Chris Stapleton has nothing but praise for Miranda Lambert as a songwriter. The two country superstars co-wrote the opening track of Stapleton’s new album Higher, “What Am I Gonna Do.” The quiet number finds Stapleton and his wife and background singer Morgane Stapleton trading harmonies as they sing: What am I gonna do / When I get over you? / What am I gonna be / When you’re just a memory? / What am I gonna drink / When I don’t have to think about what I’m gonna do without you?
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“I don’t think people talk about what a great songwriter she is enough,” Stapleton explains to Today’s Country Radio with Kelleigh Bannen on Apple Music about Lambert. “We all know that she’s a great singer and entertainer and all those things, but she’s a really great country songwriter.” The 2023 CMA Male Vocalist of the Year winner says that the two have written together over the years. He reached out to Lambert when he was making the album to see if she had a copy of the song they’d written years prior.
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“I could only remember half the song and I didn’t have a copy. I was like, ‘Do you have a copy of this song?'” he continues. “And she was kind enough to go looking for it and digging for it, and she found it and so we could cut it, and that’s how it wound up on the record was she was kind enough to dig a little bit.”
Higher was released in November 2023. Its lead single, “White Horse,” reached the Top 10 on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart. “I’m humbled to be here tonight to get to stay in such a wonderful crowd of people,” he said during his 2023 CMA Awards acceptance speech, marking his seventh time winning Male Vocalist of the Year. “I want to thank my wife, Morgane. I don’t do any of this without her. Certainly don’t get any of these without her…I’m so thankful to continue to be part of the country music community. I’m really, really grateful that you let me do this and keep on doing this.”
(Photo by Theo Wargo/Getty Images)
