Luke Combs

Luke Combs is from North Carolina, born in Charlotte and raised in Asheville, where he moved when he was eight years old. As a teenager, he played football and sang in vocal groups. While attending college at Appalachian State — the same school Eric Church went to years earlier — Combs decided to put his studies on the back burner so he could concentrate on country music. Learning how to play guitar, he amassed a catalog of original songs as he played shows on a regular basis. When he was just shy of earning his degree, he dropped out of college. After gigging regularly in North Carolina, he headed to Nashville in 2014 to pursue a musical career.

In February 2014, Combs self-released The Way She Rides EP, which was followed in July by Can I Get an Outlaw. The single “Hurricane” arrived in 2015 and generated enough buzz to secure the singer a contract with River House/Columbia Nashville. The label released the This One’s for You EP in November 2015, then reworked “Hurricane” to country radio in 2016, accompanying it with a new EP, also titled This One’s for You. In November 2016, “Hurricane” entered the Country Airplay charts, reaching number one in early 2017. Its success set the stage for Combs’ full-length debut, This One’s for You, which debuted at number one on Billboard’s Country Albums chart upon its June release. “When It Rains It Pours,” the singer’s second number one on Country Airplay, kept the album on the charts throughout the year, then This One’s for You gained additional momentum in 2018, thanks in part to “One Number Away,” Combs’ third number one single, but also due to the June re-release of an expanded version of the debut. Called This One’s for You Too, this revamped edition of Combs’ debut contained five new songs, including “She Got the Best of Me,” an anthemic single that followed its predecessors to number one Country Airplay, helping the set reach a peak of four on Billboard’s overall Top 200 Albums chart.