📍Paintsville, Kentucky, USA
1978 – 1996“Chris Stapleton was born in Lexington, Kentucky, in April 1978 and grew up in Staffordsville, a small community just outside Paintsville in Johnson County, in the mountains of eastern Kentucky. It is coal country, on the stretch of US Route 23 known as the Country Music Highway, which also produced Loretta Lynn and Dwight Yoakam. His father, Herbert, worked as a mining engineer, and both his grandfathers worked in the mines, while his mother, Carol, worked at the local health department. He grew up in a hard-working, close-knit Appalachian community where church, family and music were part of everyday life. He soaked up his parents' soul and country records, and the bluegrass and gospel of the mountains around him. At Johnson Central High School he played football, sang in local bands and was a top student; he graduated in 1996 as one of the school's valedictorians, and instead of giving a speech, he wrote and sang a song for his classmates at graduation. He went to Vanderbilt University in Nashville to study engineering, but left after a year to pursue music. For years he worked as a songwriter in Nashville, writing hits for country stars, and sang with the bluegrass band the SteelDrivers. His 2015 debut album, Traveller, made him a star, and his voice, steeped in the gospel, soul and country of his Kentucky childhood, has won him many Grammys. He has often spoken with pride about Johnson County and the coal-mining families who raised him.”
🗺️ Approximate location today
📍 Street view today