Heart Life Music is a No. 1 NY Times Best Seller
When Kenny Chesney’s Heart Life Music debuted at No. 1 on the New York Times Hardcover Nonfiction and Combined Print and E-Book Nonfiction lists, the East Tennessee songwriter/superstar who became the 2025 Country Music Hall of Fame Contemporary inductee and first country artist to take his music into another dimension at Las Vegas’ Sphere knew there was only one way to celebrate: a book event in New York City. After closing the opening weekend of the prestigious Miami Book Fair with a sold-out conversation with co-author and friend Holly Gleason, the pair will do one more book event in partnership with the Strand at Kaufman Music Centre on the Upper West Side.
“It’s amazing how much people love listening to us talk about the process, the stories, why I finally did it,” marvels Chesney. “After three completely sold-out events in Florida, it felt like we weren’t truly done. After all, you don’t get a New York Times Number One every day, and it seemed like we needed to do one of these talks in New York.”
With a 7 pm start time – and doors opening at 5:30 – Chesney’s next book talk is perhaps the most intimate. Less than 450 tickets are available, but with such quick notice, it seemed like the right place and time to do one more conversation about Heart Life Music.
At a time when so much in the world is polarizing, Chesney’s postcards from a life that saw a college kid go to Moscow, spend time playing a dissolute Lower Broadway only to be signed by a label originally from Macon, Georgia through touring and learning from icons Alabama and George Jones, a whirlwind of friendships with heroes including Jimmy Buffett, Eddie Van Halen, Bruce Springsteen, Sammy Hagar, the Wailers, as well as collaborating with Dave Matthews, Uncle Kracker, Willie Nelson and Grace Potter, put people in the moment and offer a map to create unthinkable things through consistent, if small steps. Offering plenty of wisdom shared, frustrations and failures along the way, Heart Life Music exults the triumphs and the fun that emerged over time.
Known for commanding the largest stages nationwide, Chesney’s first book takes the reader – or audio book listener – to places long gone, creates unexpected music in Jamaica, the Kremlin, New England and Cabo San Lucas, drifts across the waters of the Caribbean, Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Beyond meeting and collaborating with heroes, forging transcendent friendships in the islands and beyond, Chesney’s introspective look at the songs and sound that defined No Shoes Nation offers the intimacy of sharing a slow afternoon on the water.
New stop added to the Heart Life Music Book Tour. I’ll be heading to the Kaufman Music Center in NYC on 12/2 at 7pm. Tickets are on sale now here: https://t.co/hxxeVvIF4M #HeartLifeMusic pic.twitter.com/TRcuCpGwMs
— Kenny Chesney (@kennychesney) November 19, 2025




