When Chris Stapleton released his debut "Tennessee Whiskey" single in 2015, he had no idea how much one performance of the song would change everything for him. Stapleton was joined by Justin Timberlake at the 2015 CMA Awards, to sing "Tennessee Whiskey" together, and from that point on, nothing was ever the same for Stapleton.
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"I had gotten to know him a little bit, through a mutual friend," Stapleton recalls on The Howard Stern Show. "I went to his birthday party a year or so before that. And he had expressed an interest in doing something sometime, or making a record. There was a moment where I was going to make a record with him. We had these nominations for the CMAs, and Robert Deaton, the producer of the show, called us and asked us if we would like to play on the show."
It was Stapleton's wife Morgane who suggested Stapleton ask Timberlake to join him to sing together, marking Timberlake's first CMA Awards performance as well.
"He was kind enough to come do it," Stapleton says. He also reveals that, after his performance with Timberlake, all of his dates on his tour immediately sold out.
"It was a different ballgame," Stapleton says. "Justin's coming out to the show. Pharrell [Williams] came to one of those shows, one of those little tiny shows. ... I like to say we built the fire, but he threw the match on it. And that's really how I feel about that moment. It will always have a special place in my heart, and he will too."
Chris Stapleton and Justin Timberlake Sing "Say Something"
"Tennessee Whiskey" isn't Stapleton and Timberlake's only collaboration. The two also released "Say Something" in 2018. The song is on Timberlake's Man of the Woods album. Both Timberlake and Stapleton are writers on the song, along with several others. Timberlake produced the song with Timbaland, Danja and Larrance Dopson."
"It was the first song we wrote together," Timberlake recalls (via The Fader). "He kind of came in and I thought to myself, it would be really cool to see if we wrote something and we just let Timbaland and Danja just dress it and just see what happens."
Even more impressive, the video for "Say Something," which is more than six minutes long, was shot in one take.
