Chris Stapleton Columbus tickets

Chris Stapleton is the rare Nashville story where the behind-the-scenes songwriter becomes the headliner. Born in Lexington, Kentucky, and raised in the small town of Staffordsville outside Paintsville, he grew up in a family of coal miners and moved to Nashville in 1996 to study engineering at Vanderbilt University. He dropped out once he learned songwriting could be an actual career, signed with the Sea Gayle Music publishing house, and spent the next decade writing more than a thousand songs. Other artists turned his work into six number-one country singles, among them Kenny Chesney's five-week chart-topper "Never Wanted Nothing More," Josh Turner's "Your Man," George Strait's "Love's Gonna Make It Alright," and Luke Bryan's "Drink a Beer."

Before going solo, Stapleton fronted two bands: the SteelDrivers, the bluegrass group he formed in 2007 whose records peaked at number two on the bluegrass chart, and the Jompson Brothers, a Southern rock outfit that toured regionally and opened for the Zac Brown Band. He signed with Mercury Nashville in 2013, and his debut solo album, Traveller, arrived in 2015. Recorded at RCA Studio A with producer Dave Cobb, it climbed to number one on the Billboard 200, earned septuple platinum certification, and became the top-selling country album of 2016. The breakthrough moment came at the 2015 CMA Awards, where he swept Album of the Year, Male Vocalist of the Year, and New Artist of the Year, and performed "Tennessee Whiskey" with Justin Timberlake. Music publications called that duet a career-defining moment, and it lifted him to national prominence.

The run never slowed. His cover of "Tennessee Whiskey" earned diamond certification from the RIAA. From A Room: Volume 1 (2017) won a second CMA Album of the Year and a Grammy for Best Country Album on its way to becoming the best-selling country album of 2017, and From A Room: Volume 2 arrived that December. Starting Over (2020) brought a third Grammy for Best Country Album, and Higher followed in 2023 as his fifth studio album. On stage, his sound pulls together country, bluegrass, Southern rock, and soul, delivered in a tenor steeped in Ray Charles, Otis Redding, and Freddie King. His headlining All-American Road Show Tour has run since 2017, with his wife Morgane Stapleton singing harmonies at his side, and it is the show behind most Chris Stapleton tickets.