Concert review: Kentucky Rising at Rupp raises $2.5m for flood relief

“You did a good thing tonight,” said Chris Stapleton to a sold-out Rupp Arena audience of 14,000 on Tuesday evening as the Kentucky Rising benefit wound down to its final few tunes. “Just know that.”

How good? The Lexington-born, Staffordsville-raised country star went on to add that the four-hour, multi-act benefit performance had raised over $2 million to assist with ongoing relief and recovery efforts in Eastern Kentucky following July’s devastating floods.

A news release Wednesday afternoon said that the concert had raised more than $2.5 million; the video will be available for on-demand streaming at kentuckyrising.veeps.com for an additional 48 hours so the total could go up.

So then, pretty good.

Actually, a lot more than that. Organized quickly and obviously effectively by Stapleton, Kentucky Rising was not simply a grand charity event for an urgent cause.

It was an occasion where multiple generations of Eastern Kentucky artists gathered to honor their artistic and cultural heritage and, in the process, help out their neighbors in a time of unfathomable crisis.

University of Kentucky football coach Mark Stoops introduced Stapleton and thanked everyone for contributing to the relief effort. “I appreciate that and I promise you after this I’m getting back to work,” Stoops told the crowd, which erupted in applause.

Some of the artists, like Tyler Childers and Dwight Yoakam, were announced. Together they represented two very different schools of Kentucky country. The younger (and, currently, very popular) Childers favored songs of roots-driven clarity and gospel-esque fervor. Yoakam, whose hit-making heyday was between 1986 and 1996, embraced an uprooted country accent reflective of traditions nurtured in California, which has been the singer’s home for decades.

Stapleton gave the two perhaps the ultimate honor at Rupp by letting each one introduce the other with a song of their own. Yoakam began the evening with the stark and darkly folkish “Miner’s Prayer” ahead of Childers’ opening set. Ahead of Yoakam’s performance, Childers offered the equally emotive mountain eulogy “Follow You to Virgie.” Stapleton accompanied both artists on both songs.

Other performers, representing Eastern Kentucky’s bluegrass and traditional country past, were surprises. Stapleton saved both — Ricky Skaggs and Patty Loveless — for his headlining set.

A Lawrence County native (as is Childers), Skaggs performed a wonderfully unspoiled mandolin/guitar duet with Stapleton on the Carter Family-popularized “Bury Me Beneath the Willow,” just as he had done on a record with another vanguard guitarist – the late Tony Rice – in 1980.

Pikeville favorite Loveless, who essentially retired from live performances over a decade ago, tore through her 2001 version of “You’ll Never Leave Harlan Alive” (penned by Laurel County songsmith Darrell Scott) with confidence, clarity and unadorned drama.

The announced acts all turned in expert sets. Childers’ opening outing offered further evidence of how the roots-directed intimacy and at times spiritual drive of his songs bloom expertly in a large venue setting, whether it was through the twang, reverb and vocal animation that distinguished the opening “Country Squire” or the congregational jubilation (“that ol’ time screamin’ and shoutin’”) that fortified “Way of the Triune God.”

Childers had a surprise of his own, as well — an unannounced cameo by Hickman songstress S.G. Goodman, who took the reigns for a luminous “Space and Time.” Sure, Hickman sits firmly in the Western most part of the state, but Goodman’s sense of reflection and confessional storytelling neatly complimented the performances of her Eastern brethren.

On the surface, Yoakam’s performance – his first Rupp outing on over two decades – seemed devoted exclusively to the sleekness of the Bakersfield country sound of which he has so long been a torchbearer.

Yet, more than any other artist playing Kentucky Rising, he offered the most detailed imagery of his Eastern Kentucky (specifically, Pikeville) roots in songs like “Floyd County,” “Bury Me” and “Readin’, Rightin’, Route 23” before concluding with a dash through his most prominent hits (“A Thousand Miles From Nowhere” and the revved-up Roy Orbison-esque joyride “Fast As You.”)

To no one’s surprise, Stapleton’s concluding set was as solid as oak without the guests as it was with them. The inflection and, to a great degree, intent of his singing was used to color songs rich with vintage country narratives. But the tone of his voice was so obviously reflective of Southern soul that the set ignited when the singer did a vocal slow burn during “Fire Away” and met (and matched) the grinding rock ‘n’ roll and jackhammering guitar riffs of “Midnight Train to Memphis.”

That said, one of the more endearing moments of the evening came when Stapleton harmonized simply and soulfully with wife Morgane on the title tune from 2020’s “Starting Over” album.

Kentucky Rising finished off by letting its Eastern Kentucky crew look westward – specifically, to Muhlenberg County. With all performers and band members onstage in an assemblage worthy of The Band’s “The Last Waltz,” Stapleton and company performed “Paradise” together on the evening after what would have been the 76th birthday of its late composer, John Prine.

The familial mood was typical of the entire evening, yielding, for lack of a better term, a “vibe” where epic music was abounding for an even greater cause. There were no banners advertising the wares of sponsors, no country DJs to plug their stations between sets. Even the merchandise table sold only t-shirts and assorted spoils devoted to Kentucky Rising, not to any of the specific performers.

“When it rains, it floods,” remarked Yoakam earlier in the evening. “And when that happens in Kentucky, people get back up.”