Having lived in Texas my entire life, country music has always been inescapable for me. Whether at a barbecue joint or a school dance, a family reunion or my dentist\u2019s waiting room, its unmistakable twang was always just an unpleasant, unavoidable part of life, like traffic or the flu. As my musical tastes expanded, I came to respect the influence of artists like Hank Williams, Willie Nelson, and the rest\u2026but I was never going to like<\/i> country music.<\/p>\n
Then I heard Chris Stapleton sing \u201cTennessee Whiskey.\u201d<\/p>\n
With a blues riff that grabs you and doesn\u2019t let go, a voice that pairs the gruffness of a cowboy with the range of a trained vocalist, and an indescribable charisma that refuses to be denied, this was a song that was more Stevie Ray Vaughn than Florida Georgia Line, more outlaw than bro. After one listen, I needed to hear more from this Stapleton guy.<\/p>\n
Upon purchasing Traveller<\/i>, his first solo album after more than a decade toiling in Nashville as a songwriter and frontman for various groups, I learned that Stapleton was far from a one trick pony. He could bring down the house with Southern rock, as he does in the title track and the playful \u201cMight As Well Get Stoned,\u201d songs that owe more to Lynyrd Skynyrd than Blake Shelton.<\/p>\n
For those wanting the lovelorn country of their parents, he offers \u201cNobody To Blame,\u201d a regretful breakup song, and \u201cMore Of You,\u201d a duet with his wife Morgane that will be played in dance halls across the South for decades to come. Both songs, along with album back-enders \u201cThe Devil Named Music\u201d and \u201cOutlaw State Of Mind,\u201d show that Stapleton\u2019s roots are found in the country music of the mid-20th<\/sup> century, not what\u2019s on the radio today.<\/p>\n \u2026Which is not to say that he can\u2019t summon up some radio hits. \u201cParachute\u201d and \u201cFire Away\u201d both have the hooks, melodies, and imagery to get the attention of the CMA crowd. Without selling out on the bluegrass-soul-blues sound that permeates the rest of the album, these hits make for accessible fare for casual country fans and critics alike. <\/p>\n And when the time comes to slow things down, \u201cDaddy Doesn\u2019t Pray Anymore\u201d and \u201cWhiskey And You\u201d force you to turn up the volume so you don\u2019t miss a note from Stapleton\u2019s acoustic guitar or his low, soulful voice. However, you\u2019ll want to turn things back down by the time you get to the album closer, \u201cSometimes I Cry,\u201d a vocal performance that will leave you awestruck by its difficulty and Stapleton\u2019s expressive, emotive delivery.<\/p>\n Simply put, Traveller <\/i>showed the world that Chris Stapleton is, with his first solo release, a master of his craft. There are no bad songs on this album, no bad performances, and not one wasted minute. With one bold, brilliant album, Chris Stapleton made this reluctant country listener into a fan\u2026maybe not of everything in the genre, but definitely of its brightest star.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":64,"featured_media":33547,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[10020],"rating":[5646],"class_list":["post-45368","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-chris-stapleton","rating-rating-a"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/45368","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/64"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45368"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/45368\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33547"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45368"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=45368"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=45368"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}