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\n\tCole Chaney<\/a> sees up-close just how critical his home state of Kentucky has been to the country music landscape over the past two decades. He has watched Chris Stapleton, Tyler Childers, and Sturgill Simpson grind their way from bar acts to stadium headliners, largely on the strength of original songwriting and the charisma to win over fans with little help from radio. He has also seen the path they blazed for a generation of singer-songwriters native to the Bluegrass State currently making their own inroads into country music.<\/p>\n \n\tHe cautions, however, that a suddenly well-worn path is still not an easy one to travel.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cIt\u2019s incredibly inspirational,\u201d Chaney tells Rolling Stone<\/em>. \u201cAnd, on the other side of the same coin, it\u2019s a ton of pressure. You\u2019ve got massive shoes to fill.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tThis week, the 25-year-old Chaney will get perhaps the biggest glimpse into how far his own musical career has come. He dropped his second studio album, In the Shadow of the Mountain<\/em>, on Friday. And on Saturday, he\u2019ll play the main stage at Healing Appalachia<\/a> \u2014\u00a0the festival Stapleton and Childers co-founded in an effort to combat opioid addiction \u2014\u00a0only a few miles from his hometown.<\/p>\n