Oliver Anthony’s “Wealthy Men North of Richmond” has rocketed to No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 songs chart — thrusting a songwriter from Appalachia who insists he’s “nothing special” onto the national stage.
Self-released on Aug. 11, Anthony’s “Wealthy Men” is a country-folk tune a couple of man who sells his soul “workin’ all day,” while struggling under the burden of inflation, high taxes and so-called elitism, sparking complaints from liberal critics.
A video of the previously unknown singer sporting a bushy red beard — and wielding a guitar — became a viral sensation due to social media, where a lot of influential users, particularly in conservative media, began circulating the clip.
But who’s Oliver Anthony?
What’s Oliver Anthony’s real name?
The singer-songwriter’s real name is Christopher Anthony Lunsford.
“My legal name is Christopher Anthony Lunsford. My grandfather was Oliver Anthony,” he explained in a lengthy Facebook post. Anthony told his followers he uses the name not only as a dedication to his grandfather, “but [also to] Nineteen Thirties Appalachia where he was born and raised.”
He described his grandfather’s life as “dirt floors, seven kids, hard times.”
As for whether or not he wishes to go by his now-viral identity or his birth name, he said that either is effective by him.
“At this point, I’ll gladly go by Oliver because everyone knows me as such. But my family and friends still call me Chris,” he wrote.
Where is Oliver Anthony from?
Anthony grew up in North Carolina.
He dropped out of highschool at age 17 in 2010 and got his GED while living within the small town of Spruce Pine, NC, he shared on Facebook.
In western North Carolina, he worked multiple plant jobs, his last being at a McDowell County paper mill, saying, “I worked third shift, 6 days per week for $14.50 an hour in a living hell.”
How did Oliver Anthony develop into a musician?
In 2013, Anthony suffered a foul fall at work and fractured his skull, which led him to moving to Virginia to be near family.
“As a consequence of complications from the injury, it took me 6 months or so before I could work again,” he wrote.
After he recovered, he worked in outside sales in industrial manufacturing, taking him throughout Virginia and into the Carolinas, “attending to know tens of hundreds of other blue collar staff on job sites and in factories.”
“Ive spent all day, on a regular basis, for the last 10 years hearing the identical story. Individuals are SO rattling bored with being neglected, divided and manipulated,” he added.
“In 2019, I paid $97,500 for the property and still owe about $60,000 on it. I’m living in a 27′ camper with a tarp on the roof that I got off of craigslist for $750,” he said.
Oliver Anthony’s struggles with mental health and addiction
His song and message might need gone viral, but Anthony likes to consider himself as “just a few idiot and his guitar,” in keeping with a recent Facebook post.
“I’m not a great musician, I’m not a excellent person. I’ve spent the last 5 years scuffling with mental health and using alcohol to drown it,” he shared. “I’m sad to see the world within the state it’s in, with everyone fighting with one another. I even have spent many nights feeling hopeless, that the best country on Earth is quickly fading away.”
Anthony goes on to say how he hates the division that the web has dropped at the world, and that the web is “a parasite that infects the minds of humans.”
“I wrote the music I wrote because I used to be suffering with mental health and depression. These songs have connected with thousands and thousands of individuals on such a deep level because they’re being sung by someone feeling the words within the very moment they were being sung,” he added. “No editing, no agent, no bullshit … the form of music that we should always have never gotten away from in the primary place.”
