Tyler Childers Helps Out Local Festival with Surprise Appearance

Let’s just all appreciate for a second that Tyler Childers could be selling out arenas across the United States this summer if he wanted to, and by himself, as the headliner. Tyler Childers is one of the biggest artists in all of country music at the moment, evidenced by the continuing and improbable popularity of his 2017 album Purgatory, which continues to challenge for the Top 10 on the Billboard Country Albums chart each week, and receives some 7 million spins on a weekly basis.

But Tyler Childers is not headlining arenas across the country this summer. This Sunday, May 29th, he’ll be playing Del McCoury’s DelFest with the Travelin’ McCourys backing him up. Then a few weeks later he’ll be playing the Telluride Bluegrass Festival. This is where Tyler Childers wants to be, and thanks to all that mailbox money coming in from Purgatory, he doesn’t have to live out of a suitcase if he doesn’t want to.

This weekend, a small 200-person festival was held in Tyler’s home turf of Lawrence County, Kentucky. Called the Fallsburg Summer Stage and held in Louisa, folks like Vincent Neil Emerson, John R. Miller, and Eric Bolander were set to play, with North Carolina’s Town Mountain headlining. Unfortunately though, a positive COVID test knocked Town Mountain out of the lineup.

Apparently Tyler Childers and his band were just down the road in Huntington, West Virginia practicing when they caught wind of the cancellation. Some calls were placed, and next thing you know, the roughly 200 people in attendance got a two-hour show from Tyler Childers, and on his home turf.

“We were all speculating on who might get the slot now that Town Mountain wasn’t playing it. We were like, ‘Well heck, let’s see if they’ll have us,’” Childers said from the stage according to a local report. “And here we are.”

Tyler Childers has a close kinship with Town Mountain. He’s toured with them in the past, recorded the song “Down Low” with them in 2018 for their album New Freedom Blues, and brought them out to open for him at Red Rocks.

There’s a little part of you that wonders if Tyler Childers scaled the ladder of independent country to only now sit back and rest on his laurels as opposed to keep pushing to help to disrupt the mainstream. Of course now with a kid on the way, it’s understandable Tyler’s priorities have changed. But clearly Tyler’s principles have not.

He may leave six figures on the table each Friday and Saturday night by staying at home. But when a local festival and a favorite band was in need, Tyler Childers and the rest of the Food Stamps had no issue stepping up. It really says it all.

© 2023 Saving Country Music