Chris Stapleton Reveals Which CMA Awards Win Is the Most Meaningful

Chris Stapleton walked away from the 2018 CMA Awards with three trophies, for Male Vocalist of the Year, and Single of the Year and Song of the Year, both for “Broken Halos.” For Stapleton, just being nominated was already a win, but he does admit Song of the Year, which is his first time to win in that category, means the most to him, especially because he wrote the song with his friend and hero, Mike Henderson.

“It’s extremely meaningful because on paper and on the chart performance and all those things there were certainly more worthy songs in both categories,” Stapleton shared with PopCulture.com and other media backstage at the CMA Awards. “I think that’s worth saying, to note. But the flip side of that is it’s very meaningful to me because I do consider myself first and foremost a songwriter. And to get to do it with a man who was a mentor to me, Mike Henderson.”

“You know, lot of the things that I try to do on electric guitar or the ways that I try to think lyrically or even try to get as much information on, he’d called it ‘secret knowledge,’ out of him as I can,” he added. “And so to win awards with him means so very much to me that I’m not even sure I could describe it.”

Stapleton won his first four CMA Awards in 2015, and has continued his streak with selling out venues and enjoying platinum-selling success, as well as collecting more than a dozen trophies, including five GRAMMYs. But at his core, the 40-year-old says he is still the same person and musician he always was.

“I hope it hasn’t changed a whole lot and I don’t think it has,” Stapleton maintained. “You know, these things are fantastic things to win but when you get nominated or invited to these kinds of parties, in my estimation, you’ve already won and you’ve already gotten to be far beyond anything anybody whose a musician could ever dream of getting to do. And we get to do that every day. We live that every day … I’m always genuinely surprised to win anything and I’m always grateful for it.”

Stapleton and his wife, Morgane, recently announced they are expecting their fifth child. While his career continues to expand, the singer-songwriter insists his children will always remain his top priority.

“Our kids travel with us quite a bit,” Stapleton revealed. “But when they don’t come, I ask my in-laws and all my extended family. Generally we have a village and none of this is possible without that village, and we continue to be grateful for everybody that we have. My in-laws and my sister-in-law, and my mom, and everybody, it’s so helpful to us and we have so many great people who work out on the road with us to help us make that as comfortable as we can on the road with children.”

“And what we try to do when we’re off,” he added, “we try to be with each other and talk to each other and hang out with each other and do things that you hope that you get to do with your dad.”

Photo Credit: Getty images/Terry Wyatt