Chris Stapleton’s ‘Tennessee Whiskey’ Reaches One Billion Streams On Spotify
Stapleton’s 2015 CMA Awards performance of the country classic with Justin Timberlake was a career breakthrough.
Chris Stapleton’s “Tennessee Whiskey” has joined the Spotify billions club. It’s Stapleton’s first song to reach one billion plays on the streaming platform.
Stapleton’s cover of the country classic, written by Dean Dillon and Linda Hargrove and popularized by David Allan Coe, appeared on his 2015 debut album Traveller. The album was heavily acclaimed, winning Album of the Year at the 2015 Country Music Association Awards, where Stapleton also took home Male Vocalist of the Year and New Artist of the Year. But it was his performance of “Tennessee Whiskey” on the show with Justin Timberlake, a medley with Timberlake’s “Drink You Away,” that went viral and became a massive career breakthrough for Stapleton.
Stapleton had been a respected figure in Nashville for years leading up to Traveller, both as frontman for bluegrass band the SteelDrivers and Southern rock band the Jompson Brothers and as a songwriter behind hits like Kenny Chesney’s “Never Wanted Nothing More” and Luke Bryan’s “Drink A Beer.” After signing to Mercury Nashville as a solo artist in 2013, he teamed with producer Dave Cobb, who’d recently helmed beloved alt-country albums for Jason Isbell and Sturgill Simpson, at RCA Studio A. During those sessions, they recorded “Tennessee Whiskey,” a track that was never released as an official single but went on to become Stapleton’s biggest hit.
Stapleton had made “Tennessee Whiskey” a staple of his live show after spontaneously deciding to sing it at a soundcheck in Charlottesville, Virginia. “It’s always been a favorite song of mine,” he told The Fader in 2015, later adding, “By the time we got into the studio, it was something we all enjoyed playing. It’s a part of the fabric of things that influenced me over the years.” In the same interview, he praised songwriter Dean Dillon, saying, “I’m not sure everybody is as aware of Dean as they should be. He’s written hit on top of hit, standard on top of standard. He wrote 50 songs for George Strait.”
