Chris Stapleton

With a story straight outta Nashville (the TV series) comes Chris Stapleton, a former truck driver and son of a Kentucky coal miner who initially made a name for himself in Nashville (the place) as a successful songwriter penning hits for artists such as Tim McGraw and being covered by one-person music industry-prop Adele (21’s 'If It Hadn't Been For Love') and still finding time to front Steel Drivers.

Putting Malcolm Gladwell’s 10,000 hours of necessary effort into practice, Stapleton’s garlanded debut has gone to obliterate all and sundry (at 2015’s CMA’s he won an unprecedented ‘new artist of the year’, ‘album of the year’ and ‘male vocalist of the year’) and delivered a televised performance with Justin Timberlake of ‘Tennessee Whisky’ that propelled the album to Billboard No1 thrusting Stapleton centre-stage in the national consciousness. Stapleton capped off the year with four nominations at the 58th Annual Grammy Awards.

Traveller is comprised of autobiographical songs written over a 15-year career inspired by his childhood with the result an album of echoes and evocations of luminaries such as Gram Parsons (‘Might as well get stoned’), Dr Hook, Joe South ('When the stars come out’) and Harry Chapin (‘Nobody to blame’).

Without reinventing the wagon-wheel if it wasn’t for his sincere exorcising of these tales you’d be inclined to think these are just another exhortation of country tropes (the missus left me with the kids, my dog’s scarpered, but, at least the drink stayed behind). *Hiccing* of which …

The ‘Albatross’ inflected ‘Tennessee Whiskey’ acts as a metaphor for enduring love and the alluring relationship with the ‘demon’ drink (or heavenly elixir?), the liquor a familiar presence throughout the album: ‘you rescued me from reaching the bottle’ followed by ‘Whiskey and You’ (ambiguously singing from the 1st/3rd person, protagonist or witness?) featuring sparse finger-pickin’ booze-blues strumming, again articulating that symbolic relationship with booze and affairs of the head and heartland.

The reflexive and reflective ‘country song’ referencing ‘Nobody to blame’ with its ‘she took down the photograph of our wedding day, ripped it down the middle and threw my half away’ is an unrepentant lament laced with great jaunty guitar.

‘The devil named music’ details the whistle-stop places that are passed through as a result of this calling, intoxicants ensuring names and faces blur into one, being alone to feeling lonely, with time spent looking back trying to fill in the gaps. You sense he wouldn’t change a thing, mind.

Standout track ‘Outlaw state of mind’ sums up this illegal eagle’s flightpath, a narrative arc of highs and lows, languid guitar replete with menacing drawl, maybe he should have called the album ‘Mash Rock and Whiskey Galore’? Just me then.

This lyrically rich and allegorical travelogue epitomises the need to keep moving physically and spiritually, standing still results in emotional decay and creative stasis.

For Stapleton its regional nomination to global domination as he prepares to embrace Europe performing at the Country to Country Festivals C2C at 3Arena, Dublin (11/3/16), Clyde Auditorium, Glasgow (12/3/16) and The O2, London (13/3/16).