How Luke Combs Took the Carpool Lane to Dominance in Country and Pop Formats With Tracy Chapman’s ‘Fast Car’
variety.comChris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic What part of fast in “Fast Car” did anyone not understand? Country superstar Luke Combs’ cover of the 1988 Tracy Chapman classic proved to be as turbocharged as anything acoustically based in this world can be, with unexpected multi-format success: It was No.
1 at adult pop and country for two weeks each; a healthy No. 6 at Top 40 radio; No. 2 on the Hot 100; and No. 1 on Billboard’s overall Radio Songs chart for four weeks.
At country radio, Combs was experiencing an embarrassment of riches, because before “Fast Car” caught on, Sony Music Nashville already had a different song, “Love You Anyway” — the lead single from his “Growin’ Old” album — on the fast track to become his 15th country airplay No.
1. But the Chapman cover was not destined to remain in the realm of interesting novelties. Top executives at sister label Columbia Records in New York saw his version of “Fast Car” come up in a list of songs being released to streaming on a new-music Friday, along with the rest of the album tracks, and quickly began to wonder if that could work on the pop side. “We already had two tracks at radio at the exact same time, and we were having to pick and choose,” says Chris Kappy of Make Wake Artists, who co-manages Combs.
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