With southern-gothic storytelling and a soulfully diverse sound, the Kentucky singer revolutionised the double-denim country scene. But as the US election hots up, he’s staying out of the culture wars
Chris Stapleton has played five arenas in the UK over the past week, on a tour dubbed the All-American Road Show. Posters depicted his grandly bearded, cowboy-hatted visage framed by hills and skies in colours of red, white and blue. At first listen, his country music seems just as all-American. The 46-year-old has been writing and singing about women, heartbreak and drinkin’ for more than 20 years – whiskey alone has prompted Tennessee Whiskey (originally recorded by David Allan Coe), Whiskey and You, Whiskey Sunrise and his version of Willie Nelson’s Whiskey River; Stapleton recently launched his own brand of the stuff, Traveller. He’s sung the national anthem at the Super Bowl, and duetted with Taylor Swift. When discussing the upcoming election in November, I can almost hear a bald eagle cry as he declares: “I’m voting for America and a good glass of whiskey.”
But Stapleton, a true American superstar with 10 Grammys and 22 million monthly listeners on Spotify, is rather more complicated than your average truck-drivin’ country singer – and he’s all too aware of the stereotypes. His atmospheric 2020 song Hillbilly Blood is less a country number and more a string of southern-gothic vignettes, “born out of a riff that sounded pretty mean”, and inspired by his native Kentucky. “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 says.
