hypersongs
?

Tyler Childers

A singer-songwriter from Lawrence County, Kentucky, who made Purgatory with Sturgill Simpson in 2017 and took Appalachian country to arenas.

Origin
Lawrence County, Kentucky
Years active
2010-present
Genres
country, bluegrass, folk, honky-tonk
Labels
Hickman Holler, Thirty Tigers, RCA
Also known as
Timothy Tyler Childers

Louisa to Purgatory

Timothy Tyler Childers was born on June 21, 1991 in Lawrence County, Kentucky, and comes from Louisa. He sang in a church choir, began guitar and songwriting around 13, graduated from Paintsville High School in 2009, spent a semester at Western Kentucky University and several at Bluegrass Community and Technical College, then dropped out. From 2010 he played in Lexington, Kentucky and Huntington, West Virginia, and released his first album, Bottles and Bibles, himself in 2011. In 2012 he put "Jersey Giant" on SoundCloud with Senora May on vocals; it was later given to Elle King, who recorded it on Come Get Your Wife (2022), and Saving Country Music says it became an American standard. Two live sessions at Red Barn Radio, in October 2013 and April 2014, were compiled as I & II. His backing band is the Food Stamps.

Purgatory (August 4, 2017, Hickman Holler and Thirty Tigers) was produced by Sturgill Simpson and David R. Ferguson at The Butcher Shoppe in Nashville, 37:41 long. Childers said I think we both wanted to make an album for east Kentucky, and I reckon that's what we did, and thanked the drummer Miles Miller for introducing him to Simpson. Simpson played acoustic guitar and sang backing vocals, with Stuart Duncan on fiddle, Miller on drums and Russ Pahl on guitar, pedal steel and Jew's harp. It reached number 71 on the Billboard 200 and number nine on the country chart, was certified platinum in the US and Canada, and Metacritic scores it 82; Saving Country Music gave it 8 out of 10, calling it twangy, sweaty, live and loose but lacking a cohesive expression. The singles were "Lady May" (June 9, 2017), "Whitehouse Road" and "Universal Sound".

Country Squire and after

He won the Americana Honors and Awards emerging artist of the year in 2018. Country Squire (August 2, 2019), produced by Simpson and Ferguson, reached number one on the US and UK country charts and 12 on the Billboard 200, and "All Your'n" was nominated for a Grammy for best country solo performance. In 2020 he and Senora May co-founded the Hickman Holler Appalachian Relief Fund, he played Rupp Arena in Lexington with Simpson on February 28, 2020, and released Long Violent History on September 18, 2020, eight public-domain fiddle instrumentals and a title track. Can I Take My Hounds to Heaven? (September 30, 2022) is eight gospel songs in three versions and was his first top ten album, at number eight.

"In Your Love" (July 27, 2023), with a video written by Silas House about a gay coal-miner couple in the 1950s, was his first top ten on the Hot Country Songs chart. Rustin' in the Rain came out on September 8, 2023, with guests including Ronnie McCoury, Margo Price and S.G. Goodman, and he won the Americana Honors album of the year for Hounds. Snipe Hunter followed on July 25, 2025. He has criticized the Americana label, saying it has kind of become just a costume. Setlist.fm logs his most played songs as "Lady May" with 296 performances, third, and "Feathered Indians" with 134.

Records

Songs

Colter Wall, Rosanne Cash

Where to go next

Official

Reference

Discography and data

Live performance archives

Sources

  1. Tyler Childers, Wikipedia
  2. Country Squire, Wikipedia
  3. Can I Take My Hounds to Heaven?, Wikipedia
  4. Tyler Childers, setlist.fm