ABC/Mark Levine Three-time CMA Male Vocalist of the Year Chris Stapleton returns to the top twenty this week with “Millionaire,” the rare song that, it happens, he didn’t write.
“Millionaire” was originally recorded by singer/songwriter Kevin Welch, as the title track of his 2002 album. It’s a tune Chris has been singing for a long time.
“I love that song. I would always sit around the house playing that song to myself on a guitar,” he recalls. “It’s fun to play, it’s fun to sing, it’s a great melody, it’s a great lyric, it’s a great… everything. To me, that’s a great song. And I just loved it, so it was time to do it.”
Chris recorded it on his CMA-nominated Album of the Year, Songs from A Room: Volume II. The Entertainer of the Year nominee admits the song has taken on new meaning as he’s become a husband and father of four.
“I used to think that it was like being an actor,” he says of interpreting songs, “where you kind of hop into things. ‘And now I’m a bad guy.’ I very much have that kind of, ‘Alright, I’m gonna put on this hat and be this guy in this song. I have to put myself in that space.’ I have that to some degree.”
“But also,” Chris continues, “when you’ve lived a little longer, songs can hit you a lot differently, and you can find spots in them to emote, if you will, that maybe you wouldn’t have without some kind of knowledge of something going on in the song.”
These days, Chris feeling like a “Millionaire” has only increased. His wife Morgane recently re-joined him on tour on their All-American Road Show, after giving birth to their twins back in the spring.
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