Following the success of 2017’s Purgatory, Tyler Childers returned with his third studio album, Country Squire, on August 2, 2019.
Coming in at a tight nine songs and 35 minutes, Country Squire is filled top-to-bottom with incredible, bluegrass-inspired tracks. One thing that will stick out to keen listeners who listen to the album from start to finish is that every song transitions perfectly into one another. It’s little details and production choices like these that make Childers‘ records stand head and shoulders above his contemporaries.
Like Purgatory, Country Squire is also produced by fellow independent star, Sturgill Simpson, and David R. Ferguson. In an interview with GQ, Childers contrasted and compared his experience in creating Country Squire to Purgatory. He notes how he had more creative freedom from a production-standpoint:
“He asks me what songs I wanna play and I bring them to him. We talk about ‘em and go from there. He picked out the band for ‘Purgatory.’ I was pretty hands on this time. We just talked out what I was trying to accomplish, which was in that vein of the stuff that I grew up with—bluegrass country like Ricky Skaggs, J.D. Crowe, Keith Whitley. Sturgill’s from the same area as me so he got what I was trying to do. He picked a top notch band, players on some of those albums. This time, there was a lot more conversation about which players I really wanted to work with again and what things we could try differently.”
Country Squire debuted at #1 on Billboard’s Top Country Albums chart, making it the first and only time that Childers has had a #1 album on the chart as of today.
“All Your’n,” the breakthrough track on the record, netted Childers his first Grammy nomination. It was nominated for Best Solo Country Performance at the 61st Awards show; however, it lost to Willie Nelson’s “Ride Me Back Home.” The track also became the fourth platinum single for the Appalachian singer/songwriter, being certified platinum by the RIAA in August 2021 before reaching 3x platinum in May of 2024.
“House Fire” and the album itself would also receive certifications from the RIAA, going platinum and gold respectively.
Listen to “All Your’n,” “Country Squire” and “Gemini” here: