Chesnutt's not just another singer

"It Sure is Monday," one of Mark Chesnutt's hits, may have run through the country musician's head Monday as he waded through a less glorified side of being a star: hours of back-to-back telephone interviews.

He's an hour behind schedule and 12 interviews seem like 40 right now, he says, but it's not all bad.

"I remember back when I started out 20 years ago, I didn't have anything to say and people didn't have anything to ask me, so it was kind of awkward," he says in his Texas drawl.

Chesnutt is calling from his home in Beaumont, Texas, where he grew up and has remained, before and after hits like "I Don't Want to Miss a Thing," "Bubba Shot The Jukebox," "Blame it on Texas" and "Going Through The Big D," which made him one of Billboard's Ten Most-Played Radio Artists of the 1990s.

"I never moved away, and I'm really thankful for that," says Chesnutt, who plays tonight at the Clearwater River Casino east of Lewiston.

When he quit school at age 17 to focus on music, Chesnutt was cutting his teeth playing clubs in Beaumont's thriving music scene and was considering moving to Nashville.

"My dad told me if I went there I'd just be lost in the crowd. I'd be just another singer. He was real about it, he said, 'Son, there's thousands of other singers better than you are. Stay around here in Beaumont. ... They'll come looking for you.' "

His dad was right. Music Row executives found Chesnutt and in 1989 he signed with MCA Nashville. His first single, "Too Cold At Home," established him as an authentic country vocalist.

"Outlaw," his latest album released this week, is a tribute to icons like Willie Nelson, Kris Kristofferson, Johnny Cash and Waylon Jennings, who kicked down the clean-cut image of Nashville's music scene and brought on what became known as the "outlaw era" of the 1960s and '70s. They grew their hair long, wore beards and jeans and played what and how they wanted.

"Up 'til then if you were a singer in Nashville, you had to do it their way. You were just a talent," says Chesnutt, 46.

The story about Waylon Jennings arming himself for the recording studio is true, he says.

"Waylon came into the studio with a pistol in his hand and said, we're going to do this song and we're going to do it my way. They were scared of Waylon 'cause he was crazy."

"Outlaw" features 12 lesser-known songs of the era, including Cash's "Sunday Morning Coming Down," and Kristofferson's "Loving Her was Easier," which is Chesnutt's favorite on the album.

"We didn't want to record songs that made all the big bucks, like 'Good Hearted Woman,' things like that.

"We wanted to show the songs and not the commercial impact."

He didn't copy the originals but tried to erase what he knew of the records and make the songs his own.

Today the outlaw attitude is alive and well, he says, in artists like Jamey Johnson, who Chesnutt has known for years.

"He's a modern-day outlaw, writing his own songs, doing it his way," Chesnutt says. "On the female side is Miranda Lambert. She's got that bad-ass Texas attitude. It's working for her."

Lewiston's Coltrain opens tonight's show at 6:45. Chesnutt says he'll bring a mix of old hits and new work to the stage at 8.

"You just never know; sometimes somebody'll yell something out and we might give it a shot. I just want everybody to be ready for a honky-tonk time."

On the Net: www.markchesnutt.com

Bauer may be contacted at jkbauer@lmtribune.com or (208) 848-2263.

If you go

Who: Mark Chesnutt

When: 8 tonight; Coltrain opens at 6:45

Where: Clearwater River Casino, four miles east of Lewiston along U.S. Highway 95/12

Admission: $45, $35, $25, $20, available at the casino gift shop, (208) 746-0723, (800) 325-SEAT (7328), or online at TicketsWest.com