Biography

I was born on March 26, 1968, in Knoxville, Tennessee, at St. Mary's Medical Center and I was raised in Luttrell, and is of English and Irish descent. Am the son of David Chesney, a former elementary school teacher, and Karen Chandler, a hair stylist in the Knoxville area. Chesney has one sibling, a younger sister named Jennifer Chandler. In 1986, Chesney graduated from Gibbs High School, where he played baseball and football. I received my first guitar, "The Terminor", for Christmas and began teaching my self how to play it. I studied advertising at East Tennessee State University in Johnson City, where I was a member of the ETSU Bluegrass Program and the Lambda Chi Alphafraternity and graduated in 1990 In 1982, I won the best male yodeler at the International Yodeling Championship in Zurich, Switzerland. In 1989, I recorded a self-released demo album at the Classic Recording Studio in Bristol, Virginia. I sold 1,000 copies while performing at the local clubs in Johnson City and used the money from album sales to help my buy a new guitar. After graduation from East Tennessee State in 1990, I headed to Nashville and performed at several local clubs. I became the resident performer at The Turf, a honky tonk bar in the city's historic district