I bought the Chris Stapleton album in the summer, after reading Grady Smith’s column in the Guardian. (Grady Smith is a far better source for news about good new music than the pathetic iTunes Country section.)

It is a great album, well-deserving of its Album of the Year prize, and veteran songwriter Stapleton must feel some irony at being awarded the New Artist prize in addition to the well-deserved Male Vocalist prize. He fairly swept the board this year, which I think is a hopeful sign, given the terrible trend towards what has come to be called Bro Country in the past couple of years.

Here comes the backlash, as Nashville’s love of great songs reasserts itself. Not only did Little Big Town win Song/Single of the year for “Girl Crush” (a clear signal to country radio programmers that they’re getting things wrong), but Chris Stapleton has won three prestigious awards based on zero airplay on country radio. Zero. At this point, nobody is thinking radio programmers are doing a good job.

In a stroke of co-marketing genius, Stapleton performed two songs with Justin Timberlake at this week’s CMA Awards. Whereas other guest appearances by pop/R&B artists have fallen very flat in the past, the multi-syllabic Timberlake/Stapleton pairing was a true musical event. I know almost nothing about Mr Timberlake, aside from the fact that the guy’s a decent actor as well as a musician. I know enough not to muddle him up with that other Justin.

Timberlake’s from Memphis, and Chris Stapleton’s album edges more towards Blues than country, especially given his gruff-but-flexible voice. As you can see from the video above, both artists can sing, both can control their melisma and both were thoroughly enjoying themselves. I’ve watched it several times now, and I still think it’s the most exciting performance I’ve seen in a really long time. I think you can tell that everybody on the stage and everybody in the audience was aware that everything was falling perfectly into place. It’s not often that something that’s kind of hyped in advance can live up to expectations, but I think this performance exceeds all expectations. I don’t think anybody could have believed it would be this good.

As impressed as I was by their performance, you could tell how special it was by seeing the reaction of the old pros in the audience. Look at the expression on Keith Urban’s face as he records some of the performance on his smartphone. Look at the other artists who are not only digging it, but clearly wishing they could be on the stage. There’s even a shot of what looks like a Music Row executive (?) with a diabolical fixed grin on his face. You could almost see the $ signs revolving in his eyes.

The full 8-minutes has received over 3.5 million views on the official ABC channel (notwithstanding ropy over-compressed audio – the two separate videos I’ve posted here have better sound), and Stapleton has hit #1 in the iTunes chart: again, with zero support from country radio.

Traveller isn’t my personal favourite album of the year, but it’s wonderful that the shaggy-beared scruffy songwriter is up there taking the spotlight away from the bros. And as for a putative “country” outing from Mr Timberlake, I think I might give it a listen.