ABC/Image Group LAChris Stapleton is turning his triumphant night at the CMA Awards into a big leap on the Billboard charts. 13.6 million people saw the relatively unknown Nashville singer/songwriter perform with Justin Timberlake on last week’s 49th annual awards show. He also became the first person ever to win trophies for New Artist, Male Vocalist and Album of the Year in the same night.
Now, his CMA-Award-winning project has rocketed to the top of both the all-genre Billboard 200 chart, as well as the country albums ranking, selling 153,428 units and 177, 199 in equivalent album sales, a calculation which includes single-track sales and streams. Traveller, which came out in May, is the first debut album by a country artist to go to number one on the all-genre chart in four years.
The track Chris performed on the show, “Tennessee Whiskey,” is the best-selling digital country song of the week as well, with more than 130,000 downloads. His label also is following up with a new single from the album, “Nobody to Blame.”
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