Lexington, KY · country · southern soul

Chris Stapleton

2 upcoming festivals

A songwriter's songwriter with a howl that turns Nashville craft into something closer to Muscle Shoals soul — 'Tennessee Whiskey' just the entry point of a stacked catalog.

Chris Stapleton spent years in Nashville as a working songwriter before becoming known as a performer in his own right, placing songs with country artists across the mainstream and fronting the bluegrass-leaning SteelDrivers. His solo work pairs a heavy, blues-inflected voice with arrangements that lean on guitar, organ and a rhythm section rather than contemporary country production, and he draws as much on Southern soul and rock as on honky-tonk.

His breakthrough as a solo artist came with the album Traveller, and his reading of Dean Dillon and Linda Hargrove's "Tennessee Whiskey" became the song most listeners associate with him. He tours with a small band that regularly includes his wife, Morgane Stapleton, on harmony vocals.

countrysouthern soul