traveller album by chris stapleton

Chris Stapleton

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Review: chris stapleton, 'traveller'.

Traveller Courtesy of the artist hide caption

Even the most seemingly organic contemporary country albums — the ones by often-awarded "authentic" artists like Miranda Lambert and Eric Church — can sometimes show evidence of a checklist. Eager to prove both currency and adherence to tradition, these more daring country stars range over predetermined territory, showing familiarity with Southern musical landmarks like the blue hills, the swamp, the honky-tonk and the arena-rock amphitheater. There's almost always a funny song on these album, and a family-focused tearjerker; there are numerous references to hard liquor and soft-focused rural landscapes. There's some fast picking and power-chord riffing, and a soulful moment that hits purposeful transcendence. The best artists perform this predictable eclecticism with skill and passion; they do care about, and have fun with, country's touchstones. That said, a listener can anticipate each required turn, like the compulsory elements in an Olympic skating routine.

On his debut solo album, Traveller , Chris Stapleton has the double axels and triple jumps down, but he delivers each with a remarkable lack of showiness, so that each one feels like much more than an exercise. Partly — mostly, maybe — this is because of his voice, which became one of Nashville's most beloved in the years he spent leading the bluegrass-based SteelDrivers and singing on albums by everyone from Dierks Bentley to Angaleena Presley to Vince Gill. Stapleton, who was raised in Kentucky, sings with the power of a classic Southern rocker, but modulates his rawness with a great sense of soul phrasing and a seasoned balladeer's ability to scale down.

This decade's endless parade of blue-eyed pretenders could learn a lot from the care Stapleton takes incorporating soul elements into a declamatory rocker like "Nobody To Blame" or a smoky love song like "Tennessee Whiskey." Stapleton turns the latter, previously recorded in laconic versions by both David Allan Coe and George Jones, into an Otis Redding-style burner. His melismatic flights on the verses never feel showy; they flow logically from the previous moments when he's held back.

"Tennessee Whiskey" is one of two relatively recent country favorites included on Traveller , allowing Stapleton to prove his bona fides with the genre's songbook. (The other is the charming "Was It 26," previously recorded by the Charlie Daniels Band, which now reads as gentle advice from the 37-year-old Stapleton to hard-partying young fans of the likes of Luke Bryan.) The other songs are all Stapleton co-writes — he's as valued as a Music Row songwriter as he is for his umami-providing background vocals. Stapleton takes back the mournful "Whiskey and You" from Tim McGraw in a version that really feels like a bitter hangover.

Elsewhere, Stapleton artfully employs his skills as a songwriting generalist: There's the Texas dance hall sweetness of "More of You," a duet with the pitch-perfect harmonizer (and his wife) Morgane Stapleton; the hard rock crash of "Parachute"; the nod to Johnny Cash on "Daddy Doesn't Pray Anymore" and the hat-tip to Hank Jr. on "Might As Well Get Stoned." The images of frisky devils, fields full of stars and many empty bottles might not be shockingly original, but they appear within stories that always register as immediate and personal.

Producer Dave Cobb allows Stapleton to lay back or push forward within arrangements that don't have any gimmicks, only great playing and plenty of space for that big voice to fill. Throughout Traveller , Stapleton presents himself as a true Southern character, a family man who can't help but cling to his vices and a searcher whose sometimes old-fashioned dreams of home don't prevent him from wanting to roam the modern world. Has Stapleton lived all of these stories of hard luck and wild times? I hope not, for the sake of his liver and his kids' college funds. But in the imaginary space where country clichés become the gospel truth, he's utterly convincing.

Chris Stapleton’s debut album didn’t sound like the singer-songwriter’s first go-around—and it wasn’t. A smooth, mature and confident opening salvo, 2015’s Traveller conveyed the full weight of Stapleton’s vast experience in Nashville, resulting in a genre-shifting album that would become one of the biggest country releases of the 21st century. Produced by Dave Cobb, Traveller bridged the often wide gap between the genre’s radio hits and crossover audiences, going platinum six times over, and spawning a number of new standards—none more memorable, of course, than the completely reimagined country classic “Tennessee Whiskey”. After spending years writing songs, singing backup and playing guitar for everyone from Brad Paisley to Lee Ann Womack to Kenny Chesney, Stapleton had gotten a taste of the limelight as lead singer for critically acclaimed bluegrass ensemble The SteelDrivers. Still, no one quite saw his solo takeover coming—perhaps because his warm, blue-eyed country-soul is so understated and familiar. Together with Cobb, Stapleton found a compelling signature sound, one that’s undeniably retro without feeling rehashed or overworked. In doing so, they pushed country radio’s doors open a little wider. Throughout Traveller, the singer’s smoky, warm rasp—there’s a reason whisky is the album’s recurring theme—threads together rollicking barn-burners like “Parachute” and “Nobody to Blame” with the acoustic melancholy of tracks like “Whiskey and You” and the clear-eyed “Traveller”. The album also finds plenty of room for the potent high harmonies of Morgane Stapleton—the singer’s wife, and Traveller’s not-so-secret and very crucial ingredient. Cobb’s production is all burnished, classic acoustic sounds—lush, but not overcomplicated. The team’s intoxicating, transformative power is exemplified on “Tennessee Whiskey”, a Dean Dillon and Linda Hargrove tune originally recorded by David Allen Coe and George Jones. The Stapletons and Cobb render the tune unrecognisable, turning a standard into an iconic, intimate and timeless love song.

5 May 2015 14 Songs, 1 hour, 3 minutes ℗ 2015 Mercury Records, a Division of UMG Recordings, Inc.

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Chris Stapleton's 'Traveller': The album of a lifetime

Last autumn a dying woman lay in bed and silently listened to an early copy of a favorite country song: “I couldn't tell you, honey, I don't know / Where I'm going but I've got to go / 'Cause every turn reveals some other road, and I'm a traveller."

In the past few days, hundreds of thousands of people have heard those lyrics. They're from the title track of Chris Stapleton's "Traveller," a critically acclaimed record that took home Album of the Year honors at Wednesday's CMA Awards . The singer-songwriter also won New Artist of the Year and Male Vocalist of the Year.

His album is on track to take the top spot on the all-genre Billboard 200, selling more copies in the last five days than it sold in the six months since its release.

Five things to know about Chris Stapleton

Though sales of “Traveller” are booming, the most meaningful copy of the album was that was given away months before its release on Mercury Records. Stapleton's friend, Ann Soyars, was a short, no-nonsense woman with a big heart, sharp tongue, and an ear for good music. For years, she collected cover charges at the door of Station Inn and championed numerous artists like Stapleton (a fellow Kentucky native who’d moved to Nashville) and Dierks Bentley, among many others who played at that tiny bluegrass club in the Gulch. One of the first stages Stapleton performed on in Nashville was at Station Inn. It was also where he played his first sold-out show as part of the hard-driving bluegrass band, The SteelDrivers.

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Soyars delighted in Stapleton's success and his record deal with Mercury even as she, the Station Inn's unofficial bouncer, wrestled with her health. In September of 2014 she was diagnosed with terminal cancer. Her hospital room, and later her home, became the best listening rooms in Nashville, as the unofficial family she’d created over the years — Stapleton, his sweet-singing wife Morgane and their children, Bentley, Melonie Cannon, Shawn Camp and so many others — gathered daily to sing for her. Those moments were emotional, Morgane Stapleton said. They were also priceless.

The Stapletons gave Soyars an unofficial, unsequenced copy of the album the world now knows as "Traveller." “Ann loved music so much (that) we wanted her to have it … and she meant so much to our family,” Stapleton said Friday night, two nights after he was the toast of the CMA Awards show.

Stapleton wrote “Traveller” after the 2013 death of his father.

“To me that song is about the cycle of life and how we’re all passing through it,” he said.

In the fall of 2014, Soyars was living those lyrics.

During the last weeks of her life, Soyars was too weak to get out of bed unassisted. She had a baby monitor in her room so her caretakers could hear if she needed help. She slept a lot, but her CD player was always tucked in bed alongside her. Cannon, who was Soyars’ constant companion during those days, remembers that “Traveller” was in heavy rotation.

“I’d sit in the living room and through the baby monitor I’d listen to Ann breathing and the music she was playing, and I would just cry” Cannon said.

Before Soyars died last November at the age of 67, she asked to have two CDs cremated with her: Cannon’s unreleased Vern Gosdin tribute album, and “Traveller.” The ashes were spread at the beach, and she’ll be forever entwined with the music that comforted her during those last days.

Ann Soyars, Station Inn spitfire, 'champion of music,' dies

Almost a year to the day after Soyars’ death, Stapleton delivered his star-making CMA performance with Justin Timberlake and took home three trophies. He says that had Soyars been there, she likely would have said something celebratory that “probably wouldn’t be fit for print.”

Reach Juli Thanki at  [email protected]  and on Twitter  @JuliThanki .

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Traveller by Chris Stapleton

Songfacts®:

• The title track of Chris Stapleton's debut solo album was inspired by some soul-searching in the desert. "My father passed away in October 2013, and [I] had a single die around the same time on radio, so I needed a little head clearing space," he recalled. "My wife had the presence of mind to know me well enough that I needed that. She bought me an old jeep out in Phoenix, Arizona, and we flew out there and decided to drive it home." "Along the way, just driving through the desert, I was thinking about life and how we're all just passing through it and that's what the song is," Stapleton continued. "So, as I was driving, I was humming lyrics into my phone and wrote the song then and there. Somewhere in New Mexico, probably, that song was born."
• Chris Stapleton won Album of the Year for Traveller at the November 4, 2015 CMAs along with Male Vocalist of the Year and New Artist of the Year. Following his breakthrough night at the ceremony, the Traveller record made a spectacular re-entry at #1 on the Billboard 200. It was the first ever album to re-enter at the peak position, after dropping out of the chart. The 177,000 album units it earned in the week following the ceremony were more than Traveller had sold in total prior to Stapleton's CMA appearance. From Traveller 's release on May 5, 2015, up through to the week ending October 29, 2015, it had sold 96,000.
• This won the Grammy Award for Best Country Solo Performance at the 2016 ceremony. Traveller also won for Best Country Album.
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I see the sunrise creeping in Everything changes like the desert wind Here she comes & then she’s gone again

I’m just a traveller on this earth Sure as my heart’s behind the pocket of my shirt I’ll just keep rolling till I’m in the dirt Cause I’m a traveller, oh I’m a traveller I couldnt tell you honey I don’t know Where I’m going but I’ve got to go Cause every turn reveals some other road & I’m a traveller, oh I’m a traveller

My heartbeat’s rhythm is a lonesome sound Just like the rubber turing on the ground Always lost & nowhere bound

When I’m gone Somebody else will have to feel this wrong Somebody else will have to sing this song Somebody else will have to sing along Sing along

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Chris Stapleton on Why Stunning New Album ‘Traveller’ Isn’t for Kids

By Joseph Hudak

Joseph Hudak

“I like songs that make me feel tough. Like ‘Back in Black.’ You want to hear it again and get in a fight,” says Chris Stapleton , seated in his management company’s office next to his wife and onstage partner Morgane, who breaks up laughing at her husband’s bravado in describing his song “Outlaw State of Mind.”

“But not literally!” he quickly adds.

The almost sheepish addendum exposes the inherent dichotomy that is Stapleton, who this week released his debut solo LP Traveller , the most buzzed-about and fawned-over album since Sturgill Simpson’s Metamodern Sounds in Country Music . On the surface, with his Jamey Johnson beard, Johnny Paycheck  hatband and snakeskin guitar strap (a buddy killed a rattler and made it for him special), he cuts an imposing figure, while his window-shaking voice, with all its volume and growls, could scare off burglars. But sit with him a while and the soft-spoken Stapleton reveals himself to be the nicest guy in the room.

Such polarity extends all the way into the Kentucky native’s career too. While Traveller is full of the kind of traditional, organic country that purists long for, he’s also written some of pop country’s most radio-friendly hits: Thomas Rhett’s “Crash and Burn,”  Darius Rucker’s “Come Back Song,” Kenny Chesney’s “Never Wanted Nothing More” and Luke Bryan’s “Drink a Beer,” among them.

“I’m always trying to do as many different things as I can, just so when one is not doing so hot, maybe the other is still there,” he says of juggling his roles as ace Nashville songwriter, in-demand backing vocalist (he most recently sang with Rhett on “Crash and Burn”) and, now, solo artist.

With Traveller , however, the “debut artist” — at 37, he admits he’s having a hard time with those words — finally has his own body of work on which to focus his many talents. He wrote or co-wrote all but two of the album’s 14 tracks, like the stunning title song, the on-the-nose “Might As Well Get Stoned” and the rough and tough “Outlaw State of Mind.” The two outside songs he did cut are bona fide classics: the oft-recorded “Tennessee Whiskey” and Charlie Daniels’ “Was It 26,” written by Don Sampson.

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“I’m playing electric guitar, mandolin, acoustic guitar. I’m singing on it, singing harmony with myself in some places on it. It could not be more me,” he says of making an album his own way, with only his touring band and producer Dave Cobb . “It’s really easy to go out there — and I’m not knocking anyone — and hire guys to do all these things for you. But for me, this is a great representation of what you can come and see live, and possibly connect with.”

Chris Stapleton on Why Stunning New Album ‘Traveller’ Isn’t for Kids , Page 1 of 2

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