Birthday and Kenny Chesney Music Review

Hey Everyone, JB here with you again…

WOW, once again everyone, time has been flying by so fast lately since I last caught up with all of you. As I sit here today and write this blog to all of you, it is now the day after my birthday, it seems like it just came up out of nowhere and then in the blink of an eye was gone before it really got going good, (although I think we all believe that about our own birthdays respectively), so first off, to those of you who sent me Happy Birthday wishes, I personally thank each and every one of you truly, & deeply, from the bottom of my heart for those wishes, and I appreciate each one of them, it means more to me than you may ever know. And while my birthday may not have turned out exactly how I had planned for it to go, I still made it a blast as much as possible, and I plan for more excitement in the future to come, and I hope each and everyone of you plan on joining this “WILDMAN” for the adventures that lie ahead of us, while I can’t see what lies up around the bend, I believe its going to be something great and totally awesome!

On to the music reviews… this will be a two-part blog review

Today were going to start out with the new album by the Current Main Man of country and the Island Boy himself, Kenny Chesney and his new album "Hemingway’s Whiskey." It's an interesting title in being so well know to so many of us who know the famous Hemingway’s writings and books and how they seemed to carry us off to a place within the pages of his novels that seemed at that time, to be places in which you could find only in your dreams but yet, was actually right in our own backyard here in Florida and down in the Florida Key’s. There is a lot of magic down in the Florida Key’s some of which, I can tell you about myself from personal experiences. I’ve lived in Florida on and off a lot of my life and still currently travel quite a great deal all over the world, and yet no matter where I am at whether it is here in this state or away in my traveling, I always seem to think back to the good weather, and I can just look up when I'm near the coast, or even when I'm inland and I see some of the most beautiful skies and sunsets in the world here in Florida, it's enough to take your breath away and can show you just how beautiful life is. Although this title seems to mean a lot to Kenny Chesney himself as well as an avid Hemingway fan and becomes evident when listening to this album.

We’ll start out with the track “Live A Little” a rockous little rock out track with some country roots that seems to be geared towards those of us who seem to work just a little to much in our lives and within the song we find that some of us and eventually all of us finally hit that realization, that there is a bit of fun out there to be had even during our current troubled times, and that even with everything going on in our own lives and the stresses we face, the work we have to do everyday that, we need to as Kenny sings, “take some time and waste it on number one.”

Next up is a track with a sort of similar musical styling to “Live A Little” that I enjoy called “Coastal” it talks about that life we all desire our whole lives, and that we work so hard towards during our youth, and wish we could have in during our youth, when we would love to enjoy it, when you’ve finally just worked so hard and can’t give anymore well like it says “Hey, you gotta watch that man, He’ll go Coastal on ya!!!”

Following all of that island lifestyle awesome goodness, we then slow things down for a little bit to go down an old familiar yet comforting road into a country song that has some of the most sincerity, passion, pain, and heartbreak of any country song written in today’s or from country music’s yesterday. This track is called “You and Tequila” and features guest singer “Grace Potter.” This song talks about a love that has long since passed away with the sands of time, at least where most everyone else is concerned but not within the heart of the soul, which alone is a very hard place to erase love from. The soul of one’s own self is a power so deep and true that not even the pain of heartbreak can extinguish it.

Now I’m not going to go into personal experiences of what, why or even how I can relate to this song, but I will tell you this, turn this song on, turn your mind off, and go back to that place where it all made sense and it all went wrong, all at once, open up your heart and soul and let this song wash over all the hurt and pain that you may still have within you, as it sings, “You and Tequila make me crazy, run like poison through my blood” and then you will understand the subtlety of the meaning of “it’s always your favorite sins that do you in” trust me on this my friends, it may and probably will hurt for a little while again, to remember these times in your life from long long ago, depending on what happened to you but, after a listen or two to this song, you will find some comfort in these lyrics. I’ve spent a lot of nights staring at the moon and the stars in the sky contemplating life, love and the meaning of, all with a bottle or two of tequila by my side, and it is truly never enough. So you’re not alone.

We then head on down the road back a little further into our past with a track called “Where I Grew Up.” Now for myself, I’m not old, but not young young, and I’ve definitely still got a whole lot of living left to do in this world but, I can say that there are and have been times where I wish I could go back to when I was little boy and re-live those days over again, I’ve left this place numerous times and always enjoy being on my own doing me and my thing, and although I grew up in a lot of different places, and I feel like I’ve left a little piece of myself behind in each place, but reflecting on this song, I am certain we all can say this. You never really realize with our crazy hectic stress filled rat-race lives just how fast time really goes by and when you finally stop and think about you won’t believe what your mind goes back too from days gone by. So listen carefully as we progress through this track because then we come to that point in life a lot of us hit where we find that someone special and then it all comes flooding back in. Never take what you have for granted, you don’t know how lucky you’ve got it until its all gone. Father Time can be very cruel or wonderful; I hope for all of your sakes its good to you.

We then pick up the tempo once again and continue carrying that last idea or thought with the track called ”Reality” in which that, we can’t take life for granted and we’ve got to stop and smell the “proverbial” roses if you will sometimes, try and see the better things that there are in life and all of the fun we could have in life if we just give it half a chance, sometimes taking those chances and those blind leaps of faith like it sings our soundtrack to guide us: “Reality, yeah sometimes life Ain’t all that it’s cracked up to be” “So let’s take this chance and live this fantasy” “Cause Everybody needs to break free from reality” and while it may seem scary at first with those leaps into the unknown they usually workout  in the end, better for us than we could have ever expected or hoped for, definitely a track worth checking out.

For one last track that I believe to be noteworthy on this album I will refer you to one of the bonus tracks “Ain’t Ever Going Back Again” 

The song is self-explanatory, I can say that I've been there and I am in the process of going back there to that state of mind again. It’s definitely a good feeling I can tell all of you that!

See you soon with Part 2.

 - JB