<object width="640" height="360"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/GRr2lKURsKs?version=3&amp;hl=en_US"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/GRr2lKURsKs?version=3&amp;hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="640" height="360" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object>

Music, like any business, is often about hard work and connections and having the vision to bring the two together. I've always had trouble with the story of the genesis of "You and Tequila" because it all seemed a bit too neatly packaged. Country hit maker floating on a boat in the Caribbean hears "Apologies" (what, on Sirius XM's "Girls with Emotion" station?) and places one phone call, a few months later - Grammy. Here's the real story, or at least a more interesting and detailed version - and it's a good one. 


<a href="http://www.nodepression.com/profiles/blogs/where-grammys-come-from-you-amp-tequila-friends-who-drive-by-in">No Depression</a>

It started with a bottle of French red. Well, actually a phone call from a car from a girl on her way home from dinner; she was not quite ready to be done, not quite sure she wanted to hang where she was.

 

So Matraca Berg pulled into my driveway, where she knew a bottle of Chateau Malmaison might be found. Not just found, but uncorked and poured into glasses. The deep purple/red splashing against the bottom and washing up on the sides.

 

There was a young writer there, one who was talking about theories of connecting, what moves people, how truth comes together with melody. And then there she was, a Hall of Fame inductee, a CMA Song of the Year winner, a girl whose ache was as palpable as the cigarette smoke and the grapes, I had my computer out. We were playing song demo roulette. I smiled. “I know what we’ll play him…,” I smirked, scrolling down to “You & Tequila.”

....

enny knew he had something. He wanted to make it more. Every one of his albums has a pensive song, one that burns like salt in a cut, the sun in your eyes, rope against skin. “Anything But Mine” was the girl who was gone, but always there. “Better As A Memory” served as an elegy for the man who knew he could never stay. “A Lot of Things Different” was a spoken/sung reckoning with the mistakes that shouldn’t have happened. For “You & Tequila,” he wanted something more.

He was going to get the Eagles. The song evoked Southern California’s desperation beneath the peaceful easy feeling. But, gosh, who hadn’t sung with them?

No, Kenny Chesney wanted something unexpected, something plangent, something that would haunt you long after the song had faded from the dial.

“Why not Grace Potter?” I suggested. Though a shrieking jam-rocker, her voice carried emotion, especially sorrow, like it was precious cargo.

“Grace…,” he echoed.

“Something different, something with tension.”

“Hmmm…”