Chris Stapleton’s latest single “White Horse” (Mercury Nashville) has racked up 135 adds in its first week, scoring not just the biggest add day of 2023 but the biggest of the last 12 months at Country radio. What’s more, it’s the biggest add day of Stapleton’s career as well as the biggest for a Mercury single since 1997. In short, it’s BIG. Kudos to the Mercury Nashville promotion team led by Damon Moberly for riding this thoroughbred so forcefully out of the gate.

The Dan Wilson cowrite is more rock than country, powered by Stapleton’s heat-lightning guitar riffage and a massive chorus hook. Stapleton describes the long-gestating song as “rock-driven, Western-themed [and] built around a guitar riff.” We can’t stop playing it.

“White Horse” is the lead single from Stapleton’s fifth studio album, Higher, his first since 2020’s Starting Over, coming on 11/10. Stapleton, Morgane Stapleton and the ubiquitous Dave Cobb produced the 14-song LP. The studio band comprises Cobb on acoustic and eclectic guitar, bassist J.T. Cure, pedal steel player Paul Franklin, drummer Derek Mixon and longtime Dawes keyboard player Lee Pardini, with Morgane handling backing vocals, synth and tambourine.