Chris Stapleton: From a Room: Volume 1 [MERCURY NASHVILLE]

Why you'll love it

From a Room: Volume 1 won Album of the Year at the CMA Awards and Best Country Album at the Grammys. It debuted at No. 1 in Canada and No. 2 on the Billboard 200, and "Broken Halos" topped Country Airplay.

About the album

The room in question is a famous one: RCA Studio A in Nashville, where Chris Stapleton and Dave Cobb set up over the winter of 2016 and 2017 to follow his breakout debut, Traveller, co-producing with Cobb for the second time running. Many of the songs had been kicking around for years before that record, waiting for the right moment, and Stapleton had road-tested several of them live before the album was even announced.

"Broken Halos," co-written with Mike Henderson, opens with a mid-tempo blend of country rock, folk and Southern gospel, and went on to win the Grammy for Best Country Song. "Either Way" is a spare, aching ballad that took Best Country Solo Performance, "Second One to Know" is pure blues-rock swagger, and Gary P. Nunn's "Last Thing I Needed, First Thing This Morning" gets a warm, weathered reading. "I Was Wrong" got an airing on The Tonight Show.

Stapleton had premiered "Second One to Know" at the ACM Awards that April, and Volume 2 followed later the same year. Evidently the room had rather more in it than one album.

Also at Kops: more Chris Stapleton on vinyl · browse Country

Tracklist

Listen

On Mercury Nashville (cat# B0026379-01), the 2017 album.