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Nashville, TN: After running through their CMA Awards performance at the Sommet Center a couple times, 3-time and current Country Music Association Entertainer of the Year Kenny Chesney and his good friends the Wailers were primed to play. So, with a notion at 1:00 pm, a few phone calls at 2:00 and confirmation by 3:30, Kenny Chesney + the Wailers were set to play the backroom at the iconic Tootsies Orchid Lounge.
“That's the thing about these guys,” explains Chesney of the legendary band from Jamaica that helped define reggae music for the world. “They come to play. They are music people, and it's about what happens when people come together to play songs… to share… and be in the moment.
“After we finished rehearsing, it just didn't feel like enough, you know? You get sorta ready to go, and then it's over. I know that was all I could think: this should be done live, out there, so people can see it. When I asked Family Man (Aston Barrett) if they'd be up for playing, he was ready. You know, it's that thing of you get your feet wet…”
It was more than wet, it was downright sweltering in the packed to capacity club - with people lined up twice around the block to try to get in and see two very different musical worlds colliding. But more than a collision, it was more of a pivot and an overlap, with the Wailers coming to the stage for Chesney's two week #1 “Everybody Wants To Go To Heaven” from his ocean-driven Lucky Old Sun, then shifting into the reggae standard “No Woman No Cry.”
For Chesney, who'd already played an almost hour set with his road band - including a very special surprise duet with Mac McAnally on “Down The Road,” it was the icing on the cake to call the Wailers to the stage of a bar that had been the watering hole for the Opry stars who used to sneak across the ally from the Ryman and struggling songwriter/poets like Willie Nelson and Kris Kristofferson.
“It was two pieces of pretty amazing history in one place,” marveled the man who's made a little history himself as the only act to sell in excess of a million tickets the last 7 years in a row. “You look at the pictures on the walls, and you realize who's been on that stage, sat at the bar, laughed, lied, got drunk, told stories and wrote some songs… and then you look at Fams or even Elan (Atias, their singer) and you think about all the places they've been, and you're just blown away by it all.”
It was a moment unlike any other. Thrown together, sloppy, fun and a place where friends celebrated the spirit of music - as Kid Rock joined the ever-expanding band for “Midnight Rider,” his own “Cowboy” and David Allen Coe's “You Never Even Called Me By Me Name” alongside the Wailers who like McAnally, also stayed onstage.
“On a night like this, when you can look to your right and see Mac - and turn around and see, well, the Wailers playing on 'Gimme 3 Steps' or 'Dixieland Delight' - it's as awesome as having Bob (Kid Rock) singing 'One Love' with us. You know music when it's just good music… and that's what made this so special.”
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