walking upstream…
Tyler Childers
photo: roberta · cc by 2.0 ↗Tyler Childers
sourcesWikipedia · Rolling Stone
Born in 1991 in Lawrence County, Kentucky, Tyler Childers grew up singing in church choir and picked up guitar and songwriting around age 13, later self-releasing 2011's Bottles and Bibles out of a friend's backyard studio. His 2017 breakthrough Purgatory, produced by fellow eastern Kentuckian Sturgill Simpson and engineer David Ferguson, fused honky-tonk, bluegrass, and gospel into unvarnished songs about addiction, coal country, and Appalachian life, and follow-ups like Country Squire (2019), the old-time fiddle album Long Violent History (2020), and Rustin' in the Rain (2023) have made him one of the defining voices of modern Appalachian country.
the sound in question
2017
Feathered IndiansTyler Childers
walk the tributaries ↓
Sturgill Simpson2010s · Outlaw country / Progressive country / Americana
Simpson, from nearby Breathitt County, Kentucky, produced Childers's breakthrough album Purgatory (2017) alongside engineer David Ferguson, playing guitar and singing backing vocals, and returned to produce Country Squire (2019); the raw, hard-driving outlaw-rock edge Simpson brought to those sessions is stamped across Childers's uptempo material.
listen: upstream & here
2014
Turtles All the Way DownSturgill Simpson
2017
Whitehouse RoadTyler Childers
listen forListen to the searching, road-worn drive of Simpson's 'Turtles All the Way Down,' then Childers's own barreling 'Whitehouse Road,' a song from the album Simpson helped produce — both push a lean country band hard into rock-and-roll territory without losing a plainspoken Kentucky twang.
John Prine1970s · Folk / Country / Americana
Childers has said John Prine was 'one of the first songwriters who had a big influence on how I wanted my sound to be,' discovering him in eighth grade after his baseball coach played 'Please Don't Bury Me' in the dugout; Prine's plainspoken, humane storytelling runs through Childers's own character sketches of working-class Appalachian life.
listen: upstream & heresource: Whiskey Riff ↗
1973
Please Don't Bury MeJohn Prine
2017
Nose on the GrindstoneTyler Childers
listen forPlay Prine's gallows-humor romp 'Please Don't Bury Me' for its wry, matter-of-fact voice on mortality, then Childers's 'Nose on the Grindstone' — both wrap hard-won, working-class wisdom in an easy, conversational melody rather than a sermon.
Ralph Stanley1950s · Bluegrass / Old-time / Gospel
Childers has recalled that his father's truck held only two cassettes growing up — a Ralph Stanley album and a Hee Haw gospel collection — and has named Stanley among the bluegrass artists who shaped his ear; that austere, high-lonesome Appalachian sound is baked into Childers's own old-time and gospel material.
listen: upstream & here
2000
O DeathRalph Stanley
2020
Universal SoundTyler Childers
listen forCue up Stanley's stark, a cappella 'O Death' for its bare-bones mountain-gospel dread, then Childers's fiddle tune 'Universal Sound' — both strip the arrangement down to almost nothing and let a plain, old-time Appalachian sound carry the whole weight of the song.