{"id":2049993,"date":"2025-09-25T20:21:50","date_gmt":"2025-09-25T20:21:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2049993"},"modified":"2025-09-25T20:21:50","modified_gmt":"2025-09-25T20:21:50","slug":"kenny-chesney-breaks-silence-on-when-the-sun-goes-down-songwriter-brett-james-death","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/kenny-chesney-breaks-silence-on-when-the-sun-goes-down-songwriter-brett-james-death\/","title":{"rendered":"Kenny Chesney Breaks Silence on \u2018When the Sun Goes Down\u2019 Songwriter Brett James\u2019 Death"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Kenny Chesney<\/strong><\/a> is remembering the life and legacy of famed songwriter and his dear friend, Brett James<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\u201cA very difficult goodbye to my Brother Of The Sun Brett James,\u201d Chesney, 57, wrote via Instagram on Monday, September 22. \u201cI haven\u2019t wanted to post \u2018cause I didn\u2019t want to believe it. Brett and I shared a unique bond. A Brotherhood. A kinship. We wrote \u2018Reality\u2019 and \u2018Out Last Night\u2019 on the same afternoon sitting on my pool deck in the Virgin Islands two days after Christmas.\u201d<\/p>\n

The country music star continued, \u201cWe had a lot of authentic life fun writing songs together over the years and I\u2019m sure going to miss it. It\u2019s 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\u2019ve never known writing songs or being on the road without him.\u201d<\/p>\n

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) revealed on Friday, September 19, that James \u2014 along with his wife, Melody Carole<\/strong>, and stepdaughter Meryl Maxwell Wiilson<\/strong> \u2014 died when their single-engine Cirrus SR22T plane crashed into a field<\/a> near Iotla Valley Elementary School in Franklin, North Carolina, on Thursday, September 18, according to The New York Times<\/a>. He was 57 years old.<\/p>\n

The Saddest and Most Shocking Deaths in Country Music: Jake Flint, Naomi Judd and More<\/a><\/p>\n

The NTSB and the Federal Aviation Administration\u2019s investigation into the crash is ongoing and a preliminary report is expected within 30 days.<\/p>\n

\u201cHalf the songs in my shows are songs he wrote or songs we wrote together,\u201d Chesney continued on Monday. \u201cSo it\u2019s impossible for me to do shows moving forward and not think about him.\u201d<\/p>\n

The pair had collaborated on a number of hit songs, including \u201cOut Last Night,\u201d \u201cYou See Me,\u201d \u201cSpirit of a Storm,\u201d \u201cWhen the Sun Goes Down\u201d and \u201cWife and Kids.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added on Monday, \u201cI can\u2019t believe I\u2019m 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

The musician then quoted one of his many calibrations with the late songwriter.<\/p>\n

\u201cGod we were so alive. I was a kid on a carnival ride. Holding my breath til the moment you were gonna leave me too soon. But I\u2019d do it all over cause damn it was good Knowing You,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n

Carrie Underwood Reacts to \u2018Unfathomable\u2019 Death of Frequent Collaborator Brett James: \u2018A Good Guy\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n

James\u2019 stepdaughter, Meryl, had celebrated her 28th birthday on September 16, prior to her untimely death.<\/p>\n

\u201c28 years old. 142 days sober. Extremely happy to be here,\u201d she wrote, in what turned out to be her last Instagram post. Her mother Melody\u2019s penultimate Instagram post, meanwhile, was a loving tribute to her daughter on her last birthday.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow Blessed am I to be your Momma,\u201d Melody wrote on September 17. \u201cYou\u2019re the MOST BEAUTIFUL AMAZING HUMAN inside and out! I\u2019m humbled and grateful everyday for your shining presence in my life! God has already used you for his Kingdom in so many ways and so much more to come! No words can express what a gift you are to me and everyone that KNOWS YOU!\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kenny Chesney is remembering the life and legacy of famed songwriter and his dear friend, Brett James. \u201cA very difficult goodbye to my Brother Of The Sun Brett James,\u201d Chesney, 57, wrote via Instagram on Monday, September 22. \u201cI haven\u2019t wanted to post \u2018cause I didn\u2019t want to believe it. Brett and I shared a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2049994,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25173],"tags":[375297,350615,375963,375411,378890],"class_list":["post-2049993","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artists","tag-brett-james","tag-kenny-chesney","tag-melody-carole","tag-national-transportation-safety-board","tag-writing-songs"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Kenny-Chesney-Breaks-Silence-on-\u2018When-the-Sun-Goes-Down.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2049993","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2049993"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2049993\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2049994"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2049993"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2049993"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2049993"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}