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Kenny Chesney mourned the loss of late songwriting giant Brett James in a tribute on Instagram on Monday (September 22). James died in a small plane crash in North Carolina last week. He was 57.
Chesney said James’ loss is “a very difficult goodbye,” and he resisted writing a post in the late songwriter’s honor for several days because “I didn’t want to believe it.” Chesney noted that he and James wrote “Reality” and “Out Last Night” — which the East Tennessee-born country star released in 2010 and 2009, respectively — on the same day. The pair wrote those two songs “sitting on my pool deck in the Virgin Islands two days after Christmas,” Chesney remembered.
“We had a lot of authentic life fun writing songs together over the years and I’m sure going to miss it,” the 2025 Country Music Hall of Fame inductee wrote in his tribute on Instagram. “It’s hard to process his creative soul being gone. This kind of loss. I feel as if part of my creative soul went with him. It will be a void in my life and creativity forever. I’ve never known writing songs or being on the road without him.
“Half the songs in my shows are songs he wrote or songs we wrote together. So it’s impossible for me to do shows moving forward and not think about him,” Chesney continued. “I can’t believe I’m saying it but adios Brett James. Thank you for being a lifer, for being a shirtless, sunburned troubadour, for your friendship, your songs and all the laughs. Save me a seat at the After Party!”
Chesney concluded his post with lyrics from “Knowing You,” a song that appeared on his Here and Now album in 2020 (which James wrote with Adam James and Kat Higgins): “God we were so alive/ I was a kid on a carnival ride/ Holding my breath til the moment you were gonna leave me to soon/ But I’d do it all over cause damn it was good Knowing You.”
Chesney is one of many artists in the country music community who paid tribute to James since his tragic loss on September 18. Others include Carrie Underwood, Sara Evans, Dierks Bentley, Tim McGraw and many more. See the tributes here.