Luke Combs impressed millions of country music fans with his take on Tracy Chapman’s “Fast Car,” but perhaps none more than Thomas Rhett. The song, which became a No.1 hit for Combs, quickly became one of Rhett’s favorite remakes of all time.
“I listen to Luke Combs’ ‘Fast Car’ and I’m like, ‘It’s incredible,’” Rhett boasts to ABC News. “That’s like one of my favorite songs of all time.”
Rhett added that it was impressive of Combs to “bring that song up out of the woodworks of our past and make it relevant.”
“We’re just kind of in that time where it’s cool that you can sling stuff out there and try new things and experiment with songs that you love in more of a modern way,” Rhett says, “and more of a classic way and more of a dance way and more of a whatever way. I think that everybody kind of gets to pick which version they like to consume.”
Not only did Combs have a chart-topping single, and earn the “Fast Car” songwriter, Tracy Chapman, a CMA Awards nomination for Song of the Year, but he also introduced the song to an entirely new generation of fans.
“I was on the beach with my 17-year-old brother last week, and he was listening to ‘Fast Car’ ” Rhett recalls. “I said, ‘Hey, do you know who sang that song originally?’ He was like, ‘Yeah, Luke Combs.'”
Rhett currently has his own hit single, with “Angels.” The song, written by Rhett, along with Julian Bunetta, Teddy Swims and Josh Thompson, was inspired by Rhett’s thoughts toward his wife, Lauren Akins.
“Anyone married to someone in the spotlight, it takes a very special human being,” Rhett tells Billboard. “The amount of days I’ve been gone, the amount of times I’ve let work overtake my family life, the amount of times I’ve said yes to stuff that I probably should have said no to — and [she was] there with me the whole way.”
It’s Akins who has been with Rhett since the very humble and challenging beginning of his career, even when life was anything but easy for them.
“Lauren’s been through the wringer with me in the van days, the bus days, and now today’s days, and she’s always taken my life as a champ,” Rhett tells Southern Living. “I say this a lot before I play the song live, but I look at Lauren sometimes and I do truly wonder every now and then if her body is completely just taken over by an angel, because it takes a lot of patience to be married to somebody like me.”
Rhett is currently on his Home Team Tour, which will conclude with two back-to-back shows at Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena. Find music and tour dates at ThomasRhett.com.
