Plenty Of Room For Everyone

What was my first thought after listening to Chris Stapleton’s “From A Room: Volume 1” several times?

How soon before “Volume 2” gets here?

I think I recall December being mentioned, but dang, that’s seven excruciating months. Can the nine spellbinding cuts on “Volume 1” hold up until then? The easy, short answer is: Yes. The longer answer: Hell yes.

It took a national television appearance with Justin Timberlake for the world to wake up and realize Chris Stapleton is the absolute, bonafide shit. That CMA performance in 2015 spurred ginormous sales for his “Traveller” album – more than two million and counting now.

I’ve heard several friends inside Stapleton’s label projecting first-week sales of “From A Room: Volume 1” nearing or topping the 200,000 mark, a number which is astronomical right now. Apparently, the word about Stapleton’s ridiculous talent is out, and this time, radio jumped on board quickly, too. The lead single, “Either Way,” was the week’s most-added song at Country radio, securing nearly 80 adds. That’s huge, especially when programmers constantly crave tempo, particularly in Spring and Summer. If you haven’t listened yet, “Either Way” is a hauntingly slow, show-stopping-but-powerful, bluesy song featuring Stapleton and his guitar. So, this was radio, creating space for a super-slow song, from an artist who – despite those giant sales numbers – has a success rate in terms of airplay that can safely be described as inconsistent.

I think radio wisely realized this release would be an event – that Stapleton’s “Traveller” has been a constant in the all-genre album top 10 or 15 sales chart for 18 months now, and they can be seen as an important conduit for an artist whose ever-growing fan base includes many outside the core Country listener. As I’ve described it before: this is low hanging fruit, and with his new music so far, radio is eagerly harvesting a bumper crop.

As for “From A Room: Volume 1,” as more than one programmer said to me this week, “mark it down right now as the album of the year.” It’s fantastic, just as “Traveller” is. In case some of you were expecting a sonic, thematic, and/or stylistic mood swing from Stapleton that signaled a dramatic departure from the tone of “Traveller,” well, sorry about that. That’s not to say “Volume 1” is a retread of the last album, either, but Chris Stapleton plays by his own rules bringing a unique sound, and “From A Room: Volume 1” is consistent with that sound; to me, it’s a continuation of “Traveller,” almost as if that 14-song set wasn’t enough to express all he has to say right now.

The first half of the “From A Room” project has a lean – by today’s standards – nine cuts on it, just as “Volume 2 will when released in December. That’s a total of 18 tracks, carefully metered out over seven months, as if to keep us salivating and chomping at the bit, circling an empty food dish like a restless, hungry housecat at meal time.

Like “Traveller,” “Volume 1” has a raw, live sound to it. If you loved Stapleton’s cover of “Tennessee Whiskey” (many did, the single has 1.2 million digital sales and counting), you’ll be in heaven when you hear his take on “Last Thing I Needed First Thing This Morning,” the 1982 Willie Nelson track from his “Always On My Mind” album. That was a very slow ballad, with Nelson’s cold intro and nasal voice dishing out instant pain and anguish: “The garbage man left all the trash on the sidewalk / And the hinges fell off of the gate / And this morning at breakfast I spilled all the coffee / And I opened the door on my knee / The last thing I needed the first thing this morning / Was to have you walk out on me.” On his version, Stapleton has slowed it down to an agonizing, emotional crawl as if to extend the suffering. Also, Willie fans, don’t hate, but Chris Stapleton is a better singer than the Red Headed Stranger – with a more powerful voice – so when he wails on this tune, the hurt radiates deep into your soul. I’m not sure this will be a radio single – “Tennessee Whiskey” never was, and that didn’t hurt its sales – but so far, “Last Thing” has already moved more than 11,000 digital singles.

While Country radio can, and should, claim ownership of Chris Stapleton, the reality is that he belongs to all music fans, and the nine cuts on “From A Room: Volume 1” cover the genre spectrum. Track four, however, “Up To No Good Livin,’” is a prototypical, old-school, gawl-dang, perfectly constructed Country song. Co-written with Casey Beathard, this tune almost has a winking-at-you, sarcastic feel to it. It’s borderline over-the-top in terms of sound and lyrical architecture; equal parts rehabilitation and resentment, Stapleton laments a lack of trust from his woman, in spite of reforming his checkered past. “She finds it hard to believe that she's turned me around / So I'll probably die before I live all my / Up to no good livin' down.” Oh, and that past? The line used to describe it is a doozy that will positively slay you, and harken back to the kind of descriptors we once heard in Classic Country songs: “People called me the Picasso of painting the town.”

Brilliant. Effin’ brilliant.

Two weeks ago here, I talked about a recent study that shows Country music contains more references to pot than any other genre. That’s seemed surprising to most of us, but – boom! Here comes Chris Stapleton, on what will be one of the biggest albums of ANY genre this year, absolutely going there with “Them Stems.” Not that I have any personal experience with this sort of thing (cough, cough, ahem), but apparently, when your weed stash is reduced to stems and/or seeds, this is validation that your world is truly crumbling around you, and you are on the verge of becoming a complete loser. “This morning I smoked them stems / Yeah, that's the kinda shape I'm in / I'm in a bad, bad way again / 'Cause this morning I smoked them stems.”

This song is hilarious – and to some (???), relatable as hell. It also reminds me of an album cut on the 1971 “Ozone” album from Commander Cody And His Lost Planet Airmen called “Seeds And Stems.” Why do I know that? Because that album also contained a cover of “Hot Rod Lincoln,” which reached #7 on the Pop charts in ’71, is a total desert island song for me, and I might add, the one and only song I could probably still perform live – after a couple cocktails.

But, I digress.

Here’s how bad things were for Cody nearly 40 years go with that song: “Well, my dog died just yesterday and left me all alone / The finance company dropped by today and repossessed my home / That's just a drop in the bucket compared to losing you / And I'm down to seeds and stems again, too.”

What a total bummer, man.

The final cut on “Volume 1” is “Death Row,” a song whose tempo and drum beat sound suspiciously like s ticking clock, which sucks you into the reality of one’s final hours and minutes on earth. But you don’t sense fear on “Death Row,” as Stapleton delivers this death march with a sense of calm and resolve: “Don't want no preacher man to come around / I don't need him to lay my burden down / Already told Jesus everything I know.”

Man! When was the last time we had an honest-to-goodness damned prison song we could all put our arms around and sing along with?

If you watch for Stapleton’s many TV appearances that are sure to occur between now and the release of “Volume 2,” you’ll likely see him play all nine of these songs live. He did the same thing with “Traveller,” tossing out conventional wisdom (shocker!), and NOT playing the current radio single – he already featured “I Was Wrong” (a killer, bluesy cut 6) on “The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon” earlier this week.

In spite of only nine cuts, “From A Room: Volume 1” is a riveting, deep, layered listen – and yes, it’ll keep you emotionally occupied and engaged until December when “Volume 2” finally arrives. This album is so good, you’ll still be enjoying it and feeling great about the elevated state of music, even if the rest of your world is falling apart; even if you’re down to “Them Stems.”