Few mainstream country listeners even knew who he was. When Chris Stapleton took the stage of the CMA Awards on November 4th, 2015, he was in no way a household name. In fact, it was Dave Cobb who suggested Stapleton cut the song. It was Chris Stapleton listening to Sturgill Simpson’s magum opus Metamodern Sounds in Country Music that motivated him to shelve all the other stuff he’d been recording, look up producer Dave Cobb, and record Traveller and “Tennessee Whiskey” live in studio. Let’s also remember that the song’s approach can also be tied right back to the modern country music insurgency. It is a 40-year-old classic American country song that is still as relevant today as it was during the Reagan Administration, if not more. Yes, Chris Stapleton’s version brings a distinctly R&B/classic soul flavor to the classic country track, but appreciate that this is a song that was written by Dean Dillon and Linda Hargrove in the early 80s, was recorded by David Allan Coe in 1981, and was re-recorded and became a hit for George Jones in 1983. Appreciate, that the moment happened seven years ago this November, and still, just this week, “Tennessee Whiskey” was the 5th most streamed song in all of country music, and its parent album Traveller also remains one of the most popular titles in all of country, in part due to the strength of “Tennessee Whiskey.”
So many different threads and narratives can be drawn from that specific moment, and the reverberations were so earth shaking, they still can be felt today.
If you asked me point blank what the single most important moment in country music over the last ten years has been, without any hesitation, I would answer conclusively that it was Chris Stapleton and Justin Timberlake performing “Tennessee Whiskey” at the CMA Awards in November of 2015.
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