“I didn't know they would pay you money to sit in a room and write songs for other people. I always thought that George Strait was singing a song, he made it up, and that was the end of it. But the instant I found that out, that that could be a job, I thought, 'That's the job for me. I gotta figure out how to do that.'”

American singer-songwriter and guitarist

Christopher Alvin Stapleton is an American singer-songwriter and guitarist. He is known for his work in country music and for a career that began after he left engineering studies at Vanderbilt University to pursue music in Nashville. Born in Kentucky, he moved to Nashville in 1996 and later signed with Sea Gayle Music as a writer and publisher. His early career was shaped by songwriting as well as performing, and his name is closely associated with modern American country music.