Before Kenny Chesney became a country music superstar, he was just a young man growing up in Luttrell, Tennessee. His love for music didn’t start on a big stage, but on the old wooden porch of his family home. Every evening, as the sun dipped behind the hills, Kenny would sit there with the cheap guitar his mother had given him for Christmas.
His early companion was his elderly neighbor, Mr. Joe, who had once played in a small-town band. Mr. Joe taught Kenny how to feel the rhythm and how to let the lyrics “sink” into the listener. Together, they wrote his very first lines on that porch — a place with no cheering crowds, only crickets and the wind.
As fame took Kenny around the world, he played to massive audiences, but whenever he had the chance, he quietly returned to Luttrell. He would sit again on that same porch, this time alone, still holding that old guitar. “Nowhere reminds me of who I am like this place,” he once said.
After Mr. Joe passed away, Kenny wrote “Back Where I Come From” as a tribute. He performs it at every tour, but only in Luttrell, sitting on the porch, does he sing the full original version — with a final verse never recorded, meant only for the friend who showed him how to begin.
Life and work after Mr. Joe’s passing
That loss changed the way Kenny approached music. He began writing more about home and simple memories, rather than just love stories or party anthems. He kept a small notebook close, just as Mr. Joe once advised: “Ideas come like the wind — hold them before they’re gone.” Even with a packed touring schedule, he set aside a few weeks each year to return home, sit alone on the porch, write songs, and watch the sunset. For him, it was a way to keep his heart grateful and his feet firmly on the ground.