Watch Jimmy Fallon play You Should Probably Leave with Chris Stapleton on the Tonight Show

Country star Chris Stapleton was due to perform on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon with his band on Tuesday, October 5. 

The night before their performance though, Stapleton's guitarist, Dave Cobb, developed a serious earache, and couldn't fly to New York for the show.

Luckily for Stapleton though, Fallon himself plays some guitar. When Stapleton texted the late-night host and informed him of his predicament, Fallon simply said "Say no more.” 

24 hours and a quick, ad-hoc FaceTime lesson later and Fallon – sporting a gorgeous, custom (peep that "Jimmy" on the headstock), and apparently "untouched" Gibson ES-335 electric guitar – took up rhythm guitar duties himself. Of course, the version of the Starting Over track You Should Probably Leave that ensued was a bit loose, but Fallon gamely keeps up for the most part, given the lack of rehearsal.

You can check out the performance above.

With Stapleton’s band – drummer Derek Mixon, bass guitar player J.T. Cure, keyboardist Lee Pardini, and Stapleton's wife, Morgane Stapleton, on backing vocals – holding down the fort, Fallon has a bit of fun, helping out on backing vocals himself and even showing his Neil Young influence with some one-note soloing.

It's not the first time that Fallon has spiced up his show with a humorous six-string excursion. Last November, he – even with one of "Captain" Kirk Douglas's triple-pickup Gibson SG Customs in hand – was throughly trounced by H.E.R. in an on-air “guitar battle.”

Thank you for reading 5 articles this month**

Join now for unlimited access

US pricing $3.99 per month or $39.00 per year

UK pricing £2.99 per month or £29.00 per year 

Europe pricing €3.49 per month or €34.00 per year

*Read 5 free articles per month without a subscription

Join now for unlimited access

Prices from £2.99/$3.99/€3.49

Jackson Maxwell

Jackson is an Associate Editor at GuitarWorld.com. He’s been writing and editing stories about new gear, technique and guitar-driven music both old and new since 2014, and has also written extensively on the same topics for Guitar Player. Elsewhere, his album reviews and essays have appeared in Louder and Unrecorded. Though open to music of all kinds, his greatest love has always been indie, and everything that falls under its massive umbrella. To that end, you can find him on Twitter crowing about whatever great new guitar band you need to drop everything to hear right now.