Childers’ name added to Country Music Highway

By TONY FYFFE
BSN Editor

LOUISA — Country music star Tyler Childers, who turns 29 on June 21, got an early birthday present in his native Lawrence County. Childers’ name is now included on Lawrence County’s U.S. 23 Country Music Highway signs alongside the names of two of his musical inspirations, Ricky Skaggs and Larry Cordle, as well as Don Rigsby and Keith Whitley. The addition of Childers’ name to the signs, located at the Lawrence/Boyd and Lawrence/Johnson county lines on U.S. 23, was the result of a resolution sponsored by state Rep. Kathy Hinkle during this year’s session of the General Assembly. Hinkle said Childers’ “work ethic and determination to stay true to his calling should be an inspiration to all of us, not to mention his extraordinary talent.” Childers is the son of Tim Childers, a salesman and warehouse manager for Epiroc, and Geneva Childers, a nurse with the Johnson County Health Department. He is a 2009 graduate of Paintsville High School. Hinkle’s resolution notes that Childers “first learned to sing in the choir at the Free Will Baptist Church” and “started to play the guitar and write songs around the age of thirteen.”
“Tyler Childers’ musical influences included his father’s appreciation for classic rock and country artists like Hank Williams Jr. and his grandfather’s love for bluegrass music,” the resolution says. The resolution also notes that Childers released his first independent album, “Bottles and Bibles,” in 2011 and his first album under his record label, Hickman Holler, titled “Purgatory,” which debut at No. 1 on Billboard’s Heatseekers Albums Chart in 2017. His latest album, “Country Squire,” reached No. 1 on the Billboard Country Album Chart. “Tyler Childers is known for songs such as ‘Whitehouse Road,’ ‘House Fire,’ ‘Feathered Indians,’ and “’Ever Lovin’ Hand’ describing his time on the road and the loneliness he felt being away from his wife,” the resolution says. Childers “continues to represent his home state as he performs at venues and events across the country,” the resolution says. Childers was featured on the cover of the January issue of the United Kingdom-based Country Music People magazine, which anoints Childers as the “New Voice of Appalachia.” In the article, Childers, who began a UK concert tour in January, told the magazine that he listened to a lot of Skaggs’ music when he was younger. “That was my first concert I ever went to when I was five years old,” Childers said in the magazine article. “My mom and dad took me to Old Landing to watch Ricky Skaggs and I just remember how much that affected me at an early age just because it was this fusion of all the music.” Childers also said Cordle, was “ a big inspiration for me to be a songwriter.” The magazine cover story and UK tour followed record-breaking concerts Dec. 27-28 and Dec.31 at the Appalachian Wireless Arena, formerly the East Kentucky Expo Center, in Pikeville. In addition to his No. 1 “Country Squire” album, Childers received a Grammy nomination for best country solo performance for “All Your’n,” a single from “Country Squire.” His first single from the album, “House Fire,” was named by Rolling Stone magazine as one of the 10 best current country and Americana songs when it was released in May 2019.