- Country music singer songwriter born in 1978 from Lexington Kentucky.
- Learning to play guitar and listening to outlaw country, bluegrass, blues and rock music as a youngster, Stapleton started a Travis Tritt tribute band in 1999. Two years later, he moved to Nashville, hoping to make a career in country music. A publishing company liked his music, and he was signed to write songs for other artists. Over the next 7 years, country artists like Lee Ann Womack, Josh Turner, Kenny Chesney, Gary Allan, Darius Rucker, Steel Magnolia, Blake Shelton, Tim McGraw, Brooks & Dunn, and many others recorded songs written by Stapleton (some were co-written by Stapleton’s wife Morgane Stapleton, a singer-songwriter who worked at an adjacent publishing house in Nashville).
- In 2008, he formed a bluegrass group called The SteelDrivers. They released 2 albums, and were nominated for 3 Grammy awards. He left in 2010, and started a southern rock band called The Jompson Brothers. They released an independent album, and toured regionally for 3 years, and then split up.
- Stapleton began his solo career in 2013, and his debut single, What Are You Listening To? was released that year. It did not sell well, and plans for an album were scrapped. Meanwhile, he continued to be successful providing hit songs for others. Other artists recording his songs include Adele, Thomas Rhett, Sheryl Crow, George Strait, Little Big Town, Alan Jackson, Luke Bryan, and Miranda Lambert.
- While already a major force in country music as a songwriter, he became a mega-star with the release of his debut solo album in 2015 – Traveller. The album was inspired by a road trip that he took in 2013 after his father died. The album reached #1 on both the Billboard 200 album chart and the country album chart, and was certified 4x platinum. It includes his signature song, Tennessee Whiskey (interestingly, NOT written by Stapleton), which hit #1 on the Hot Country Songs chart and #20 on the Hot 100 chart. Seven other songs charted from the album, with Fire Away, Nobody To Blame and Parachute reaching platinum status as singles. He won 2 Grammy awards as a result of the album, including Best Country Album. Also, he won Male Vocalist of the Year at the CMA Awards in 2015, and his performance of Tennessee Whiskey with Justin Timberlake at the awards show was the highlight of the show.
- In 2017, Stapleton released 2 studio albums – From A Room: Volume 1 and From A Room: Volume 2. “A” Room refers to where the albums were recorded – Nashville’s legendary RCA Studio A. Both albums topped the country album chart and reached #2 on the Billboard 200 chart, and they produced 2 hit singles – Broken Halos (#1 on the Country Airplay chart) and Millionaire (#2 on the same chart). Volume 1 generated 3 more Grammy awards for Stapleton, and Volume 2 was nominated for 2 Grammy awards for the 2019 ceremony.
- In 2018, Stapleton was the featured artist in Justin Timberlake’s song Say Something. The song peaked at #9 on the Hot 100 chart, and was one of three on Timberlake’s Man of the Woods album that was co-written by Stapleton. In 2019, Stapleton collaborated with Ed Sheeran and Bruno Mars with Blow, and he performed with Pink on her country song Love Me Anyway. He also performed the main song for the soundtrack to Toy Story 4 – The Ballad of the Lonesome Cowboy. Clearly, Stapleton has become a trendy artist for collaborations in and out of country music.
- Stapleton released the Starting Over album in 2020. It was certified platinum, and the singles Starting Over and You Should Probably Leave both topped the Country chart. Stapleton won a Grammy award for the album, as well as Grammy awards for You Should Probably Leave and another single, Cold.
- Here’s the video of Stapleton and Timberlake performing Tennessee Whiskey and Drink You Away at the 2015 CMA Awards. The woman performing with them is Morgane, Chris’ wife.