Chris Stapleton’s electrifying rendition of “White Horse” fueled anticipation for his forthcoming full-length album when he took the stage at the 57th annual CMA Awards on Wednesday evening (November 8).
The powerhouse singer-songwriter is gearing up to release his next studio album, Higher, on Friday (November 10). Stapleton kicked off the new chapter in his music when he released “White Horse” over the summer, followed by “Think I’m In Love With You” and “It Takes A Woman.” Stapleton previously shared that his wife, Morgane Stapleton, is the first person to hear any of his songs, and “White Horse” was no different. Stapleton previously shared that Morgane initially thought it was “not the most romantic thing in the world,” but when he continued to bring it up and eventually recorded it in the studio, “I think she might’ve changed her mind on it.”
“’White Horse’ was a song that I wrote with my friend, Dan Wilson,” Stapleton previously said via his record label. “We were out in Los Angeles, it was about I think probably late 2012, early 2013, and there was a movie called the Lone Ranger that was coming out, and I walked in the room to write with Dan at his house, and he said, ‘Hey they’re looking for songs for this Lone Ranger movie.’ I said, ‘Cool. Let’s write something. What do you know about it?’ He goes, ‘Well, we don’t really know anything.’ I was like, ‘Well, let’s just make a song that might sound like that.’ And so, that’s kind of where that came from, and we got to talking about how it would be cool to have a kind of rock-driven-western-themed song, and that’s kind of where the song came from and we kind of built it around a guitar riff, really.
“’Higher’ is a song that’s been around a long, long time,” he added via his label of the title track. “I wrote it in 2001 within the first few months of being a professional songwriter here in Nashville, and it was on the first demo session I ever did in Nashville. So, for it to come around 22 years later and wind up being a title track of an album is a pretty unique thing to me.”
See the Higher track list here:
- What Am I Gonna Do
- South Dakota
- Trust
- It Takes A Woman
- The Fire
- Think I’m In Love With You
- Loving You On My Mind
- White Horse
- Higher
- The Bottom
- The Day I Die
- Crosswind
- Weight Of Your World
- Mountains of My Mind
Stapleton, who recently opened up about therapy and his sobriety in an interview, announced dates and the star-studded lineup of his 2024 “All-American Road Show” tour. Allen Stone, Elle King, Grace Potter, Lainey Wilson, Marcus King, Marty Stuart, Nikki Lane, Sheryl Crow, The War And Treaty, Turnpike Troubadours, and Willie Nelson & Family. Stapleton is also set to join country music legend Georgie Strait on his headlining stadium shows in 2024, along with Little Big Town.
Stapleton was part of a star-studded lineup to take the CMA Awards stage on Wednesday night, along with Kelsea Ballerini, Kenny Chesney, Luke Combs, Dan + Shay, Jordan Davis, HARDY, Alan Jackson, Cody Johnson, Post Malone, Mac McAnally, Ashley McBryde, Morgan Wallen, The War And Treaty, Zac Brown Band, Luke Bryan, Jelly Roll, K. Michelle, Little Big Town, Megan Moroney, Old Dominion, Carly Pearce, Tanya Tucker and Lainey Wilson.
The 57th CMA Awards is set to air live on ABC from Bridgestone Arena in Downtown Nashville, Tennessee, beginning at 8pm ET/7pm CT. It’s also available to listen on iHeartCountry Radio and on iHeartRadio Country stations nationwide. If you miss the live broadcast, the three-hour show is available next day on Hulu. Watch the performance here: