RJ Chesney Explores Grace, Healing & Southern Identity on New Album 'A Southern Man'

RJ Chesney Explores Grace, Healing & Southern Identity on New Album 'A Southern Man'

Release date: september 25, 2026
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Singer-songwriter RJ Chesney releases his deeply personal fourth album, A Southern Man—a powerful Americana collection that explores Southern identity, inherited trauma, forgiveness, resilience, and the possibility of healing. Born and raised in Macon, Georgia, until the age of 9, then he spent the second half of his formative years in Biloxi, Mississippi, Chesney has always carried the South with him.
 
​Written over the course of nearly five years following a global pandemic, a serious medical battle that nearly cost Chesney his hearing, and thousands of miles spent touring North America and Europe, A Southern Man is his most intimate and fully realized work to date. Rather than leaning on familiar Southern stereotypes, the album offers a compassionate portrait of the people, history, and contradictions that shaped him, finding grace in both the beauty and the brokenness.
 
Blending country, folk, blues, rock, and gospel influences, the record was recorded at Electrosound Studios in Los Angeles with producers Zachary Ross and Jason Hiller and features an outstanding cast of musicians. Along the way, Chesney also refined his songwriting through study with acclaimed songwriter Mary Gauthier, resulting in a collection that favors emotional honesty over easy answers.

FIRST SINGLE, "Afraid of the Ball" 

Website:
rjchesney.com