Chris Stapleton was a high school valedictorian who played football against future NFL number one pick Tim Couch, then enrolled at Vanderbilt University to study biomedical engineering. Born in Lexington in 1978 and raised in coal country in Staffordsville, Kentucky, he was the son of a mine engineer and grew up on Keith Whitley, Dwight Yoakam, Patty Loveless, classic soul, and blues. After meeting a salaried professional songwriter, he dropped out, signed with a publishing house, and treated songwriting like an engineering job, writing over a thousand songs and number one hits for George Strait, Josh Turner, and Luke Bryan.

This episode traces his years testing his voice in the SteelDrivers and the Jompson Brothers, the 2013 Mercury Nashville single “What Are You Listening To” that underperformed and the album that was shelved, the death of his father that same year, and the 1979 Jeep road trip from Phoenix that inspired the title track of Traveller. Morgane Stapleton curated nine songs from his catalog, producer Dave Cobb recorded his live band at RCA Studio A, and the 2015 CMA Awards duet with Justin Timberlake on “Tennessee Whiskey” sent Traveller to the top of the Billboard 200 and on to diamond certification for that single.

• How the Nashville publishing machine works and why he approached it like a lab
• Why bluegrass and Southern rock bands were the testing ground for his voice
• The reason his first polished radio single failed to connect
• How a Jeep, a desert drive, and a curated back catalog produced Traveller
• What the CMA performance changed, from From A Room and Starting Over to 11 Grammys and a Super Bowl anthem