(Nashville, TN) – Chris Stapleton’s solo debut album, Traveller, entered the Billboard Country Albums Chart at No. 2 and Top 15 on Billboard’s Top 200 with over 27,000 albums sold making it the best-selling first week by a debut country artist in 2015. Traveller is also one of the Top 10 best first week country debuts in the last five years. With appearances on ABC’s The View and CBS’ Late Show with David Letterman, rave reviews from media, as well as, fellow artists and sold out shows in New York City and Nashville – Traveller has been one of the most talked about albums of the year.
In addition to its chart topping success, Traveller has been met with stellar reviews:
“a triumphant debut…”
Billboard
“…a capital-A Album bursting with old-school country outlaw tracks that his voice has lived long enough to sing.”
Entertainment Weekly
“…Traveller is easily, and naturally, the year’s strongest country debut.”
The Fader
“It’s easy to imagine masses in sold-out arenas bellowing all the words to ‘Fire Away,’ the crawling country blues track that’s one of many highlights of this debut album. Or, for that matter, most of the album.”
Los Angeles Times
“..stunner of a solo debut.”
Philadelphia Inquirer
“…stunning new album…”
Rolling Stone
“…expansive, explosive solo album.”
Stereogum
“The much-anticipated Traveller more than meets the expectations of a debut disc by a singer- songwriter who’s been a well-known secret in Nashville for years.”
The Wall Street Journal
Traveller was recorded at Nashville’s historic RCA Studio A (with additional production at The Castle and Blackbird Studio) and was produced by Dave Cobb (Sturgill Simpson, Jason Isbell) and Stapleton, and recorded by Vance Powell (Jack White).
Already a world-renowned songwriter, Stapleton has enjoyed five #1 hits including the five-week No. 1 “Never Wanted Nothing More” recorded by Kenny Chesney, George Strait’s “Love’s Gonna Make it Alright,” Josh Turner‘s “Your Man” and Luke Bryan‘s “Drink A Beer,” which Stapleton is nominated for a CMT Award for Performance of the Year with Lady Antebellum from the recent CMT Artists of the Year show (watch the performance here).
In support of Traveller, Stapleton will be performing on a series of shows on Eric Church’s The Outsiders World Tour.
Audio / Chris Stapleton talks about why he recorded “Tennessee Whiskey” for his album, Traveller.
DownloadChris Stapleton (Tennessee Whiskey) OC: …version of it. :41
“ ‘Tennessee Whiskey’ is a song that I love, you know I love great country songs and songwriters, and this is certainly one that is a great country song written by great country songwriters and performed by a great country artists. Certainly, if you try to cover a George Jones or David Allan Coe, you can’t try to out-George Jones George Jones or anything like that. So, if you’re gonna cover something like that, you need to try to move away from that and hopefully make it your own. We kind of happened upon this way of playing this song and had fun with it live and felt like it was something to record that was a good tip of the hat to things we grew up on and loved. I think it’s a unique and interesting version of it.”
