''Traveller'' is the debut studio album by American singer-songwriter

Chris Stapleton Christopher Alvin Stapleton (born April 15, 1978) is an American country singer-songwriter and guitarist. Born in Kentucky, Stapleton moved to Nashville in 1996 to study for an engineering degree from Vanderbilt University, but dropped out to pur ...

. The album was produced by

Dave Cobb Dave Cobb (born July 9, 1974) is an American record producer based in Nashville, Tennessee, best known for producing the work of Chris Stapleton, Brandi Carlile, John Prine, Sturgill Simpson, Jason Isbell, The Highwomen, Take That, Rival ...

and Stapleton, and was released on May 5, 2015, through

Mercury Nashville Music Corporation of America, formerly known as Universal Music Group Nashville, is Universal Music Group's country music subsidiary. It was officially opened in 1945 as #MCA Nashville, MCA Nashville and #Mercury Nashville, Mercury Nashville wh ...

. Described by music publications as an old-school country,

Southern rock Southern rock is a subgenre of rock music and a genre of Americana. It developed in the Southern United States from rock and roll, country and blues, and is focused generally on electric guitars and vocals. History 1950s and 1960s: origin ...

record, ''Traveller'' received critical acclaim and earned Stapleton several awards. It was named Album of the Year at the 2015 Country Music Association Awards. Furthermore, it received a nomination at the

58th Grammy Awards The 58th Annual Grammy Awards was held on February 15, 2016, at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. The ceremony recognizes the best recordings, compositions and artists of the eligibility year, which was from October 1, 2014, to September 30, 201 ...

for Album of the Year and a win for

Best Country Album The Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Country Album is an award presented at the Grammy Awards, a ceremony that was established in 1958 and originally called the Gramophone Awards, to recording artists for quality albums in the country music ge ...

. The song " Traveller" also won

Best Country Solo Performance The Grammy Award for Best Country Solo Performance is an award presented at the Grammy Awards, a ceremony that was established in 1958 and originally called the Gramophone Awards. According to the 54th Grammy Awards description guide it is desig ...

. At the 2016 Academy of Country Music Awards it won Album of the Year, with the song "

Nobody to Blame "Nobody to Blame" is a song recorded by American singer-songwriter Chris Stapleton. The song was released in November 2015 as the singer's third single overall. Stapleton co-wrote the song with Barry Bales and Ronnie Bowman. It became Stapleton's ...

" also winning Song of the Year. It won the

Billboard Music Award The ''Billboard'' Music Awards are honors given out annually by ''Billboard (magazine), Billboard'', a publication covering the music business and a Billboard charts, music popularity chart. The ''Billboard'' Music Awards show has been held annu ...

for Top Country Album in 2016 and 2017. ''Traveller'' reached number one on the US ''Billboard'' 200 chart after the 2015 Country Music Association Awards, during which Stapleton and

Justin Timberlake Justin Randall Timberlake (born January 31, 1981) is an American singer, songwriter, actor, record producer, and dancer. Dubbed the "Honorific nicknames in popular music, Prince of Pop", ''Billboard (magazine), Billboard'' honored him as the b ...

performed a well-received duet. The album has been certified quadruple platinum by the

Recording Industry Association of America The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is a trade organization that represents the music recording industry in the United States. Its members consist of record labels and distributors that the RIAA says "create, manufacture, and/o ...

(RIAA) and has sold over 2.6 million copies in the United States by November 2019. It was eventually ranked by ''Billboard'' as the bestselling country album of the 2010s. It generated three singles: "

Traveller Traveler(s), traveller(s), The Traveler, or The Traveller may refer to: People *Anyone engaged in travel Groups * Romani people, or Roma, or Gypsies, and their subgroups in various countries * Indigenous Norwegian Travellers * Irish Travellers ...

", "

", and "

Parachute A parachute is a device designed to slow an object's descent through an atmosphere by creating Drag (physics), drag or aerodynamic Lift (force), lift. It is primarily used to safely support people exiting aircraft at height, but also serves va ...

". "Nobody to Blame" reached the top 10 on the

Country Airplay Country Airplay is a chart published weekly by ''Billboard'' magazine in the United States since October 20, 2012, although the magazine also retrospectively recognizes the Hot Country Songs charts from January 20, 1990, through October 13, 2012, ...

chart. The album track " Fire Away" was accompanied by a music video. Though not released as a radio single, the album track "

Tennessee Whiskey Tennessee Whiskey is straight whiskey produced in the U.S. state of Tennessee. Although it has been legally defined as a bourbon whiskey in some international trade agreements, most current producers of Tennessee Whiskey disclaim references to ...

" garnered popularity following its performance at the aforementioned CMA awards, reaching number one on the ''Billboard''

Hot Country Songs Hot Country Songs is a chart published weekly by ''Billboard'' magazine in the United States. This 50-position chart lists the most popular country music songs, calculated weekly by collecting airplay data along with digital sales and streaming. ...

chart and number 20 on the

Hot 100 The ''Billboard'' Hot 100, also known as simply the Hot 100, is the music industry standard record chart in the United States for songs, published weekly by ''Billboard'' magazine. Chart rankings are based on sales (physical and digital), o ...

Music and composition

The album is an old-school country record mixed with

. Tracks on the album feature electric guitar, mandolin, and acoustic guitar. "The Devil Named Music" exclaims the hard life on the road, while "Might As Well Get Stoned" features resignation lyrics. Musically, "Sometimes I Cry" is a blues song, "

" is a mid-tempo

country rock Country rock is a music genre that fuses rock and country. It was developed by rock musicians who began to record country-flavored records in the late 1960s and early 1970s. These musicians recorded rock records using country themes, vocal sty ...

track, and " Fire Away" features a beat in a classic soul-ballad time signature. "Daddy Doesn't Pray Anymore" shrouds reflections about his father in the language of religious backsliding, which was previously covered by

Julie Roberts Julie Roberts (born February 1, 1979) is an American country music singer. Signed to Mercury Nashville in 2003, Roberts made her debut with the single "Break Down Here" in February 2004, a Top 20 hit on the ''Billboard'' Hot Country Singles & T ...

in 2013. In an interview for ''Rolling Stone'', Stapleton commented "If somebody tells me it sounds dated, I'd say that's great, as long as the date is 1978. My favorite things are from then." Stapleton wrote or co-wrote all but two of the album's 14 tracks. The album features a blues-influenced cover of

David Allan Coe David Allan Coe (born September 6, 1939) is an American singer and songwriter. Coe took up music after spending much of his early life in reform schools and prisons, and first became notable for busking in Nashville, Tennessee, Nashville. He ini ...

's single "

", and

Charlie Daniels Charles Edward Daniels (October 28, 1936 – July 6, 2020) was an American singer, musician, and songwriter. His music fused rock, country, blues and jazz, and was a pioneering contribution to Southern rock and progressive country. He was ...

' "Was It 26", written by Don Sampson.

Recording

Producer Dave Cobb originally intended to record the album at

Sound Emporium Studios Sound Emporium is a music recording studio located at 3100 Belmont Boulevard in Nashville, Tennessee. Originally founded by Jack Clement in 1969 as the Jack Clement Recording Studios, the studio changed ownership and was renamed Sound Emporium ...

in Nashville, but it was already booked. Cobb had read reports of the impending demolition of the historic

RCA Studio A RCA Studio A is a music recording studio in Nashville, Tennessee, built and founded in 1965 by Chet Atkins, Owen Bradley and Harold Bradley as an addition to the RCA Victor Studio the company established seven years prior. Together these two s ...

building and its

Grand Victor Sound RCA Studio A is a music recording studio in Nashville, Tennessee, built and founded in 1965 by Chet Atkins, Owen Bradley and Harold Bradley as an addition to the RCA Victor Studio the company established seven years prior. Together these two stu ...

studios, and decided to record Stapleton's debut studio album there, before the building and its recording studios were gone forever.

Commercial performance

The album debuted on the Top Country Albums chart at number two, and the ''Billboard'' 200 at number 14, selling 27,000 copies in the week ending May 10. Six months after the album was released, Chris Stapleton and

performed "

" at the 2015 Country Music Association Awards where ''Traveller'' won Album of the Year. Following the performance, sales for the album increased 6,000% and it re-entered the ''Billboard'' 200 at number one after being absent from the chart since September, with 177,000 equivalent album units (153,000 in pure album sales). According to ''

Billboard A billboard (also called a hoarding in the UK and many other parts of the world) is a large outdoor advertising structure (a billing board), typically found in high-traffic areas such as alongside busy roads. Billboards present large advertis ...

'', the surge in sales is owed to how a mass audience discovered Stapleton on the November 4 CMA Awards broadcast. ''Traveller'' is also the first debut country album to reach number one on the ''Billboard'' 200 in over four years, with '' Clear as Day'' (2011) by

Scotty McCreery Scott Cooke McCreery (born October 9, 1993) is an American country singer. He rose to fame after winning the tenth season of ''American Idol'' in May 2011. His debut studio album, '' Clear as Day'', was released in October 2011 and was certifi ...

being the last. It became the first album to reenter the chart at number one. It remained at number one for a second week with 124,000

album-equivalent unit The album-equivalent unit, or album equivalent, often shortened to just unit, is a sales metric in the music industry that defines the number of streaming media, songs streamed and music download, songs downloaded equal to one Record sales, tradi ...

s, including 97,000 pure album sales. The album track "

" topped the

chart, and reached the top 20 on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100. The album sold 685,000 copies in the United States in 2015. In February 2016, ''Traveller'' was certified platinum by the

(RIAA), and double platinum in September. It became the fourth best-selling album of 2016 in the nation, and the top selling country album, with 1.04 million copies sold that year. The album surpassed the 2 million sales mark in the US in July 2017, and it was the second best-selling country album of 2017 (after Stapleton's second album '' From A Room: Volume 1''. It hold the records for the most weeks atop the

Americana/Folk Albums Americana/Folk Albums (formerly Folk Albums) is a music chart published weekly by ''Billboard'' magazine which ranks the top selling "current releases by traditional folk artists, as well as appropriate titles by acoustic-based singer-songwriters ...

chart (81 in total as of August 2019). It topped the ''Billboard'' Year-End Top Country Albums chart in 2016 and 2017. It was certified quadruple platinum on July 24, 2019, for 4 million units in sales and streams. As of March 2020, the album has accrued 4.3 million units in the country in total, with 2.6 million copies in traditional album sales.

Critical reception

''Traveller'' received critical acclaim upon its release. At

Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...

, which assigns a

normalized Normalization or normalisation refers to a process that makes something more normal or regular. Science * Normalization process theory, a sociological theory of the implementation of new technologies or innovations * Normalization model, used in ...

rating out of 100 to reviews from

music critic '' The Oxford Companion to Music'' defines music criticism as "the intellectual activity of formulating judgments on the value and degree of excellence of individual works of music, or whole groups or genres". In this sense, it is a branch of m ...

s, the album has received an

average In colloquial, ordinary language, an average is a single number or value that best represents a set of data. The type of average taken as most typically representative of a list of numbers is the arithmetic mean the sum of the numbers divided by ...

score of 85, indicating "universal acclaim", based on 6 reviews. In a review for ''

'', editor Caitlin White gave the album four-out-of-five stars, describing ''Traveller'' as a "solemn album, the work of a man gripped by life's impermanence", noting "undercurrents of regret, loss and resignation" in songs like "Daddy Doesn't Pray Anymore", "Nobody to Blame" and "Devil Named Music". About the record's sound direction, she commented "Stapleton's songs are both rhythmic and nuanced, perhaps a by-product of years spent writing for others. They feature a cast of characters that remain likable even as they rush headlong into pursuit of ruin, fortune or chance." White concluded "it's a triumphant debut, encapsulating the grit of life, turning it into a hell of a journey." In ''

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' is an American Newspaper#Daily, daily newspaper that began publishing in Los Angeles, California, in 1881. Based in the Greater Los Angeles city of El Segundo, California, El Segundo since 2018, it is the List of new ...

'', Randy Lewis wrote "Stapleton's trenchant pen combines with his soul-drenched rasp of a voice for a moving exploration of the panoply of emotions in the human experience." Critics from ''

Rolling Stone ''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. The magazine was first known fo ...

'' opined ''Traveller'' "encapsulates everything that makes him one of the most powerful and unique voices in country music today: gravelly, soulful and full of songs that ring like instant classics without ever resting too deeply in the past." In their year-end summary they stated "every track goes straight for the emotional jugular and give a glimpse inside a wildly introspective mind." Editor Owen R. Smith from ''

The Seattle Times ''The Seattle Times'' is an American daily newspaper based in Seattle, Washington. Founded in 1891, ''The Seattle Times'' has the largest circulation of any newspaper in the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest region. The Seattle Time ...

'' noted the instruments mandolin, banjo, pedal steel guitar "are all given room to shine, even when Stapleton dips his toe into some menacing country rock in "Nobody to Blame" or electrified bluesy swagger in "Might As Well Get Stoned.""

Accolades

Awards

Track listing

All tracks are produced by

and Chris Stapleton.

Personnel

Credits for ''Traveller'' adapted from

AllMusic AllMusic (previously known as All-Music Guide and AMG) is an American online database, online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on Musical artist, musicians and Mus ...

. Musicians *

– acoustic guitar, percussion * J.T. Cure – bass guitar,

upright bass The double bass (), also known as the upright bass, the acoustic bass, the bull fiddle, or simply the bass, is the largest and lowest-pitched string instrument, chordophone in the modern orchestra, symphony orchestra (excluding rare additions ...

* Derek Mixon – drums, percussion *

Mickey Raphael Michael Siegfried Raphael (born November 7, 1951) is an American harmonica player, music producer and actor likely best known for his work with Willie Nelson, with whom he has toured as part of The Family since 1973. He has performed or record ...

– harmonica *

– acoustic guitar, electric guitar,

mandolin A mandolin (, ; literally "small mandola") is a Chordophone, stringed musical instrument in the lute family and is generally Plucked string instrument, plucked with a plectrum, pick. It most commonly has four Course (music), courses of doubled St ...

, lead vocals *

Morgane Stapleton Morgane Stapleton (pronounced "Morgan"; née Hayes; born January 25, 1983) is an American singer-songwriter and the wife of Chris Stapleton. She performs background, harmony, and duet vocals in her husband's band, was instrumental in the creati ...

– background vocals *

Robby Turner Robby Turner is an American pedal steel guitarist, best known for his work with Waylon Jennings and his contributions to recordings by many other artists. Biography Early years Turner grew up in a musical family; his parents Doyle and Bernice ...

–

pedal steel guitar The pedal steel guitar is a console steel guitar with pedals and knee levers that change the pitch of certain strings, enabling more varied and complex music to be played than with other steel guitar designs. Like all steel guitars, it can play ...

* Michael Webb –

Mellotron The Mellotron is an electro-mechanical musical instrument developed in Birmingham, England, in 1963. It is played by pressing its keys, each of which causes a length of magnetic tape to contact a Capstan (tape recorder), capstan, which pulls i ...

, organ, piano Technical personnel * Steve Blackmon – assistant * Sorrel Brigman – assistant * Dave Cobb – producer * Becky Fluke – photography * Mary Hooper – design *

Pete Lyman Pete Lyman is a mastering engineer, and owner of Infrasonic Mastering, an audio and vinyl mastering studio with three locations in United States. He has mastered Grammy-award winning and nominated albums for Chris Stapleton, Tanya Tucker, Jason I ...

– mastering * Drew Long – assistant *

Vance Powell Vance Powell is an American six-time Grammy Award winning record producer, engineer and mixer. His credits include Phish, Chris Stapleton, Jack White, Tyler Bryant & The Shakedown, The Raconteurs, The Dead Weather, The White Stripes, Arctic Monke ...

–

engineer Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who Invention, invent, design, build, maintain and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials. They aim to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while ...

, mixing * Ed Spear – assistant * Chris Stapleton – producer * Shane Stern – production coordination

Chart performance

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

Decade-end charts

Certifications

Release history

References

External links

* * {{Authority control 2015 debut albums Chris Stapleton albums Mercury Nashville albums Albums produced by Chris Stapleton Albums produced by Dave Cobb Grammy Award for Best Country Album