And then, of course, came “Fast Car.” Combs had always loved Chapman, listening to her first on cassette tape in the back of his dad’s pickup truck. He’d covered the song for years, finally releasing a studio version on 2023’s Gettin’ Old after the fans demanded it (Combs listens to his fans). It was the first solo composition by a Black woman to go number one in country music. Chapman joined Combs to sing it together at the Grammy Awards, her only TV appearance in almost a decade. He’s reluctant to take too much credit, but proud of the ripple effects.

“I imagine there’s a whole new generation of people that have gone back and listened to all her amazing records now,” he says. “I’m happy to be a launching pad for people to just rediscover how great she was and is, as a person and as an artist.”

They still talk from time to time. Chapman will call Combs out of the blue. “Every time it’s an ‘unknown caller,’ and that’s how I know it’s her. She’s just like, ‘Hope you’re doing good, hope the kids are good, hope to see you sometime soon.’”

The Chapman cover helped propel the already-massive Combs to global-superstar level. While Morgan Wallen can play stadiums, no one else in mainstream country music has the same kind of international draw all while remaining, as Worsham puts it, truly country: Unlike, say, the soul-inflection of Chris Stapleton, or the pop-leaning Wallen. And unlike Wallen, Combs comes without any baggage.

Ashley McBryde, who has toured with Combs numerous times, agrees. “He’s a touchstone we can count on,” she says. “We’ve got Eric Church. We’ve always had voices like George Strait and Alan Jackson, that we can count on. Luke is one of those guys that when we drift too far out, as we sometimes do in country music, there’s always Luke. I think if we took a vote right now of people you would nominate to represent country music in other countries, Luke would make everybody’s short list.”

There’s no vote needed, though: Combs is so popular abroad that he has spurred a series of very successful Luke Combs cover bands. Londoner JP Weiss started his own, the Luke Combs Experience UK, after Combs’s last tour there quickly sold out. Now the Luke Combs Experience UK is selling out its shows. So is the other Luke Combs cover band, Luke Combs UK. If you miss either of those, you can always catch the Like Combs band.

“Country music used to have this reputation, especially in the UK, where it was, oh, all about your dog getting shot or your wife cheating on you and all that,” Weiss says. “But Luke Combs songs aren’t like that. They’re love songs. He writes about love. And I think if you can’t resonate with a guy that is doing that and literally an average joe, what else is there?”

Which is why Combs is about to play some of his most significant shows yet, at Wembley Stadium. Artists who appear there are beyond genre: Swift, Sheeran, Beyoncé, Adele. Combs won’t share what he has in store, but bets are on him rolling onstage in a fishing shirt with a red Solo cup in hand, doing pretty much exactly what he always does.