Who is Chris Stapleton and what are his most famous songs?

Being asked to perform The Star Spangled Banner at Super Bowl LVII was undoubtedly one of the highlights of Chris Stapleton’s 20-year career as a singer-songwriter. Watched by 113.06 million viewers worldwide, it helped the 45-year-old Nashville native to expand his already sizable fanbase and become a household name. His soulful rendition of the United States national anthem ranks among the best we have heard at the Super Bowl, and certainly up there with Whitney Houston’s and Luther Vandross’ in terms of raw emotion.

Two more Grammys for the mantelpiece

A week earlier, Stapleton’s co-writer Dan Wilson took to the stage at Crypto.com Arena to pick up a couple of Grammy awards on his behalf, taking the country artist’s personal collection into double figures, those 10 Grammys now sit alongside numerous other awards, including the highly prestigious Academy of Country Music Award Triple Crown Award as well as being crowned Entertainer of the Year. In his typically modest acceptable speech, Stapleton told those present at Frisco’s Ford Center: “It’s a wonderful and rare thing to get to something that you love so much for a living. This is unbelievable, that I continue to get to do this.”

Since his first appearance on vinyl, singing a live version of Tennessee Whiskey on the Musicians Against Childhood Cancer Life Goes On charity album, Stapleton has released four studio albums, 21 singles, and one EP. To date, his albums have sold 10,286,000 copies worldwide - his 2014 debut on Mercury Traveller went 6x platinum in the United States and gold in the United Kingdom, Canada and Switzerland.

Cover version

Tennessee Whiskey, the third track on Traveller, is the most popular on Spotify with 905,673,422 plays although Stapleton didn’t actually write it - it was written by Dean Dillon and Linda Hargrove and originally recorded by David Allan Coe in 1981. His version has received critical acclaim, being nominated for an ACM Song of the Year award in 2017 and winning Best International Song of the Year at the British Country Music Association Awards.

Stapleton’s next most-played song on Spotify, You Should Probably Leave from his 2020 release Starting Over was co-written with Ashley Gorley and Chris DuBois and is currently on 384,576,254 plays. He has also written songs for other artists such as Adele, Kenny Chesney and Luke Bryan and undertaken several collaborations with artists such as Taylor Swift, Justin Timberlake, Snoop Dogg and Ed Sheeran.

Among his other popular songs are Whiskey And You from Traveller which has racked up 112,042,577 plays, Broken Halos with 351,716,941 (From A room: Volume 1), Starting Over 298,868,635 (Starting Over), Parachute 293,142,110 (Traveller - 2015) and Millionaire 215,734,447 (From A room: Volume 2).

Stapleton is currently on the road with dates across the US from April to June before he hits the UK with shows lined up in Glasgow, Manchester, Dublin, Birmingham and London in October. He will bring the tour to a close in Australia and New Zealand in the New Year.