.lukecombs is one of country music’s biggest stars, with a record-breaking 14 No. 1 singles to date. dshyman spoke with more than a dozen people in Combs’s orbit, including the man himself, to uncover the path he took to his domination of the genre
“I always felt overlooked or written off before anyone had even given me a shot,” Combs says. “It was like, ‘This guy? Take one look at him. No chance.’” Photo: David Bergman In 2014, Luke Combs had a rare but pivotal encounter: He met someone who didn’t like him.
Yes. Talk to enough people around Combs — those who work with the 32-year-old singer or, really, anyone who has interacted with him in some capacity — and a clear picture emerges: namely, that of an uncharacteristically humble, down-to-earth, hardworking, fiercely loyal teddy bear of a country star. Or as one of his main collaborators, best friends, and hunting buddies, Dan Isbell, succinctly tells me, “Everybody around Luke will take a bullet for him.
So how exactly did an anxiety-ridden Everyman from Asheville, North Carolina, elevate himself to the superstar echelon of the competitive country world? To find out, Vulture spoke with more than a dozen people in Combs’s orbit, including the man himself, to uncover the path he took to the country-music-dominating present.
“I had a pretty good inkling that what we were doing was different,” Combs notes of his emerging grassroots fan base at the time. “And not from, like, an arrogant standpoint. It was just more like an intuition.” Photo: David Bergman Before long, Combs was regularly selling out 1,000-seat venues in the Southeast and getting his songs on local country radio. Nashville took notice.
“He’s not representing the GQ guy or the person that you think is the stereotypical leading man,” Goodman says. “He’s representing the vast majority of people in this world.” A few weeks later, in June, came the release of his debut album, This One’s for You. Featuring other chart-topping singles, including “When It Rains It Pours” and “One Number Away,” the record was an absolute behemoth: It sat at No. 1 on the Top Country Albums chart for 50 weeks, a record for a male artist.
Having major success on radio wasn’t exactly what made Combs a true country-music behemoth, though. It was his live show — more specifically, his ability to play to a diversity of audiences.