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“This Phone Call Is More Than Enough”: Luke Combs Recalls Conversation With Tracy Chapman Before She Agreed To Perform “Fast Car” With Him At The Grammys
The most perfect Grammys performance of all-time, in my very humble opinion. This weekend, Luke Combs sat down with Today’s Willie Geist for a feature on Sunday Sitdown, and he of course talked about his new album, The Way I Am, as well as his humble roots and his incredible journey to country music superstardom.
And of course, they had to talk about his cover of Tracy Chapman’s “Fast Car” and the subsequent Grammys performance Luke and Tracy did together that year. Luke turned her classic song into a country hit after including his rendition on his 2023 Gettin’ Old record, though it organically became a massive hit and juggernaut at country radio, flying up the country charts at an insane pace, so much so that his label actually sent it to Top 40 pop and Hot Adult Contemporary radio, as well. It peaked at #1 US Country Airplay chart and #2 on the US Billboard Hot 100 all-genre chart.
Released in 1988, “Fast Car” was the lead single from Chapman’s aforementioned self-titled debut studio album. At the 31st annual Grammy Awards in 1989, she won the Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance for “Fast Car,” best contemporary folk album for Tracy Chapman and best new artist.
Luke called it his “first favorite song,” and one that he’s loved his whole life:
“That song, you know, has it’s crazy, it’s kind of followed me around my whole life, in a good way. It was my first favorite song. So I’m in the studio for my fourth record, and we had basically an hour left. So I was like, what if we just did a cover of ‘Fast Car.’ So we do the cover, and all of a sudden, all these stations start playing it. The song was Top 10 at radio, and we weren’t promoting it at all.”
Because it had become such a hit, and was nominated for Best Country Solo Performance at the 2024 Grammy Awards, they of course wanted Luke to sing it, but they also wanted Tracy to be part of it… the only problem was, she has lived a very, very private life for the better part of three decades, and intentionally so, so it was quite a task to even get in contact t with her.
Eventually, a call was set up between Luke and Tracy, and he explained that in and of itself was more than he could have dreamed of, and he was as humble as always in telling her just getting to speak over the phone was more than he could’ve ever dreamed of:
“The Grammys had reached out to me and my team and said, ‘Hey, would Luke be open to doing this?’ And they knew I was gonna say yes. And so then it was like, nobody knows where she lives, nobody knows anything about her, dude, which is intentional, she’s doing that on purpose.
I’m in a tree stand at my house, this is real, the woman that does PR for me called me and she said, ‘Hey, Tracy is gonna call you tomorrow, at night, at 7:00 PM. It was like 7 o’clock on the dot, dude, my phone rang. And it was like ‘unknown caller.’ And I was like, ‘Oh boy, I know who it is.’ She was like the sweetest, most gracious person on the call, and was like so appreciative of me doing the song. And it was like everything a fan could ever want.”
Of course, he knew how much she valued her privacy, and he expressed to her how much he respected that and it was very much not going to hurt his feelings if she ultimately declined to do the live performance with him.
I have a feeling his approach and kindness had a lot to her agreeing to do it…
“At the end of the phone call, I was like, ‘Hey, you know, the Grammy’s is wanting us to do this thing.’ I said, ‘Tracy, listen. Just so you know, I would love to do this with you. And if you don’t wanna do this, and this phone call is all I get from that, that’s more than enough. It’s more than I expected. I respect your life, your privacy.’ And she was like, ‘I really appreciate you saying that.’ About a week later, I got a call and they were like, ‘She’s in. She’s gonna do it.’ Everybody thinks it’s just me performing, they don’t know Tracy‘s coming out. I know what nobody else knows.”
The fan reaction immediately following the performance was extremely positive, and the admiration the two artists have for each other was apparent as Chapman looked genuinely happy to be there and kept smiling at Luke throughout the entire thing (and vice versa). I’m sure that call and the way Luke genuinely approached it helped her make a decision, and Luke also said that she was in and out of the Staples Center that night, because she was a woman on a mission for one thing and one thing only.
Luke says he’s still blown away by the reaction of fans, and he said it was “everything I wanted”:
“She might have been in the Staples Center for like five minutes. In, right to the stage, right out. And we do the performance, and I’m on cloud nine. I can’t believe it. I didn’t think that it would be the moment that it was right afterwards, but I knew it was really special for me. But it was awesome. It was everything I wanted. It ended up being the most special night.”
While maybe an unlikely duo in some aspects, they were spectacular together.
The Aftermath
It’s evident that through Luke’s cover, as well as Tracy stepping back into the spotlight that night, an entirely new generation of fans fell in love with both versions of “Fast Car,” as Chapman’s original version of the song shot to the top of the U.S. iTunes chart after their performance (Luke’s previously went #1 at country radio and reached #2 on the Billboard Hot 100).
Because of Luke’s cover, “Fast Car” was nominated for multiple awards at the 2023 CMA Awards, and because it won Song of the Year, she became the first Black songwriter to win Song of the Year in the awards’ 57-year history. Luke also won Single of the Year for his version of the track at the ceremony.
Easily the coolest thing about the whole thing, many people have started going back and listening to Tracy’s timeless catalog as a result, which landed her original version of “Fast Car” at the top of the iTunes charts that week, with sales and downloads going up 38,000% following her Grammy performance. Just an astronomical number and very well-deserved for an extremely talented artist who penned one of the greatest songs of all-time.
She sounded exactly the same as she did on the original recording from 1988, and there was a palpable magic between them that I cannot get enough of. Of course, with the show coming up this Sunday, I have been reflecting back on it and two years later, it remains as timeless as it was in 2024, and I have no doubt that will remain the case for years to come.
In a previous post, I said that there was just magic in the air on that fateful night two years, and they captured something truly spectacular, which I believe is a once-in-a-lifetime performance that was understated in terms of production, but incredibly powerful because of the lyrics and voices that delivered them with so much weight and power that you can’t help but feel every bit of the emotion.
It lives rent free in my head, as you can probably tell… I don’t care who performs, what song it is, or anything else in the future, there will never be another Grammys performance like this, and that’s a promise. I have to reiterate that it was timeless, transcendent, sublime… it’s perfect in every way, and I don’t think there’s any other way to put it. Knowing the whole backstory of how it came to be just makes it that much more special, and it’s clear how much it meant to Tracy, too, I think, considering what a rare public appearance that was and how she and Luke got along behind-the-scenes.
The Grammys last night REALLY could have used a performance this again, but of course, it can never be replicated or redone:
Luke’s telling of the story is just perfect:
“Fast Car”
And Luke’s version if you haven’t heard it:
The post “This Phone Call Is More Than Enough”: Luke Combs Recalls Conversation With Tracy Chapman Before She Agreed To Perform “Fast Car” With Him At The Grammys first appeared on Whiskey Riff.
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