Mark Chesnutt

Born in 1963 in Beaumont, Texas, Mark Chesnutt belongs to the American neotraditional country tradition, heavily influenced by the local honky-tonk where he performed at a young age alongside his father, musician Bob Chesnutt. After several years playing bars and dance halls in southeast Texas, he recorded independent albums in the late 1980s before signing with MCA Nashville, which released "Too Cold at Home" in 1990 — the starting point for a sustained presence on the 1990s country scene. Subsequent records such as "Longnecks & Short Stories" (1992), "Almost Goodbye" (1993), "What a Way to Live" (1994) and "Wings" (1995) established Chesnutt in a style that mixes melodic ballads, barroom numbers and everyday narratives. At the end of the decade the album "I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing" (1999), driven by a cover of the Aerosmith title, broadened his audience further, followed by releases like "Savin’ the Honky Tonk" (2004), "Outlaw" (2010) and "Tradition Lives" (2016). Chesnutt’s style remains focused on a clear, direct voice, traditional arrangements highlighting steel, guitars and fiddle, and songwriting attached to classic themes of Texas country: romantic relationships, nocturnal wanderings and rural roots.