Tyler Childers

Tyler Childers is a songwriter and singer from Lawrence County in eastern Kentucky. He spent years playing regional bars and small rooms before Purgatory, co-produced by Sturgill Simpson, brought his writing to a much larger audience. His songs stick close to Appalachian settings and characters, and his band, the Food Stamps, keeps fiddle high in the mix alongside pedal steel and organ.

Later releases have ranged from the fiddle-tune instrumentals and protest song of Long Violent History to the gospel-rooted Can I Take My Hounds to Heaven?, which presented the same set of songs in three different arrangements. He sings in a strong, unsmoothed regional accent and has not adjusted it as the venues have grown.