When Chris Stapleton released Traveller in May 2015, he was still something of a cult favorite, championed in bluegrass circles for his work with the SteelDrivers and beloved on Music Row for his behind-the-scenes songwriting. He was successful – well-liked, too – but he wasn’t a star.
That all changed with an undeniable performance during the 2015 CMA Awards, in which Stapleton swapped songs with Justin Timberlake, rattled the cheap seats at the Bridgestone Arena with his super-sized voice and, in less than 10 minutes, transformed himself from an underground hero into a mainstream chart-topper. Traveller climbed to Number One and remained there into the following year, eventually becoming the top-selling country album of 2016.
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All of this exposition makes From A Room: Volume 1 the most anticipated country album of the year. Set for release on May 5th, it’s Stapleton’s first new music since Traveller (although every song on the project was written pre-Traveller) with a cross-country tour to match and a companion album due out later this year. Heavily focused on blues, roots-rock and unadorned country, From A Room finds fresh life in familiar sounds, with Stapleton delivering every note in a voice that’s as burly as it is believable.
“Broken Halos” (Chris Stapleton, Mike Henderson)
Equal parts folk-rock anthem and Sunday-morning spiritual, “Broken Halos” – one of four songs on the album written with his former SteelDriver mate Mike Henderson – begins with five seconds of Stapleton in solo mode, howling over an acoustic guitar. When the band joins him halfway through the first verse, it’s an understated entrance, stripped free of radio-friendly gloss. Like Traveller‘s title track, “Broken Halos” is a straightforward, uncluttered opener, designed to welcome – not overwhelm – the listener.
“Last Thing I Needed, First Thing This Morning” (Gary P. Nunn, Donna Sioux Farrar)
A Number Two hit for Willie Nelson in 1982, this Always on My Mind classic is the lone cover on Room‘s nine-song track list. Stapleton remakes it into a guitar ballad, punctuated by harmonies from his wife Morgane that echo in the background like the ghost of the woman who left. Tying the package together is occasional bandmate Mickey Raphael, who played harmonica on the early-Eighties original and reprises the role here.
“Second One to Know” (Chris Stapleton, Mike Henderson)
Guitar geeks, rejoice. Stapleton explodes on this roadhouse rocker, doubling down on six-string swagger and percussive bounce. Producer Dave Cobb, who joined Stapleton’s band during the song’s premiere at the 2017 ACM Awards, coats everything in reverb, as though the guitars are echoing off the studio walls.
“Up to No Good Livin'” (Chris Stapleton, Casey Beathard)
“People called me the Picasso of painting the town,” Stapleton quips in this smart-ass drinking song, which mixes Wild West-inspired pedal-steel licks (compliments of frequent collaborator Robby Turner) with a singalong chorus. Channeling booze-loving crooners like George Jones, Stapleton rattles his way through wisecracking lyrics with equal parts class and half-lit attitude.
“Either Way” (Chris Stapleton, Tim James and Kendall Marvel)
“My wife always liked this song,” Stapleton told a crowd of radio DJs and label execs in early 2016, during a midday performance at Nashville’s yearly Country Radio Seminar. He then played a solo version of “Either Way,” a decade-old tune that was first recorded by Lee Ann Womack. The studio version doesn’t differ much from that first live performance, with Stapleton screaming heartbroken lyrics over acoustic guitar arpeggios. Simple and stunning.
From A Room Volume 1 Lyrics
“I Was Wrong” (Chris Stapleton and Craig Wiseman)
The album’s centerpiece,“I Was Wrong” simmers its way from a bare-boned verse to an elastic, explosive chorus. Die-hard fans may recognize the tune from Stapleton’s days with the Jompson Brothers, and the band’s original arrangement – rooted in electric blues and Southern soul – remains more or less intact. Stapleton nails the guitar solo, too, but it’s his vocal delivery that packs the biggest punch.
“Without Your Love” (Chris Stapleton and Mike Henderson)
Heartbroken, guilty and apologetic, “Without Your Love” finds its singer down in the dumps, unable to shake the memory of his ex. The storyline is familiar enough, but Stapleton sells the script like it’s Hollywood’s next big-budget blockbuster, maintaining his calm during the verses before unleashing a waterworks-worthy wail with each chorus. Behind him, J.T. Cure plucks a descending chromatic riff on the bass, tracing Stapleton’s mood into the gloomy depths.
“Them Stems” (Chris Stapleton, Jimmy Stewart and Shawn Camp)
Stapleton sings the baked blues, lamenting not only the departure of his fed-up former flame, but also the absence of his weed dealer. Looking for relief, he fires up the dregs of his stash – stems, seeds and all – while his band kicks up a boogie-woogie groove. Mickey Raphael gets a piece of the action, too, honking his harmonica between guitar riffs worthy of Keith Richards. The stoned meet the Stones.
“Death Row” (Chris Stapleton and Mike Henderson)
Bookending the album with another Mike Henderson co-write, Stapleton finishes From A Room on a haunting note. “Death Row” captures a prisoner’s final thoughts, setting them to a unique arrangement – cyclical guitar patterns, sparse percussion and repetitive bass – that hints at the monotony of a life spent behind bars.
When Chris Stapleton released the first installment of From A Room in May of 2017, it seemed possible that the two records would add up to a grand statement, but From A Room: Volume 2 is essentially the mirror image of its predecessor. Both records clock in at a swift 32 minutes, lasting no more than nine songs -- brief even by the standards of '60s or '70s country, when it was common to release two or three records a year. Intentionally or not, Stapleton winds up evoking this era with the two volumes of From A Room, neither of which is dependent on the other but neither of which can be seen without its sibling. If Stapleton released just one simple album as the sequel to his career-making, award-winning Traveller, it would've seemed like he was hedging his bets, but by spinning out two sturdy collections of songs, he catapults himself into the status of a lifer. Truth be told, he was already angling at this narrative at the dawn of Traveller -- he had a career as a professional songwriter in Nashville, just waiting for the right time to make a splash as a recording artist -- but the fact that he churned out two strong, modest records within the space of a year speaks to his command of art. Stapleton doesn't bother to expand his purview; he decides to deepen his sound on From A Room: Volume 2, heightening familiar sounds. He cranks up up the guitars on 'Midnight Train to Memphis,' evokes the ghost of Waylon on 'Hard Livin',' eases into the sunset on 'Scarecrow in the Garden,' and simmers soulfully on 'Nobody's Lonely Tonight.' It's a collection of moments, just like From A Room: Volume 1, but that's the charm of From A Room: Volume 2. Stapleton isn't crafting a major statement; he's knocking out a bunch of songs that work on their own terms -- and when the two records are combined, it's clear he's the lifer he intends to be.
Sample | Title/Composer | Performer | Time |
---|---|---|---|
1 | 3:30 | ||
2 | Kendell Marvel / Chris Stapleton | 2:59 | |
3 | 3:20 | ||
4 | Mike Henderson / Chris Stapleton | 3:26 | |
5 | 3:14 | ||
6 | Darrell Hayes / Chris Stapleton | 3:36 | |
7 | 3:42 | ||
8 | Jameson Clark / Chris Stapleton | 4:07 | |
9 | 4:25 |
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From A Room Volume 1 Download
When Chris Stapleton elected to release From A Room as two separate volumes this year, you had to wonder what he was up to. Was Nashville’s biggest “insurgent” star using his new elevated platform to get ambitious, and maybe even a little pretentious? Was he, in the parlance of superstar companion albums, totally using his illusion in service of an epic statement?
Actually, no. Chris Stapleton in 2017 is not Axl Rose in 1991, whose extreme megalomania willed into existence two double-albums, Use Your Illusion I and Use Your Illusion II, released on the same day 26 years ago this autumn. Inherently modest even now as a reigning arena headliner, Stapleton spaced out each From A Room volume about seven months apart, all the better to appreciate the brawny, understated, and well-crafted pleasures of these nearly identical 32-minute albums. But now that both volumes are out in the world, it’s hard to think of them as anything other than a single work that has been arbitrarily split into two records.
If forced to choose, I’d say that From A Room: Vol. 2 is maybe a half-notch below this spring’s Vol. 1.. The latest From A Room doesn’t match the high points from the first installment — the heart-tugging ballad “Broken Halos,” the blues-rocking “Second One To Know,” the stark closer “Death Room.” But it might be slightly more consistent, cozily settling into a steady mid-tempo groove of jangly guitars and growly, big-papa vocals, per Stapleton’s comfort zone. It feels, in other words, like the back half of a longish LP, the part where the deep cuts are found once you’ve plowed past the front-loaded hits.
Without question, Vol. 2 follows a similar trajectory as Vol. 1. Vol. 2’s earnest opener “Millionaire” resembles the broad-shouldered family man narrative of “Broken Halos.” The feisty “Midnight Train To Memphis” fills the slot occupied by “Second One To Know.” “Drunkard’s Prayer” plumbs the same dark depths as Vol. 1‘s emotional highpoint, “Either Way.” Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 clearly belong together; you can’t listen to one without instantly being reminded of the other. They rhyme.
If you need an explanation as to why From A Room — which as a single album would run about 64 minutes over 18 songs, hardly an unwieldy amount of music — needed to be two records, look no further than the country albums chart. Stapleton’s 2015 debut, Traveller, remains a fixture in the top 10 more than two and a half years after it was released, currently lodged one spot ahead of From A Room: Vol. 1., you don’t have to be a music-marketing genius to see that selling two Stapleton albums in the space of one makes good business sense.
Nashville institution Chris Stapleton followed his 2015 breakthrough with two new albums this year. They showcase his omnivorous approach to country music in all its dignified melancholy.
Chris Stapleton toiled for nearly 15 years to become an overnight sensation. After moving to Nashville in the early 2000s, he played in a bluegrass band and co-founded a Southern rock group whose only claim to fame was opening for Zac Brown, all while writing songs for artists like Luke Bryan, Darius Rucker, Blake Shelton, and Lee Ann Womack, among others. He tried his hand at a solo career, releasing a single in 2013 that went nowhere. In 2015, with a new breed of singer-songwriters challenging Nashville’s most ingrained conventions, Stapleton finally released a full album under his own name, Traveller. Revealing a vivid and economical songwriter as well as a soulful and sensitive singer, the album enjoyed only modest sales right up until the night of the Country Music Awards, when he performed with Justin Timberlake and took home the award for Album of the Year, beating out more established acts like Jason Aldean and Little Big Town. He woke up the next morning to a No. 1 album.
In Nashville, a place where traditionalists are treated as the avant-garde, Stapleton quickly eclipsed many of the artists who had previously sung his songs. His success, however, isn’t based on how he envisions the future of country music, but rather how he uses the past. His sentiments and characters are familiar, occasionally giving way to generalities but usually bringing the dignified melancholy of old-school country right up to the present. Musically, he understands that “country” is an inclusive label, one that uses the bristly twang of 1970s outlaw as its foundation but also covers the excitable R&B from Memphis and the Shoals as well as the blues-based Southern rock of the Allman Brothers and Lynyrd Skynyrd.
Two years after Traveller turned him into a Nashville institution, From a Room Volume 1 sounded like a non-follow-up when it came out in May: a way to release new music without having to make a big statement or one-up his debut. The tracklist was short, nine songs clocking in at just over 30 minutes. The packaging was minimal, a cardboard sleeve for the CD and a retro insert for the LP. The nondescript title carried a concealed pun, as all the songs were recorded in Room A at the historic RCA Studio in Nashville. Lending that indefinite article even more weight was the fact that the studio had been threatened with demolition while Stapleton was recording Traveller there. Someone thought condos would be a better use of that real estate.
Vol. 1 works as a tribute to that studio, but Stapleton is as interested in personal history as he is in music history. He resurrected songs he’d written years before, some of which had been hits for other people, some of which had been overlooked completely. It sounded more like a minor reclamation project or an abbreviated career retrospective than an actual album, but with the release of From A Room Volume 2, the first collection comes more sharply into focus. Together, they reveal the full scope of his abilities, not only monetizing his vast catalog (he’s written approximately 1,000 songs) but filling in his biography for the uninitiated.
As a songwriter, Stapleton rarely strays from country’s evergreen topics: breaking hearts, breaking the law, breaking the bank. But he tackles them with a graceful economy of language and fine gradients of emotion. Take “Either Way,” off Vol. 1, originally recorded by Lee Ann Womack on her 2008 album Call Me Crazy. Stapleton, accompanied only by an acoustic guitar, describes the romantic inertia between lovers who only talk “when the monthly bills are due.” He sings quietly on the verses, as though lost in thought, but his voice rises to a near-shout on the chorus: “We can just go on like this/Say the word, we’ll call it quits.” There’s not a happy ending. In fact, there’s not an ending at all. The last verse makes clear that nothing will change between them.
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Stapleton works well with resignation and regret, to the extent that even his raucous weed anthem “Them Stems,” off Vol. 1, offers a chicken/egg conundrum: Is the narrator’s life a shambles because he smokes too much pot, or does he smoke too much pot because his life’s a shambles? The people inhabiting these verses tend to live at the extremes, although the songs fare best when those extremes are familiar and relatable. The doomed inmate on Vol. 1 closer “Death Row” is less a character than an archetype, making it a peculiarly inconsequential contribution to country’s prison song genre. And the multiple generations of farmers on Vol. 2’s “Scarecrow in the Garden” are far less compelling and distinct than the pragmatic alcoholics on “Nobody’s Lonely Tonight,” a Vol. 2 standout. “What’s love but just some illusion we believe,” Stapleton sings, his tone both disgusted and resigned. “What’s love but just some confusion we don’t need.”
He doesn’t mean it, of course. Vol. 2 leavens its heavier moments with songs that celebrate the simple joys of love and marriage and family, without lapsing into sentimentality. “Millionaire,” a cover of a song by fellow writer Kevin Welch, is about how love is worth more than money. “A Simple Song,” penned by Stapleton’s father-in-law, lists off a family’s escalating woes, which include bad health, poverty, and unemployment, until Stapleton admits, “But I love my life/Man, it’s something to see/It’s the kids and the dogs and you and me.” The idea of finding happiness in the face of hardship is not new in country music, and that’s the whole point. What has made him so successful is how Stapleton invests these ideas with gravity and gratitude.
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