Issue #43: Country Music's Chris Stapleton Decade

Somehow an understated guy with a big beard sums up Nashville now more neatly than anyone else.

TOMORROW: We have newsletter fave Jaime Wyatt joining us on Zoom for Don’t Rock The Inbox Live! (!!) Mark your calendars for Wednesday, February 21st at 6 p.m. CT; the Zoom link will be sent to paying subscribers that morning, so make sure you’re subscribed before then so you don’t miss out on all the fun!

***We’ve got another incredible live Q&A coming up (!! a true embarrassment of riches): Lizzie No on February 27th at 6 pm CT. Mark your calendars now, and the flyer will be live soon!***

FRIDAY: We are hosting our first meet-up!! If you live in North Texas, come party with Natalie (and possibly pick up a koozie and sticker) and see friends of the newsletter Billy Law and Van Plating at Sundown at Granada in Dallas on February 23rd! Pick up your tickets here, and make sure you get there right when the doors open at 9 for all the meet-up fun before the music starts.

By Natalie

Almost ten years ago, a Nashville veteran and critical darling put pop music in a headlock with an irreverent cover of an '80s country hit. "Tennessee Whiskey" has just about as esteemed a country lineage as any song — written by Dean Dillon and Linda Hargrove, first recorded by David Allen Coe, made a hit by George Jones — and yet, it irrevocably belongs to Stapleton. 

He transformed the song, rendering it unrecognizable by playing it as a waltz and cribbing heavily from Etta James' "I'd Rather Go Blind" to put as much soul in his country as he could get away with — and creating a modern standard in the process. Now, even Dillon uses Stapleton's arrangement when he plays the tune. The only reason it gets labeled as country in the first place is because of Stapleton's years of songwriting and dues-paying in Nashville (and, of course, the fact that he is a cisgender white man). 

In retrospect, it is so funny (let's call it funny, it's also a compelling example of Music Row's delusions about itself) to watch his performance of the song with Justin Timberlake at the 2015 CMAs — the one that served as Stapleton's breakout and the primary force propelling "Tennessee Whiskey" to ubiquity since the song was never pushed to radio. Host Brad Paisley introduced the duo as "the Nashville Sound meets the soul of Memphis" — implying, I guess, that Stapleton embodies "the Nashville Sound" (despite that the Nashville Sound is a specific historic thing) and Justin Timberlake embodies "the soul of Memphis" (woof) — before the pair's rousing performance. If anyone was channeling "the soul of Memphis" that night, it was clearly Stapleton — and the country people loved it.

(I am so tempted to go on a full tangent about this performance: Not only is Stapleton using Etta James as primary source material for his cover, but "Drink You Away" — the single Timberlake is promoting — was co-written by the pop singer with Timbaland, J-Roc and James Fauntleroy. Black artistry once again getting deemed plenty country for country music's biggest night, but not Black faces.)

"Tennessee Whiskey" also now belongs to Stapleton because his version is one of the biggest single successes of the streaming era. It is the 59th most streamed song in the U.S. so far this year; yes, in the year 2024, yes, of all the songs that exist. "Whiskey" was the ninth-most-streamed country song of 2023 — the sole member of the top 10 not released in the 2020s. It gets played on country radio, but it never topped the Country Airplay chart; instead, it became a perennial favorite in the new-fashioned way, moving from on-screen performance to playlists and viral videos. 

Chris Stapleton didn't need country radio to play stadiums (although there's no question it eventually helped), and instead compelled Nashville's power-that-be to consider a slightly wider (or at least slightly different) scope of artists and sounds with potential commercial heft. It is not so much that he is some spectacular innovator — I think Stapleton himself would resist that description, the determined retrophile that he is — but his success crystallizes a number of different aesthetic and market shifts for country music that have made it broader (really) and blurred the lines between Music Row and Americana.

His impact is obvious in the mainstream — Luke Combs, Zach Bryan and, yes, Morgan Wallen came to the genre with decidedly post-Stapleton aesthetics. The first time I saw Luke Combs, at New York's Mercury Lounge with like 50 people there, he covered "Tennessee Whiskey," and he's spoken specifically about Stapleton's influence on him on (gag) Joe Rogan: “I think Chris Stapleton singing 'Tennessee Whiskey' with Justin Timberlake at the CMAs was an earth-shattering moment for country music. And that opened the door up for guys like myself to pursue a career… somebody who didn’t look like every other guy in town," Combs said. “He had 250 cuts [Ed. note: 150 was the most frequently cited number] as a songwriter when that performance happened. It was just no one gave him a chance because he was a husky guy with a beard.” 

Sure, I'll buy Stapleton as body positivity icon — he definitely broke up the skinny jeans-ball caps homogeneity — but I think his music and the perception of outsiderness have had a bigger impact. The hint of scratchy gruffness in Wallen's voice (yes I know! sorry! we have to go here!) doesn't feel like it would have hit at radio without Stapleton priming the pump; Zach Bryan's authenticity-core-with-broad-appeal is building on the massive non-genre-specific streaming audience and ear for acoustic, vulnerable sounds that Stapleton built. It is crucial, too, to recognize that Stapleton predigested Black sounds for a white audience (albeit more in the soul and blues sense than in the lite hip-hop and R&B that already had a comfortable place on country radio) in a way that was mimicked by those he influenced.

Stapleton's massive numbers reiterated the possibilities for album artists in Nashville, opening up labels to artists that might not ever have a mess of radio No. 1s (Stapleton himself has a relatively paltry two, compared to, say, Thomas Rhett's 19 (!! I think, might be counting wrong lol but you get it)). Miranda Lambert was carving out this lane long before Stapleton came along, fostering a devoted fandom without overwhelming success at radio, but of course women are always anomalies and men get to be the trendsetters (...). 

Now there is a solid community of major label artists who are basically radio-agnostic, fostered in part by the growing appetite for "Americana" and the smaller and smaller gaps between that audience and Music Row. Stapleton is a big bridge of that particular gap, but once again he is following and expanding on a trend elaborated by women — take this Billboard stat: 

Thanks to the Dave Cobb-produced LP and “Halos,” Stapleton is the first male, and fifth act, to have topped both Americana/Folk Albums and Country Airplay (or, before the latter list’s 1990 inception, Hot Country Songs). He follows Mary Chapin Carpenter, Rosanne Cash, Alison Krauss and Dolly Parton in notching a No. 1 country song and a leading title on Americana/Folk Albums (which began in 2009). 

Outside of his function in the marketplace (LOL, I am a Billboard alum and I can't help myself — this stuff fascinates me!), I enjoy Stapleton plenty. I resisted a bit at first — of the 2015 breakouts, I think everyone reading this newsletter knows that I'll go Sam Hunt every time. There is a decided grown-up-ness and tastefulness to Dave Cobb's production that can — for me — veer into redundancy. 

But Traveller and Stapleton's ensuing albums — including the recent Higher — are remarkably earnest and consistent, the work of real pros who don't seem to give a rat's ass about being hip, a strength in and of itself. Stapleton's voice is obviously singular: I saw him live for the first time last fall, and he put on a flawless, compelling performance on a cold, rainy night in Dallas (it was outdoors :(). The band was smaller than most headlining ampitheatres and no less potent for it; just song after song performed to perfection. The only thing missing was Morgane Stapleton's intoxicating harmonies (I maintain that they should really be billed as a duo).

His velvet stylistic revolution, to me, recalls a scene in The O.C. where the parents fight and make up and they play Solomon Burke's "Don't Give Up On Me" (there's no accounting for pop culture touchstones). Grown n' sexy, I guess? "Starbucks after dark"? It sounds damn good, though, or maybe I'm just in my 30s now. Either way, these days instead of thinking of The O.C. when I hear Stapleton I think of a video that Marissa shared with me (I don't want her to post it, I want it to be special and sacred!) of her son, then a toddler, fussing and asking to hear Traveller. The second those opening arpeggios hit, he starts smiling and happily babbling; may all music have such an impact.