Fresh off of supporting the 2025 Los Angeles Wildfire efforts, Chris Stapleton is using his music to help others.
This is in conjunction with fellow music sensation Tyler Childers as Variety reports the two will be co-headlining Healing Appalachia.
Dubbed “the largest recovery-based music festival,” Healing Appalachia’s goals are clear in its name. The festival aims to curb “spreading addiction and [aid in] recovery awareness, fostering empathy, and inspiring life-saving action throughout communities worldwide.”
The Devil Named Music
The team at Healing Appalachia likens itself to Farm Aid — a festival with similar values that helps raise funds for America’s smaller farms. Except Healing Appalachia wants to “bring together folks to raise funds and awareness to celebrate recovery through our main event Healing Appalachia each September, and work year-round on more projects fostering communities of recovery.”
2025’s festival has yet to announce any other musicians joining. Past acts for the show include Childers, My Morning Jacket, Brian Fallon, Kelsey Waldon and Justin Wells and more.
The move to eastern Kentucky from West Virginia is a homeward one as both Childers and Stapleton hail from the state.
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Childers’ manager, Ian Thornton, is excited for the move.
“It exemplifies the growth of something that started as an idea on how we could create change in a world that we were watching destroy our friends and families firsthand — starting at home in WV with 1500 people, to becoming this movement that it is today, and being able to start its own travels through Appalachia,” he tells Variety. “It’s an honor to have Tyler and Chris headline the inaugural trip across the Big Sandy as a couple of local boys who did it right.”
President of Healing Appalachia, Dave Lavender, finds that the singers exemplify the heart of Appalachia.
“They also embody the heart and soul of what it means to be from here, from Appalachia,” Lavender tells Variety. “That Bill Withers ‘Lean on Me’ coal-camp spirit drives them to always be calling out to help neighbors and folks in need both here and the world over.”
Lavender is also the board president for Hope in the Hills, a West Virginia nonprofit that helps run the festival. The organization has been able to distribute over $1 million to other nonprofits that aid in addiction recovery. Programs funded include yoga in women’s prisons, mentoring teen girls in foster care, innovative reentry and recovery-to-work initiatives and much more.
The festival takes place on September 19 and 20 in Ashland, Kentucky. Buy tickets for Healing Appalachia here.
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Chris Stapleton, Tyler Childers Co-Headlining an Addiction Recovery Based Festival