T-Pain covering Chris Stapleton was not on my bingo card for 2023.
The famed Auto-Tune singer responsible for early 2000s bangers like “I’m Sprung,” “I’m ‘n Luv (Wit a Stripper),” “Buy U a Drank (Shawty Snappin’),” and more dropped an album last week filled with covers of love songs we all know and love.
One of the songs he covered on the album, On Top Of The Covers, is “Tennessee Whiskey.”
Written by the great Dean Dillon and Linda Hargrove, “Tennessee Whiskey” was originally recorded by David Allan Coe as the title track to his 1981 album.
It peaked at just #77 on the U.S. Billboard Hot Country Singles chart in 1981, though George Jones’ 1983 cover peaked at #2 on the U.S. Billboard Hot Country Singles chart the year of its release.
And of course, Chris Stapleton released what is now the most well-known version of the iconic country song as a cover on his iconic 2015 Traveler album.
T-Pain took to Instagram on the day of the album release to share:
“It’s finally here! Grab someone you love and listen to all 7 fantabulous hits from my cover album, ‘On Top Of The Covers,’ out now!”
I wish I could take credit for finding this myself, but one of my friends sent me the track and told me to take a listen.
I’ll be the first to admit that I saw T-Pain a slightly embarrassing amount of times in high school, so I had to check out the iconic rapper’s take on the tune. I was not expecting to cover to be filled with soul and so many harmonies. His version really highlights his vocals and has a simple procession melody in the background to keep the beat.
Following in the footsteps of Chris Stapleton’s vocals is not an easy task, and T-Pain entirely took on the challenge of covering this song.
And let’s be honest, am I going to be listening to the T-Pain version of this song when you have DAC, George, and Chris? No, of course not.
But did I completely hate it? Nah…
And of course, the great Chris Stapleton:
