Mark Nelson Chesnutt (born September
6, 1963) is an American country music singer and songwriter. Between 1990 and
1999, he had his greatest chart success recording for Universal Music Group
Nashville's MCA and Decca branches, with a total of eight albums between
those two labels. During this timespan, Chesnutt also charted twenty top-ten
hits on the Billboard Hot Country Songs charts, of which eight reached number
one: "Brother Jukebox",
"I'll Think of Something",
"It Sure Is Monday",
"Almost Goodbye",
"I Just Wanted You to Know",
"Gonna Get a Life",
"It's a
Little Too Late", and a cover of Aerosmith's "I Don't Want to Miss a
Thing". His first three albums for MCA (Too Cold at Home, Longnecks & Short
Stories, and Almost Goodbye) along with a 1996 Greatest
Hits package issued on Decca are all certified
platinum by the Recording
Industry Association of America (RIAA); 1994's What a Way to Live,
also issued on Decca, is certified gold. After a self-titled album in 2002
on Columbia Records, Chesnutt
has continued to record predominantly on independent labels. Chesnutt is known
for his neotraditionalist country and honky-tonk influences, with frequent stylistic comparisons
to George Jones. He has
recorded several cover songs as both singles and album cuts, including covers
of Hank Williams Jr., John Anderson, Don Gibson, Conway Twitty, and Charlie Rich. Artists with whom he has collaborated include
Jones, Tracy Byrd, Vince Gill, and Alison Krauss. Mark Wright produced
all but one of his albums released in the 1990s, while his work since 2005 has
been produced by Jimmy Ritchey. Chesnutt
has also won two awards from the Country Music Association:
the Horizon Award (now known as Best New Artist) and Vocal Event of the Year,
both in 1993.