Country Mike Blog

Chesnutt Goes Outlaw

Mike Sudhalter  |  May 26, 2010

Mark Chesnutt recently recorded an album full of cover songs from country music's outlaw era

When Mark Chesnutt sang that he'd "been having a ball since I was a boy in Beaumont," in "Blame It On Texas", I had no reason not to believe him.

If he was having fun back then, I'm sure it's even better now.

Gone are the pressures of recording radio-friendly songs. Chesnutt can focus on recording the music that he wants, the way he wants.

And he did that with an album called "Outlaw," which covers songs from the 1970's and 1980's by the likes of Waylon Jennings, Hank Williams Jr., David Allan Coe and others.

It sounds good, but if there's anyone in Nashville that I'd like to hear do a cover album of Hank Sr. and George Jones, it would be Chesnutt.

I hope that a project like that will be in the works for one of country music's best honky-tonk singers.

Chesnutt has always represented the traditional side of country, starting with his major label debut, "Too Cold At Home," in 1990.

He had a few musical missteps along the way, but the majority of his songs over the past two decades have proven that he helped keep true country music on the airwaves.