Chris Stapleton was a high school valedictorian who played football against future NFL number one pick Tim Couch, then enrolled at Vanderbilt University to study biomedical engineering. Born in Lexington in 1978 and raised in coal country in Staffordsville, Kentucky, he was the son of a mine engineer and grew up on Keith Whitley, Dwight Yoakam, Patty Loveless, classic soul, and blues. After meeting a salaried professional songwriter, he dropped out, signed with a publishing house, and treated songwriting like an engineering job, writing over a thousand songs and number one hits for George Strait, Josh Turner, and Luke Bryan.

This episode traces his years testing his voice in the SteelDrivers and the Jompson Brothers, the 2013 Mercury Nashville single "What Are You Listening To" that underperformed and the album that was shelved, the death o ...