Chris Stapleton at Madison Square Garden

Chris Stapleton and Morgane Stapleton

Born in Lexington, Kentucky, and raised in a family of coal miners in Staffordsville, Kentucky, Chris Stapleton pursued a career in music in 2001 by moving to Nashville, Tennessee. There, Stapleton wrote songs for other artists and eventually sang lead in the SteelDrivers, a progressive bluegrass ensemble, from 2007 to 2010. In 2010, Stapleton founded a Southern rock band called the Jompson Brothers. In 2015, he released his solo debut album, which reached number one on the US Billboard 200 and was certified triple platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). Stapleton has written or so-written over 170 songs, including six number-one country songs, and he has won five Grammy Awards, seven Academy of Country Music (ACM) Awards, seven Country Music Association (CMA) Awards, five Billboard Music Awards, and two iHeartRadio Music Awards. For his work as composer he has received nine ASCAP Country awards, including the Vanguard Award. His third and most recent studio album, From a Room: Volume 2, was released on December 1, 2017.

Chris Stapleton's All-American Road Show Tour saw him headlining tonight at Madison Square Garden for the first time. Accompanied by guitarist Dave Cobb, bassist JT Cure, drummer Derek Mixon, harmonica player Mickey Raphael, and backing vocalist Morgane Stapleton (Chris' wife), the band was a slim, but powerful, ensemble. The music was rooted in authentic and unpretentious country, but easily inclined to other genres due to the lack of fiddles, pedal steel, and banjo. Oftentimes Stapleton's  strong, deeply emotive vocals were heartfelt rhythm & blues, his and Cobb's guitar leads were gentle blues, the band was rocking, and this warm mélange never seemed artificially forced. The most precious take away was that the music was honestly Stapleton, with no attempt to sell out for commercial purposes. Even when he brought out opening acts Marty Stuart and Brent Cobb to join him for a few songs, the performances never seemed to be packaged as entertainment or spectacle, but rather a cozy night at the Stapleton farm. Nothing seemed more homey than towards the end of the evening when Stapleton announced mid-song that he and his wife were expecting a fifth child. Whereas many of the performers who headline Madison Square Garden come prepared with a lot of flash, the irony was how such a modest production as Stapleton's could fill the cavernous arena so well.

Visit Chris Stapleton at ChrisStapleton.com.

Setlist:

1. Midnight Train to Memphis (The SteelDrivers cover)
2. Them Stems
3. Nobody to Blame
4. Hard Livin'
5. Millionaire (Kevin Welch cover)
6. Fire Away
7. Might as Well Get Stoned (with Brent Cobb)
8. Without Your Love
9. Trying to Untangle My Mind
10. Now That's Country (Marty Stuart cover) (with Marty Stuart)
11. I Ain't Livin' Long Like This (Rodney Crowell cover) (with Marty Stuart)
12. Whiskey and You (solo acoustic)
13. Drunkard’s Prayer (solo acoustic)
14. Broken Halos
15. Second One to Know
16. Traveller
17. I Was Wrong
18. The Devil Named Music (with Free Bird snippet)
19. Parachute
20. Tennessee Whiskey (David Allan Coe cover) (preceded by band intros)

Encore:

1. Outlaw State of Mind