We never would have predicted this a decade ago. At the end of the 2010s, Chris Stapleton was making a good buck as an ace Nashville songwriter while playing midday festival sets as rhythm guitarist and co-vocalist in the bluegrass band the SteelDrivers. His burly, beardy Charlie Daniels look and his raw, rough country troubadourism had long gone out of style among mainstream country tastemakers.
Forward to last weekend, when Stapleton was playing his second sold-out Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre concert in three summers as one of the most popular and award-winning singers on the planet. To navigate through the lawn’s packed pastiche of folding chairs and blankets was a precarious minefield as all green space was jealously claimed. Beer spillage was assured. Such a scene made obvious that, unlikely as it once seemed, Stapleton is a superstar, and everyone in the crowd has made his songs a part of their lives.
What’s additionally remarkable is how simple Stapleton keeps his presentation. While most arena and amphitheater acts are breaking the bank with stage production, Stapleton offers little razzle and even less dazzle, playing in front of the same wall-of-lights stage design he’s been using for the last three years. The big man parks himself just left of center stage and sings his songs, much of the time staring into the eyes of his wife and duet partner, Morgane Stapleton, and generally never moves from his spot.
Taking the stage (The Band’s “Up on Cripple Creek” was his walk-up music), Stapleton announced his intention to keep stage commentary to a minimum, addressing us as “Maryland Heights,” which is always cute. The setlist was virtually unchanged apart from its running order from his previous St. Louis stop, although the band’s sound felt brighter and more layered than last time out, thanks in part to second guitarist Mike Eli LoPinto, who Stapleton described as the “best guitar player in the band,” which is tough call, as Stapleton himself had a great night on his Fender Jazzmaster.
The band was also bolstered by a couple of legends. First, Paul Franklin, a member of the Steel Guitar Hall of Fame, who has played on a bazillion Nashville albums and backed everyone from Barbara Mandrell to Dire Straits on tour. Second was the ageless Mickey Raphael, who has played harmonica for every Willie Nelson show for the last 50 years and was on this very stage just three weeks ago with Willie at the Outlaw Music Festival. It was a treat to see Raphael on stage with Stapleton though, dammit, his harmonica was often lost in the mix.
Even when introducing these band members, Stapleton sang as he did so, breaking into melisma-heavy runs to tell us that drummer Derek Mixon is from West Monroe, Louisiana, for instance. These players — along with bassist J.T. Cure and keyboardist Lee Pardini — have recently been in the studio with Stapleton prepping Higher, his first album since 2021’s Starting Over, due November 10. Curiously, they played just one track from the upcoming album, a hard-country thumper about truckers called “Crosswind.”
A big highlight came halfway into the show with the reappearance of Marty Stuart, whose own set earlier was a humdinger of slick picking, surf boogie, hillbilly rock, mandolin solos and Nudie suits. Stapleton and Stuart duetted on a swinging rendition of Stuart’s “Honky Tonkin’ is What I Do Best,” and the men proved it, clearly in awe of each other.
After a solo-acoustic set (“This is the part where I fire the band for a little while,” he joked), which included the dead-dog tearjerker “Maggie’s Song,” Stapleton dipped in the SteelDrivers songbook for “Midnight Train to Memphis,” reworked as the evening’s most viscerally rocking song and one on which Stapleton pushed his chainsaw-tenor the hardest. Next came — no joke — Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Freebird,” the ultimate rock anomaly in being the only song everyone requests but nobody wants to hear.
Thankfully, it segued into Stapleton’s one “The Devil Named Music,” and it was all biggies from there on out: “Traveller,” “Fire Away” — during which Stapleton asked for phone flashlights and turned the vocals over to the crowd (“Folks, that’s what magic feels like to me,” he said afterwards) — and “Broken Halos,” the night’s biggest singalong.
Except for “Tennessee Whiskey,” of course, the David Allan Coe song Stapleton has forever made his own. Stapleton put the cap on the night with an extended, noisy “Outlaw State of Mind,” with a wailing solo from Raphael. It was a final song choice that emphasized that Stapleton is bending country music in his direction, and that his incredible success is a result of his insistence on doing things his way.
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