''Hemingway's Whiskey'' is the thirteenth studio album by American
country music
Country (also called country and western) is a genre of popular music that originated in the Southern and Southwestern United States in the early 1920s. It primarily derives from blues, church music such as Southern gospel and spirituals, o ...
artist
Kenny Chesney
Kenneth Arnold Chesney (born March 26, 1968) is an American country music singer, songwriter, and guitarist. He has recorded more than 20 albums and has produced more than 40 Top 10 singles on the US ''Billboard'' Hot Country Songs and Country ...
. It was released on September 28, 2010 as his last studio album for
BNA Records
BNA Records, formerly known as BNA Entertainment, was a label group that shared ties with Arista Nashville and RCA Nashville from parent company Sony Music Nashville, which itself is a subsidiary of Sony Music Entertainment. Based in Nashvil ...
. This is Kenny Chesney's last studio album since signing contracts with
BNA Records
BNA Records, formerly known as BNA Entertainment, was a label group that shared ties with Arista Nashville and RCA Nashville from parent company Sony Music Nashville, which itself is a subsidiary of Sony Music Entertainment. Based in Nashvil ...
in 1995, with the release of
All I Need to Know.
This album received generally positive reviews from music critics. It debuted at number one on the US
''Billboard'' 200 chart, selling approximately 183,000 copies during its first week. It has also been certified platinum by the
RIAA
The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is a trade organization that represents the music recording industry in the United States. Its members consist of record labels and distributors that the RIAA says "create, manufacture, and/ ...
. The album produced five singles on the US ''
Billboard
A billboard (also called a hoarding in the UK and many other parts of the world) is a large outdoor advertising structure (a billing board), typically found in high-traffic areas such as alongside busy roads. Billboards present large advertis ...
''
Hot Country Songs chart between 2010 and 2011. Four of those singles "
The Boys of Fall
"The Boys of Fall" is a song written by Casey Beathard and Dave Turnbull, and recorded by American country music artist Kenny Chesney. It was released in July 2010 as the first single from Chesney's album '' Hemingway's Whiskey''.
Content
The lyri ...
", "
Somewhere with You
"Somewhere with You" is a song written by Shane McAnally and J. T. Harding and recorded by American country music singer Kenny Chesney. It was released in November 2010 as the second single from Chesney's 2010 album '' Hemingway's Whiskey''. The so ...
", "
Live a Little", and "
Reality
Reality is the sum or aggregate of all that is real or existent within a system, as opposed to that which is only imaginary. The term is also used to refer to the ontological status of things, indicating their existence. In physical terms, r ...
" all reached number one, while "
You and Tequila" went to number three.
Background
In an interview with ''The Boot'', Chesney explained the reasoning behind the title of his new release, citing the influence of
Guy Clark
Guy Charles Clark (November 6, 1941 – May 17, 2016) was an American folk and country singer-songwriter and luthier. He released more than 20 albums, and his songs have been recorded by other artists, including Jerry Jeff Walker, Jimmy Buffet ...
, saying "I was sitting in my truck and a friend had given me Guy's album, which had just come out. It's a song that talks about living life to its fullest, being a man about your responsibilities and not compromising. As soon as I heard it, I knew I had to cut it -- and call the album that -- because it says everything about the way you live your life, and what life can be if you refuse to buy into limits, which, as someone who's read all his books, is everything Hemingway's novels revolved around."
In a ''
CMT'' blog, Chesney also commented saying that he wanted the album to be "something more " than its predecessor, ''
Lucky Old Sun'': "I came to town to write songs, to make records, to create something that spoke about how I lived, and the people who I knew who were just like me and my friends lived."
"Small Y'all", a duet with
George Jones
George Glenn Jones (September 12, 1931 – April 26, 2013) was an American country musician, singer, and songwriter. He achieved international fame for his long list of hit records, including his best-known song " He Stopped Loving Her Today", ...
, was originally recorded by
Randy Travis
Randy Bruce Traywick (born May 4, 1959), known professionally as Randy Travis, is an American country music and gospel music singer, songwriter, guitarist, and actor.
Active from 1978 until being incapacitated by a stroke in 2013, he has recor ...
on his 1994 album ''
This Is Me
This Is Me may refer to:
Albums
* ''This Is Me'' (Charlie McDonnell album), 2010
* ''This Is Me'' (Heather Peace album), 2010
* ''This Is Me'' (Jully Black album), or the title song, 2005
* ''This Is Me'' (Kierra Sheard album), or the titl ...
'' and then by Jones on his 1998 album ''
It Don't Get Any Better Than This''.
Critical reception
Upon its release, ''Hemingway’s Whiskey'' received generally positive reviews from most music critics.
At
Metacritic
Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...
, which assigns a
normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an
average
In ordinary language, an average is a single number taken as representative of a list of numbers, usually the sum of the numbers divided by how many numbers are in the list (the arithmetic mean). For example, the average of the numbers 2, 3, 4, 7, ...
score of 67, based on 6 reviews, which indicates "generally favorable reviews".
Jon Caramanica with ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' called the album "darker than his previous work", saying that "on ''Hemingway's Whiskey'', though, his voice sounds smoother and deeper than usual, and he's using it to more potent effect".
He also preferred Chesney's version of the title track over Guy Clark's, saying that "
s version of the title track is of course far cleaner than Guy Clark’s, whose original take on it was practically withering on the microphone, but Mr. Chesney sounds studious and earnest."
Matt Bjorke with ''Roughstock'' gave it a four-star rating and called the album " a record that finds Kenny Chesney feeling recharged," and one "that runs the gamut of human emotion and paints stories the way Hemingway’s novels did."
Stephen Thomas Erlewine
Stephen Thomas Erlewine (; born June 18, 1973) is an American music critic and senior editor for the online music database AllMusic. He is the author of many artist biographies and record reviews for AllMusic, as well as a freelance writer, oc ...
with
AllMusic
AllMusic (previously known as All-Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the dat ...
called the album "burnished and classy" and admired the amount of 'slow' material on the album.
''
American Songwriter
''American Songwriter'' is a bimonthly magazine covering songwriting. Established in 1984, it features interviews, songwriting tips, news, reviews and lyric contest. The magazine is based in Nashville, Tennessee.
History
The ''American Songwr ...
'' critic Rick Moore gave it a four star rating. Describing it as "a solid effort", he commented on the songwriting of the album, saying it "pays homage to Nashville’s songwriting community".
At ''
Rolling Stone
''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner, and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. It was first known for its co ...
'',
Jody Rosen
Jody Rosen (born June 21, 1969 in New York City) is an American journalist and author. He is a contributing writer for ''The New York Times Magazine''.
Career Journalism
Rosen served as critic-at-large for '' T: The New York Times Style Magaz ...
found that "Chesney serves up the usual ''carpe diem'' anthems", however he noted that "when the mood turns serious, he slips: He can't muster the gravitas to pull off the title track, a maudlin tribute to Ernest Hemingway."
In addition, Rosen concluded with "as long as the weather's sunny and the blender's whirring, Chesney's fine company."
Robert Silva of
About.com called the album a "solid effort".
At ''
USA Today
''USA Today'' (stylized in all uppercase) is an American daily middle-market newspaper and news broadcasting company. Founded by Al Neuharth on September 15, 1982, the newspaper operates from Gannett's corporate headquarters in Tysons, Virg ...
'',
Brian Mansfield
Brian Mansfield (born September 24, 1963) is an American writer and journalist.
Early life and education
Mansfield grew up in Nashville, Tennessee. He graduated from David Lipscomb High School.
In 1984, Mansfield received a bachelor's degre ...
proclaimed the effort to be "finely aged country".
Bill Friskics-Warren with ''
The Washington Post
''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large n ...
'' called it "his most stylistically wide-ranging
lbumto date" and recommended the title track and "Small Y'all" as the best on the album.
Blake Boldt with ''Engine 145'' gave it a 3½ out of 5 star rating, calling Chesney "the hillbilly king of the Caribbean." He said "with
he album
He or HE may refer to:
Language
* He (pronoun), an English pronoun
* He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ
* He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets
* He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' i ...
he maintains that image and proves that he can still let loose occasionally."
Mario Tarradell with ''
The Dallas Morning News
''The Dallas Morning News'' is a daily newspaper serving the Dallas–Fort Worth area of Texas, with an average print circulation of 65,369. It was founded on October 1, 1885 by Alfred Horatio Belo as a satellite publication of the ''The Galves ...
'' called ''Hemingway's Whiskey'' his "first exceptionally good CD since 2002's ''
No Shoes, No Shirt, No Problems
''No Shoes, No Shirt, No Problems'' is the sixth studio album by American country music singer Kenny Chesney. It was released in April 2002 via BNA Records. It became Chesney's first album to reach number one on the U.S. ''Billboard'' 200 and pr ...
''.
Greg Victor with ''Parcbench'' called the CD his "first extraordinary album since ''No Shoes, No Shirt, No Problems''" He called the tracks "a little more grown-up than usual", and gave the album a 3½ out of 5 star rating. Stuart Munro with ''
The Boston Globe
''The Boston Globe'' is an American daily newspaper founded and based in Boston, Massachusetts. The newspaper has won a total of 27 Pulitzer Prizes, and has a total circulation of close to 300,000 print and digital subscribers. ''The Boston Glob ...
'' called it "another well-wrought articulation of Chesney’s musical world" but also noted that "it isn’t all that far from where he’s been since 2002’s ''No Shoes, No Shirt, No Problems''."
Jessica Phillips with ''
Country Weekly
''Nash Country Weekly'' was an American lifestyle weekly magazine about country artists and their music. It was in circulation between April 1994 and May 2016. The publisher, Cumulus Media, now maintains the site ''Nash Country Daily''.
Overvie ...
'' gave it 3½ out of 5 stars, and noted that his decision to take the past year of touring off "paid off with a more cohesive collection of songs that are at once universal yet obviously personal."
She also called his take on the track "Small Y’all" "easily the most traditionally country tune Kenny has recorded during the past few years."
Commercial performance
''Hemingway's Whiskey'' debuted at number one on the US
''Billboard'' 200 chart, selling 183,000 copies in its first week. This was Chesney's sixth album to reach number one, thus ranking him second among country artists with the most number one albums, only behind
Garth Brooks
Troyal Garth Brooks (born February 7, 1962) is an American country music singer and songwriter. His integration of pop and rock elements into the country genre has earned him popularity, particularly in the United States with success on the co ...
. In its second week, the album dropped to number two on the ''Billboard'' 200, selling an additional 65,000 copies. In its third week, it fell to number six on the chart with 40,000 copies sold. In its fourth week, the album plummeted to number thirteen upon selling 26,126 copies. As of July 2, 2011, the album has sold 850,706 copies in the United States. On August 25, 2011, the album was certified
platinum
Platinum is a chemical element with the symbol Pt and atomic number 78. It is a dense, malleable, ductile, highly unreactive, precious, silverish-white transition metal. Its name originates from Spanish , a diminutive of "silver".
Pla ...
by the
Recording Industry Association of America
The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is a trade organization that represents the music recording industry in the United States. Its members consist of record labels and distributors that the RIAA says "create, manufacture, and/ ...
for sales of over a million copies in the United States.
Track listing
Personnel
;Additional musicians
* Wyatt Beard – background Vocals
* Mark Beckett – drums
*
Pat Buchanan
Patrick Joseph Buchanan (; born November 2, 1938) is an American paleoconservative political commentator, columnist, politician, and broadcaster. Buchanan was an assistant and special consultant to U.S. Presidents Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, ...
– acoustic guitar, electric guitar
*
Buddy Cannon
Buddy Cannon (born April 20, 1947 Lexington, Tennessee) is an American country music songwriter and record producer. Active since the late 1970s, he is known primarily for his work with Willie Nelson and as Kenny Chesney's record producer, for ...
– background vocals
*
Melonie Cannon
Melonie Cannon is an American singer, blending country and bluegrass on her solo albums and session work. Willie Nelson said, "Melonie Cannon is one of the best singers I know."
Biography Early years
Cannon was born in Jackson, Tennessee, but her ...
– background vocals
*
Kenny Chesney
Kenneth Arnold Chesney (born March 26, 1968) is an American country music singer, songwriter, and guitarist. He has recorded more than 20 albums and has produced more than 40 Top 10 singles on the US ''Billboard'' Hot Country Songs and Country ...
– lead vocals
*
Eric Darken
Eric A. Darken is an American percussionist, composer, and programmer.
Biography
Drawing inspiration from his grandfather, a band leader. Darken began playing drums at age 12, and played timpani and mallets in high school. Darken attended ...
– percussion
*
Scotty Emerick
Walter Scott Emerick (born July 11, 1973, in Hollywood, Florida) is an American country music artist, known primarily for his work with Toby Keith. In addition to penning several of Keith's singles, Emerick has also written for Sawyer Brown, ...
– background cocals
*
Larry Franklin
The Lawrence Franklin espionage scandal involved Lawrence Franklin passing classified documents regarding United States policy towards Iran to Israel. Franklin, a former United States Department of Defense employee, pleaded guilty to several espi ...
– fiddle
* Sonny Garrish –
steel guitar
A steel guitar ( haw, kīkākila) is any guitar played while moving a steel bar or similar hard object against plucked strings. The bar itself is called a "steel" and is the source of the name "steel guitar". The instrument differs from a conve ...
*
Kenny Greenberg
Kenneth S. "Kenny" Greenberg is an American guitarist, songwriter, producer, and session musician. He is known for bringing a rock-and-roll sensibility to Nashville recording sessions.
Biography
Greenberg was born in Cleveland, Ohio but atten ...
– acoustic guitar, electric Guitar
* Rob Hajacos – fiddle
* John Hobbs – keyboards, piano
*
George Jones
George Glenn Jones (September 12, 1931 – April 26, 2013) was an American country musician, singer, and songwriter. He achieved international fame for his long list of hit records, including his best-known song " He Stopped Loving Her Today", ...
– duet vocals on "Small Y'all"
*
Paul Leim
Paul may refer to:
*Paul (given name), a given name (includes a list of people with that name)
* Paul (surname), a list of people
People
Christianity
* Paul the Apostle (AD c.5–c.64/65), also known as Saul of Tarsus or Saint Paul, early Chr ...
– drums, percussion
* Randy McCormick – keyboards
*
Paul Overstreet
Paul Lester Overstreet (born March 17, 1955) is an American country music singer and songwriter. He recorded 10 studio albums between 1982 and 2005, and charted 16 singles on the '' Billboard'' country charts, including two No. 1 hits. He h ...
– background Vocals
* Larry Paxton – bass guitar,
tic tac bass
The baritone guitar is a guitar with a longer scale length, typically a larger body, and heavier internal bracing, so it can be tuned to a lower pitch. Gretsch, Fender, Gibson, Ibanez, ESP Guitars, PRS Guitars, Music Man, Danelectro, Schec ...
*
Grace Potter
Grace Evelyn Potter (born June 20, 1983) is an American singer-songwriter and musician who formed Grace Potter and the Nocturnals in 2002. Potter released her debut solo record ''Original Soul'' on 2004 via Grace Potter Music. Potter and her ...
– background vocals on "You and Tequila"
*
Mickey Raphael
Michael Siegfried "Mickey" Raphael (born November 7, 1951) is an American harmonica player, music producer and actor best known for his work with Willie Nelson, with whom he has toured as part of The Family since 1973.
He has performed or recor ...
– harmonica
*
John Wesley Ryles
John Wesley Ryles (born December 2, 1950) is an American country music artist. Ryles recorded a string of hit country songs, beginning in 1968 when he was still a teenager, and continuing through the 1980s. He no longer records as a headline ar ...
– background Vocals
* Jeff Taylor –
accordion
*
Neil Thrasher
Joe Neil Thrasher Jr. (born July 13, 1965) is an American country music singer and songwriter. Between 1995 and 1997, he and Kelly Shiver comprised the duo Thrasher Shiver, which recorded a studio album for Asylum Records in 1996 and charted tw ...
– background Vocals
*
John Willis – acoustic guitar,
gut string guitar
The classical guitar (also known as the nylon-string guitar or Spanish guitar) is a member of the guitar family used in classical music and other styles. An acoustic wooden string instrument with strings made of gut or nylon, it is a precursor of ...
,
mandolin
A mandolin ( it, mandolino ; literally "small mandola") is a stringed musical instrument in the lute family and is generally plucked with a pick. It most commonly has four courses of doubled strings tuned in unison, thus giving a total of 8 ...
;Production
* Natthaphol Abhigantaphand – mastering assistant
* Shelley Anderson – mastering assistant
* Daniel Bacigalupi – mastering assistant
* Steve Blackmon – mixing assistant
* Drew Bollman – mixing assistant
*
Tim Brennan
Tim Brennan is an American musician who is a lead guitarist, vocalist and one of the primary songwriters of the Boston Celtic punk group Dropkick Murphys.
Early life and career
Born in West Hartford, Connecticut, Brennan played drums for num ...
– assistant engineer
* Buddy Cannon – producer
* Butch Carr – engineer
* Tony Castle – engineer
* Kenny Chesney – producer
* Tammie Harris Cleek – imaging, photo production
* Renée Bell – A&R
* Kyle Ford – assistant engineer
*
Judy Forde-Blair – creative producer, liner notes
* Gordon Hammond – assistant engineer
* Greg Lawrence – assistant E engineer
*
Scott McDaniel
Scott McDaniel (born 1965) is an American comics artist who has drawn numerous books, including Marvel Comics' " Fall from Grace" storyline for the ''Daredevil'' series. Notable artwork for DC Comics include a long run on ''Batman'' as regular p ...
– art direction, design
* Andrew Mendelson – mastering
* Seth Morton – assistant engineer
* John Netti – assistant engineer
* Justin Niebank – mixing
* Lowell Reynolds – assistant engineer
* Glen Rose – photography
* Shannon Scott – production coordination
Charts
Weekly charts
Year-end charts
Singles
Certifications
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hemingways Whiskey
2010 albums
Albums produced by Buddy Cannon
BNA Records albums
Kenny Chesney albums