Chris Stapleton is an American singer and songwriter who has won 10 Grammys as a performer and wrote hit songs for artists like George Strait, Luke Bryan, and Kenny Chesney.
Chris Stapleton began his career in Nashville, Tennessee, as a sought-after songwriter who furnished songs for numerous famous country artists. Easy to spot due to his signature long hair and striking beard, he became a major star in the fall of 2015 when his debut solo album, Traveller, practically swept the CMAs. Stapleton followed up the multiplatinum album by drawing on his own vast repertoire of songs. In 2017, he released two more albums: the award-winning From a Room: Volume 1 and From a Room: Volume 2. In total, Stapleton has won 10 Grammys and is a seven-time Country Music Association Male Vocalist of the Year—more than any artist in history.
Christopher Alvin Stapleton was born on April 15, 1978, in Lexington, Kentucky, to Carol Stapleton, a local health department worker, and Herbert Stapleton Jr., a coal miner.
Along with his older brother, Herbert, and younger sister, Melanie, Chris grew up outside of Lexington where his parents were active listeners of country artists from the region.“It’s just part of the fabric of being from Kentucky,” Stapleton said in a 2015 with the Lexington Herald Leader. “Ricky Skaggs and Keith Whitley, Dwight Yoakam and Patty Loveless, the list goes on and on. Those names are just part of life in Kentucky. You can’t help but be aware of them and be influenced by them. It’s almost genetic in the sense that you don’t have an existence that doesn’t involve their music.”
Popular and clean-cut in his teenage years, Stapleton played several team sports at Johnson Central High School and graduated as class valedictorian in 1996. Twenty years later, he returned to his high school to play a free concert and dedicate a new space, built by student carpenters, where students can perform on school grounds.
After high school, Stapleton went on to study engineering at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, but soon immersed himself in the local music scene and dropped out after one year.
