just the other day I met Steven Tyler from Aerosmith, and we hung out for about an hour.. (laughs). We had a nice time. That means more to me than any awards or any of that. E.B-R. - And the worst? M.C. - I don’t know…(silence) I guess recording “I Don’t Wanna Miss a Thing” (laughs). It was a strange song, and my producer told me I needed to cut the song, and I did it so that I could stay on the label. After that, everybody decided that that was what I was supposed to do, to cover Pop songs, and I left MCA. I don’t have to put up with that bullshit anymore, and that is a very good thing. I certainly won’t be doing that again. Today I can record what I want to record, what I like. E.B-R. - Well, I can’t tell you how glad I am you left MCA. M.C. - (laughs) Thank you. So am I. E.B-R. - What’s the best Country song to you? M.C. - Oh..that is a hard one…(Silence). I think “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry”. It’s the best country song ever written. It has everything a country song has to have and what has made Country music famous for. There is pain and loneliness, and a devastated broken heart. E.B-R. - What makes a song Country to Mark Chesnutt? M.C. - If it’s got steel and fiddle and if it’s true…Like I told you before, Merle Haggard and George Jones, that is pure Country. What makes George Jones such a master to me is his singing, I love his singing. I have always been fascinated with him, the way he places his voice…Oh, there is no one like him. He is just the best. And same thing with Merle, although he is a little different, since he writes most of his songs. I just love that voice. They used to be able to do things just because they were good, and didn’t have to impress anybody. Today they have to do also what they are told to do sometimes, and what’s hot and stuff. Those better days are gone.. E.-R. - What would you say to Hank (Williams) today? M.C. - I don’t know…(Silence) Never thought about that.. (Silence) Probably I wouldn’t be able to say a whole lot! (Laughs). We sure miss him. That simple music that he made is the base of everything that’s done today, even in Rock N’ Roll. It amazes me that the guy did so much in so little years…I love his voice, I love his songs. I love that music. That is Country Music. E.B-R - Why “Lost Highway”? M.C. - I don’t know..Now you are making me think (Laughs)…I simply love that song, it is probably one of my favorite songs of old Hank. And I wanted to record it myself, it is important to me to do what I love the way I want to do it. E.B-R. - What’s the worst thing that can happen to Country Music, in your opinion? M.C. - I guess the worst thing to me is if they quit playing real Country Music on the radio. Rascal Flatts is the new standard and to me that sucks. When you turn the radio on and all you hear is Kenny Chesney and Rascal Flatts, and you don’t hear any steel or any fiddle, well, all of that is very depressing. It is happening now, it is all about the money, and it is the worst that can happen. How much money you can make and how much money your label has, that is all that matters. And it is ruinning everything. E.B-R. - And the best? M.C.- I don’t know (laughs)…I know one of the best things that has happened is George Strait being inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame, so there is still some hope…He is one of my heroes, one of the last real cowboy singers. He is actually the last, there is nobody else like him, and he deserved the honor of being inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. E.B-R - Do you want to say anything to Nashville and their blue-collar lawyers at the record companies? M.C. - They are not ruining it on their own, they are not alone, and I can even understand that they are trying to make a living. But it is just not right. Country Music is turning into a big corporation and it is a shame everything that is going on.. Esther Berlanga-Ryan® |
Let’s
set the record straight: I love Honky Tonk Music. If I had my pick, Ernest Tubb
and Hank Williams would be played everyday in every Country Radio station in
America, just to make sure that the new generations have a fair exposure to one
of Country Music’s most important heritage. And then, of course, George Jones,
Johnny Cash, Loretta Lynn, Patsy Cline, Merle Haggard, Buck Owens…There is no
future without a past to rely on and to learn from. And I can’t help but feeling
disappointed every time I turn the radio on and I hear basically the same kind
of loud Pop lousy sound. It is like staring at a boring monochromatic picture
everyday.