Timothy Tyler Childers (born June 21, 1991) is an American singer and songwriter. His music is a mix of neo-traditional country, bluegrass, and folk. He released his breakout studio album Purgatory in August 2017. Childers has released six studio albums and a number of EPs and singles to date.
Tyler Childers was born and raised in Lawrence County, Kentucky. His father worked in the coal industry and his mother is a nurse. He learned to sing in church where he sang in the church choir. He started to play guitar and write songs when he was around 13. Childers eventually began performing in Lexington, Kentucky and Huntington, West Virginia. In 2011, when he was 19, Childers released his first album, Bottles And Bibles. He had his first success with Purgatory, released on August 4, 2017.
Childers' music is influenced by his home state of Kentucky and its connection to country music and bluegrass. He often writes about coal mining, which was his father's occupation, and its effects. Rebecca Bengal, writing for The Guardian, described Childers' songs as a "counter-narrative to the outsiders who seek to perpetuate stereotypes of backwardness and poverty." Childers emphasizes lyrical content in songs, comparing the songwriting process to telling short stories.
In January 2020, Childers maintained his position on Americana during an interview with World Café, “Everybody always talks about the state of country music and puts down commercial country and says something's gotta be done and we need to be elevating artists that are doing more traditional country. But then we're not calling those artists country artists, they're getting put into this Americana thing. It is what it is, and I don't really know how to define what Americana is. We're our own thing, it's a new time, and I don't know what it's called but I've been calling it country, y'know?”
Lawrence County is a county located in the U.S. state of Kentucky. As of the 2020 census, the population was 16,293. Its county seat is Louisa. The county is named for James Lawrence, and co-founded by Isaac Bolt, who served as a Lawrence County Commissioner and Justice of the Peace. It is also the birthplace of the late Chief Justice of the United States Frederick Moore Vinson and former Kentucky Governor Paul E. Patton. In regard to alcoholic beverage sales, Lawrence County is considered a "moist" county, meaning alcohol sales are only allowed within the city limits of Louisa. Interestingly, the bridge from Louisa, in eastern Lawrence County, to Fort Gay, West Virginia is something of a geographic and architectural oddity. The quarter-mile concrete span spans across the Levisa Fork and the Tug River that come together and form the Big Sandy River, connects two states and has a right turn at its halfway point, which connects traffic to the Point Section neighborhood of Louisa.
Tyler Childers tracks to check out: Bottles and Bibles, Lady May, Feathered Indians
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