In addition to sweeping all three of his potential categories – Album of the Year (Traveller), New Artist of the Year and Male Vocalist of the Year – Chris Stapleton took the stage to perform a jaw-dropping duet with popstar Justin Timberlake. Together, they sang Timberlake’s hit ‘Drink You Away’ and Stapleton’s rendition of ‘Tennessee Whiskey’.
Just two days after the broadcast, the bearded singer-songwriter’s recording of ‘Tennessee Whiskey’ soared to No. 1 on Billboard‘s Hot Country Songs chart, landed at No. 23 on the Billboard Hot 100 and sold 131,000 copies. The next week, it peaked at No. 20 on the latter and sold an additional 118,000 copies.
In May of 2016, only a year after its release on Stapleton’s debut solo album, Traveller, ‘Tennessee Whiskey’ was certified Platinum, and by January of 2017, it had sold over a million copies. Each year since, the song has notched a new Platinum certification, and by December of 2021, it had achieved Diamond status from the RIAA for surpassing 10 million units sold. As of April 2023, it has achieved Platinum status fourteen times over.
Stapleton and ‘Tennessee Whiskey’ became overnight sensations after that fateful November night, and now his soulful, five-minute crooner has become a standard in modern day country music.
But the life of ‘Tennessee Whiskey’ started long before Stapleton decided to cut it in 2015. In fact, to get back to its origins, we have to travel back over 40 years ago to 1981.
‘Tennessee Whiskey,’ written by Dean Dillon and Linda Hargrove, was born at 4am after a night out at Nashville’s Bluebird Cafe. Originally pitched to and turned down by George Strait, the song was first recorded by outlaw country artist David Allan Coe in 1981. His original take on ‘Tennessee Whiskey’ only rose to No. 77 on the Hot Country Singles chart.
Two years later, country icon George Jones gave the song a go and took it to a new peak at No. 2 on the Hot Country Singles chart. Jones’ version of ‘Tennessee Whiskey’ became a major hit and remained a mainstay in his live sets for years, including at the inaugural Farm Aid event in 1985 which saw Coe join Jones on stage to sing a bit of the tune.
However, Stapleton has taken the decades-old and much-covered tune to new heights since 2015.
POsted from: https://holler.country/lyrics/tennessee-whiskey-by-chris-stapleton-lyrics-and-meaning/