Happy Monday, y’all.
Today for the Whiskey Riff Song of the Week, we have a tune from the one and only Chris Stapleton called “What Are You Listening To?”
Written by Chris with Lee Thomas Miller, he released the song as his debut single to country radio back in 2013 after signing with Mercury Nashville, and it eventually peaked at #46 on the U.S. Billboard Country Airplay chart that same year.
After the singe fizzled out on the country charts, he trashed the album that song was supposed to be on and got to work on his now-legendary record, Traveller. I think we at least deserve to hear that unnamed record one day, too, though.
Chris put out Traveller in May of 2015, and in November of 2015, he took the country music world by storm when he appeared on CMA Awards with Justin Timberlake to sing “Tennessee Whiskey”. The rest, as they say, is history.
It’s always been one of my favorite Chris Stapleton songs, and if you’ve never heard this long lost single before, today is your lucky day.
This acoustic performance from 2013 is flawless, per the usual from the reigning ACM Male Vocalist of the Year:
The studio version:
