Chris Stapleton A True American Country Superstar

Chris Stapleton: A True American Country Superstar

Appropriately referred to as the All-American Road Show, Chris Stapleton recently finished a whirl around five venues in the United Kingdom. Framed by amazing hills and vast sky in the vivid colours of red, white, and blue, the promotional posters highlighted his grandly bearded, cowboy-hatted features. His country music first sounded like it captured the essence of the American attitude. Over two decades of composing and singing on subjects of love, heartbreak, and—of course—whisky, the 46-year-old musician has Songs such as “Tennessee Whiskey,” originally recorded by David Allan Coe, “Whiskey and You,” “Whiskey Sunrise,” and his rendition of Willie Nelson’s “Whiskey River” has been influenced by his taste for the alcohol. Stapleton recently started his whiskey brand, Traveller. He sang the national anthem at the Super Bowl and worked with big names like Taylor Swift. Stapleton says, considering the approaching November election, “I’m voting for America and a good glass of whiskey.”

How Is Stapleton More Than a Country Cliché?

Though Stapleton is presented as a natural American celebrity with 10 Grammys and 22 million monthly Spotify listeners, he is significantly more nuanced than the typical truck-driving country artist. He understands the prejudices sometimes associated with the genre. Inspired by his native Kentucky, his ambient 2020 single “Hillbilly Blood” goes beyond conventional country music to offer a sequence of southern-gothic vignettes “born out of a riff that sounded pretty mean.” “The people where I’m from, sometimes we’re looked down upon as not as educated or not as smart, or that we don’t have much money or any of those things,” he notes.

Stapleton first seems like a classic macho country-rocker on his biggest recent hit, “White Horse,” until you discover he’s fleeing love, terrified to represent the heroic “cowboy on a white horse / didn’t go into the sunset.” Apart from his performance with Swift, he has also worked with Metallica. While some of his country colleagues, such as Jason Aldean, have lately embraced militant nationalism, Stapleton has penned moving songs like “Watch You Burn”, a potent hymn addressing the 2017 mass murder at the Route 91 Harvest festival in Las Vegas, which left 60 people dead. “You must occasionally pen songs,” he advises over the phone. As songwriters, our responsibility includes connecting with people in such ways as fury and frustration.

What Are Stapleton's Roots in Kentucky?

Stapleton comes from a country. He is the son of a coal miner, and his mother worked at the nearby health department. Loretta Lynn has sung about being the daughter of a coal miner. Growing up in Staffordsville, a little rural community marked by “three stop lights,” he said, “the Friday night football game was the big gathering of the week, then it was church on Sundays. That was kind of it.”

Early musical memories for him include listening to his dad’s outlaw country and old R&B songs in the car and strumming guitar with his uncle. “When my mom wasn’t in the car, it would be a little louder than it should have been for children, probably,” Stapleton notes. “But he loved to listen to music; a lot of my love for my music most likely results from that.”

How Did Stapleton's Journey to Nashville Unfold?

Stapleton first went to Nashville to study biomedical engineering at Vanderbilt University, then changed to business school. He soon came across “an extreme disinterest” in following either route. Having trained himself guitar to a decent level, he discovered a vocation in music when he came across a salaried songwriter at EMI about the turn of the millennium. “I had no idea that was a job,” he says. “I reasoned that someone wrote a song if they were singing it. I had no idea that behind the scenes, there was a whole network of people functioning as music manufacturers. Enamoured with that quickly, I replied, “Well, this is the job I need to have.”

What Made Stapleton a Prolific Songwriter?

Stapleton became known over the next ten years as a prolific, flexible songwriter for both seasoned (Tim McGraw, Kenny Chesney, George Strait) and new country singers (Luke Bryan, Dierks Bentley, Blake Shelton). In an unusual turn of events, he co-wrote a song for the animated feature Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip. Though Stapleton has written over 1,000 songs, he never felt like “a cog in a machine.” “That’s not very romantic or sexy, but it was romantic,” he says. “To get to dig in with all the people that I had got to dig in with—the best of the best in the country music songwriter world—was a real privilege: ‘the art behind the art’ kinda thing.”

Stapleton did not first feel driven to play his music in this composing setting. He wonders, “Why would I?.” But soon, he discovered he had several “perfect songs sitting around and going to waste.” He then started a bluegrass band called the SteelDrivers, then a southern rock band named the Jompson Brothers, and lastly started a solo career. He says, “My wife thought I was crazy as it was an income hit to go on tour. “I probably gave up forty percent of my salary simply because I wasn’t working as hard at songwriting.”

How Did the Title Track of Traveller Come to Be?

Inspired during a road trip with his wife, the singer-songwriter Morgane Stapleton, in 2013, the title tune of Stapleton’s debut album, Traveller, sprang from marriage in 2007; they currently raise five children together after meeting while employed in nearby publishing companies. Morgane advised the road trip after spending $10,000 on a Jeep in Phoenix, Arizona. Stapleton, who was grieving the recent death of his father, found a welcome diversion in the 1,600-mile trip back to Nashville. “In many respects, the whole record was devoted to him,” Stapleton notes. “I attempted to record something he would have enjoyed listening to. I miss my father; he never saw what we are accomplishing now. I never came even to have a concept of that. And you know, I find that challenging.

Travellers first battled to gain traction on national country radio. Stapleton says that it was not based on singles. “We were just going to show performances on it, and that was unusual.” All changed, though, with the 2015 Country Music Association Awards. Along with Morgane and Justin Timberlake, 37-year-old Stapleton sang his “Tennessee Whiskey” and “Drink You Away.” The audience was enthralled by Stapleton’s broiling stage presence and deep crooning. He still had many shows with half-sold tickets the day before. “They vanished all the next day,” he says. “We knew there was a different ballgame.” Re-entered the Billboard album chart at No. 1, Traveller has since sold about six million copies in the US.

How Did Stapleton Redefine Country Music?

Stapleton’s debut occurred when bro-country—a subgenre emphasising positive themes of trucks, women, beer, and partying—typically performed by young guys in double denim ruled Nashville. Labels and audiences yearned for something new. Stapleton’s music—a mix of rock, Americana, bluegrass, R&B, and soul—delivered just that, replete with a raw expressiveness in his voice and a rare sensitivity in his lyrics. Half biker, half throwback to the outlaw country artists of the 1970s, his distinctive appearance also added to his popularity. According to him, “stories” define country music; the Grammy-winning song “You Should Probably Leave” shows his ability for narrative. Driven with shame and sensual passion, the song catches the conflict between two former lovers battling temptation.

What Makes Stapleton a Crossover Superstar?

Stapleton, therefore, grew to be a rare crossover country superstar. Then, there were joint projects involving performers like Ed Sheeran and Adele. Shortly after, twice daily busloads of visitors started showing up outside his Nashville house, which he described as “a little unsettling.” One devoted admirer drove two states over “and just showed up in my driveway.” He says, “Sometimes you might not want to be ‘on’ if you’re trying to eat lunch with your children or something else like that.” Still, that comes with the territory. Before one awards event, his mother seemed more at ease with his notoriety. “I was talking to her on the phone, and she said, ‘Well, have fun getting your awards!'” she said. It seemed like a given outcome. She exudes a significant quantity of pride. Laughing when asked whether he won that evening, he responds, “probably!”

How Does Stapleton Approach Celebrity and Politics?

“By 2023, a headline asked, ” Is Chris Stapleton the one thing America could agree on?” Stapleton had developed great respect with his balanced and even-handed attitude despite sometimes addressing furious and even subversive subjects in his lyrics.

Stapleton says, “I’m not saying celebrities shouldn’t endorse people—that’s American—but that pressure on them to support presidential candidates is understood. Furthermore, I believe in the right to keep things private and allow politicians to be politicians, to let people shape lives.

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