Kenny Chesney bids farewell to late ‘brother’ Brett James

Kenny Chesney looked back fondly on the precious time he spent together with Brett James before he died last week.

Three days after the Grammy winning songwriter’s passing at the age of 57, in a tragic plane crash, Chesney, also 57, finally broke his silence, mourning the death of his "Brother Of The Sun."

Taking to Instagram on Monday, September 22, the American country singer penned a heartfelt tribute to honour the memory of James and offered "a very difficult goodbye," to him.

"I haven’t wanted to post cause I didn’t want to believe it," he began the emotional caption alongside a carousel of photos. "Brett and I shared a unique bond. A Brotherhood. A kinship. We wrote Reality and Out Last Night on the same afternoon sitting on my pool deck in the Virgin Islands two days after Christmas."

The There Goes My Life singer shared that he will deeply miss making music with James, whose passing has left a void in his life. "I feel as if part of my creative soul went with him. It will be a void in my life and creativity forever. I’ve never known writing songs or being on the road without him," he wrote.

"I can’t believe I’m saying it but adios Brett James," Chesney, who performed many songs written by the Jesus, Take The Wheel hitamaker; either solo or co-written together; continued, "So it’s impossible for me to do shows moving forward and not think about him."

"Save me a seat at the After Party! [hands joined, orange heart, palm tree, sun and broken red heart emoji]," he concluded 

The late songwriter and Chesney shared a close bond and collaborated as writers on several songs including When The Sun Goes Down, Out Last Night, Just to Say We Did, Keg in the Closet, Spirit of a Storm and many others.

For the unversed, James was in a small-engine plane that went down in Macon County near Franklin, North Carolina on Thursday, September 18.