Ben Chapman has a publishing deal with Hillary Lindsey’s Hang Your Hat Music, and artists including Flatland Cavalry, Shelby Lynne, Muscadine Bloodline, and the Steel Woodshave cut hisc ompositions, but these days, he’s intently focused on himself as an artist. Downbeat, the LaFayette, Ga., native’s new album, produced by Anderson East, finds him at his most confident in his musical style—“this southern-funk jam-band country thing,” as he describes it. Chapman is also the host of Peach Jam, a recurring Nashville event that’s featured, among others, fellow Georgians Brent Cobb and Channing Wilson, along with Hayes Carll, Lainey Wilson, Lukas Nelson, and more, since 2022.