Christopher Alvin Stapleton, an American singer-songwriter, musician, and record producer, was born on April 15, 1978. He was raised in Staffordsville, Kentucky, and was born in Lexington, Kentucky. Stapleton relocated to Nashville, Tennessee, in 2001 to enrol at Vanderbilt University to seek a degree in engineering, but he left early to focus on his musical career. Stapleton then agreed to compose and publish his songs under a deal with Sea Gayle Music.
Stapleton has accumulated writing and co-writing credits for over 170 songs as of 2018. He has co-written six number-one world singles, including Luke Bryan’s “Drink a Beer,” Josh Turner’s “Your Man,” George Strait’s “Love’s Gonna Make It Okay,” and Kenny Chesney’s “Never Wanted Nothing More,” which spent five weeks at the top of the charts.
Christopher Alvin Stapleton Early Life
Lexington, Kentucky, is where Stapleton was born. His dad, Herbert Joseph Stapleton, Jr. (1946–2013), was an engineer in the mining areas, and his mother, Carol J. (Mace) Stapleton, worked for the neighbourhood health department. He hails from a coal mining family. He has a younger sister named Melanie Brooke and an elder brother named Herbert Joseph III.
Stapleton was raised in the Kentucky village of Staffordsville, a short distance from Paintsville and situated between the latter and Paintsville Lake. He played football and graduated from Johnson Central School as the valedictorian of his class. Afterwards, he enrolled at Vanderbilt University to study engineering but left after a year.
Christopher Alvin Stapleton Career
Stapleton relocated to Nashville, Tennessee, in 2001 to pursue a career in music. Soon after relocating to Nashville, he obtained a publishing contract with Sea Gayle Music as a songwriter.
He assumed the role of frontman for the SteelDrivers in 2007. When Stapleton left in 2010, they had two successful singles, reaching number two on the bluegrass chart.
The Jompson Brothers, a group of Southern rock musicians, was created by Stapleton in 2010. Greg McKee on guitar, J.T. Cure on bass, Stapleton on vocals, and Bard McNamee on drums comprised the band. They performed in local venues until 2013, at one point serving as the Zac Brown Band’s opener. In November 2010, the group independently released an album of the same name.
Stapleton signed a solo artist contract with Mercury Nashville, a Universal Music Group Nashville unit, in 2013. When “What Are You Listening To?” by him was released in October 2013, it underperformed. The single was a track on an unreleased album available to the public. Stapleton also co-wrote the theme song for the famous American radio programme The WSM All Night session with Marcia Campbell on WSM-AM, “All-Nighter Comin’.” The radio programme has a sizable trucker audience. Vince Gill contributes vocals to the song, which he co-wrote with Al Anderson and Gill.
Traveller, Stapleton’s first solo album, was set to release on May 5, 2015. Stapleton and producer David Cobb co-produced the album, recorded at Nashville’s RCA Studio A. In the CD, he performs with a live band that includes his wife Morgane Sullivan singing harmony, bassist J.T. Cure (of the Jompson Brothers), lap steel musician Robby Turner, musician Derek Mixon, Bobby Raph on harmonica, and lap steel player Robby Turner.
Stapleton emphasised the value of the band lineup that formed during the recording and release of the album, noting that his familiarity with Cure and Mixon—he has known and started playing with Cure for more than 20 years—as well as Cobb’s producing, which included playing acoustic guitar during the recording process, contributed to the richness of the album’s creation.
Troy Kotsur, an Oscar-winning actor, interpreted the lyrics of the National Anthem in American Sign Language. At the same time, Stapleton sang them at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona, on February 12, 2023, at the Super Bowl LVII. His performance received high praise from the critics, particularly for pushing Philadelphia Eagles’ current coach Nick Sirianni to emotions, which were broadcast nationwide and inspired several online memes.
Christopher Alvin Stapleton Personal Life
The co-writer of Carrie Underwood’s 2006 hit “Don’t Forget to Remember Me,” singer-songwriter Morgane Stapleton, is the wife of Stapleton. She had a contract with Arista Nashville for recording. The pair lived in Nashville and were married in 2007 after meeting while working at nearby publishing companies. The couple announced that they were having twins in October 2017.
The Stapletons had twin boys, host Reba McEntire revealed live on the 53rd Academy of Country Awards Shows on April 15, 2018, Stapleton’s 40th birthday. Stapleton made the news that he and his partner were expecting their fifth child during his performance at Madison Square Garden on October 2, 2018. He reaffirmed it at the Country Music Association Oscars on November 18, 2018.
Morgane and his wife welcomed a newborn boy, their fifth child, into the world on May 12. In his 2020 album Starting Over, Chris Stapleton will include “Maggie’s Song” in honour of the Stapletons’ dog Maggie.
Awards
Stapleton has been nominated for and honoured with various accolades. He has won several awards, including two iHeartRadio Music Awards, seven Billboard Music Awards, twenty Academy of Country Awards Shows, fourteen Recording Artist Association Awards, and eight Grammys.
He has garnered nine ASCAP Country honours, including the Vanguard Award, for his compositional work. Stapleton was named the first ACM composer of the decade in 2019 by the Academy of Country Music. Billboard’s #1 Country Album for the ten years was Traveller.
Christopher Alvin Stapleton Net Worth
Chris Stapleton has a whopping $25 million in net worth due to his consistent production of country songs and other elements like his holdings of real estate. (The musician spent over $5 million on a Tennessee home in 2017, and Justin Timberlake is one of his neighbours.)