Luke Combs Could Extend His Impressive CMA Award Win Streak to 7 Years (2024)

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Latest News: Luke Combs Lands 2024 CMA Award Nominations

Every year since 2017, Luke Combs has earned at least one nomination at the CMA Awards. He’s taken home trophies for six consecutive years, too. At the 2024 CMAs on November 20, the “Ain’t No Love in Oklahoma” singer has a chance to extend his winning streak. Combs, 34, is nominated for Entertainer and Male Vocalist of the Year, as well as Album of the Year for Fathers & Sons.

His fifth studio album, which arrived in June, took the singer in a new creative direction. “What started as a crazy idea with only a few dad songs turned into me saying we should just record all of them as my next album,” Combs shared on Instagram when Fathers & Sons released. “I know it’s probably not what everyone expected my next album to be and I get that; I feel the same way in this not truly feeling like my next album. But being a dad is where life has taken me, and this album is a reflection of that in song form.”

Should Fathers & Sons win, it would mark Combs’ third Album of the Year award. He previously won in 2020 for What You See Is What You Get and in 2022 for Growin’ Up. Also competing for the trophy are Kacey Musgraves’ Deeper Well, Chris Stapleton’s Higher, Cody Johnson’s Leather, and Jelly Roll’s Whitsitt Chapel.

Country singer Luke Combs is known for the songs “Beautiful Crazy,” “Forever After All,” “She Got the Best of Me,” and his cover of singer-songwriter Tracy Chapman’s “Fast Car.” The North Carolina native grew up singing in church and school but didn’t consider becoming a musician until college. Two years after moving to Nashville, Tennessee, Combs signed his first record deal in 2016. The following May, his first single, “Hurricane,” hit No. 1 on Billboard’s Country Airplay chart, and he has remained a country radio star ever since. Twice named Entertainer of the Year at the CMA Awards, the singer has collected eight Grammy nominations to date. Combs released his fifth studio album, Fathers & Sons, in June 2024.

FULL NAME: Luke Albert Combs
BORN: March 2, 1990
BIRTHPLACE: Huntersville, North Carolina
SPOUSE: Nicole Combs (2020-present)
CHILDREN: Tex and Beau
ASTROLOGICAL SIGN: Pisces

Luke Albert Combs was born March 2, 1990, in Huntersville, North Carolina. He was raised about two hours away in Asheville. His parents, Chester Lee and Rhonda Combs both worked full-time jobs—his father as a maintenance worker, and his mother at a bank—and instilled a strong work ethic in their only child.

“I got a hard-working attitude, and I’ve always been a benefactor of making the best of whatever situation you’re in,” Luke told Backstage Country. “I learned that from [my parents] as well and to be smart about the way you spend your money, the things that you get, and how you operate as kind of a family unit.”

Luke’s parents also supported his love of music and singing early on. “As soon as I could talk, I was singing,” he told Esquire. He grew up singing at church and in sixth grade joined the chorus at school, where he also performed in musicals. In seventh grade, his parents gifted him with his first guitar, but after taking two lessons, he quit. Tom Petty, John Mellencamp, and Led Zeppelin offered a soundtrack to his childhood. He also listened to country artists such as Vince Gill, Brooks & Dunn, and Garth Brooks.

In high school, Luke played football and worked at a local adventure park called Fun Depot, complete with go-karts, climbing walls, and laser tag. He described his childhood as “pretty super normal,” as his parents modeled the importance of living within the family’s modest means and his progressive hometown influenced his worldview. “My parents were super open-minded, you know,” Luke told Variety. “[In Asheville,] I was around all kinds of different people and different music. So I feel like I have a really open mind to any and all situations.”

He attended North Carolina’s Appalachian State University, where he initially studied business before switching to focus on criminal justice. While in college, Luke worked as a bouncer at a local bar called Town Tavern Blowing Rock. It was here that he first began performing after picking up his guitar again at 21 years old and teaching himself to play. “I played a million shows in [owner Justin Davis’] bars,” he told Esquire. “I lived upstairs and worked downstairs and played downstairs and ate and drank downstairs. You don’t even realize how important it is until later.”

Luke then started touring in his home state and around the Southeast. He dropped out of college a month before graduating to fully pursue his music career, citing country musician Eric Church, a fellow North Carolina native, as an inspiration. “When I picked up the guitar, I was like, well man, if that guy’s from here, you know, and he can like do it… I think I can probably do it too,” Luke later told ABC News.

In 2014, Combs moved to Nashville, Tennessee. He signed his first record deal with Columbia Nashville in October 2016. “By the time I got my deal, I had been playing shows full-time for five years,” he told Esquire. “It does seem like it came out of nowhere, but I’d done my 10,000 hours of singing before I ever even learned how to play guitar. So I did feel ready.”

He re-released his first single, “Hurricane,” to country radio that fall, and the track eventually went to No. 1 on Billboard’s Country Airplay chart in May 2017. Fans were eager for more and sent his debut album, This One’s For You, to No. 1 on Billboard’s Top Country Albums upon its release the following month.

His sophomore album was even more successful. What You See Is What You Get (2019) topped both the mainstream Billboard 200 and the Top Country Albums charts. Combs has since released three more studio albums: Growin’ Up (2022), another No. 1 country record; Gettin’ Old (2023); and Fathers & Sons (2024).

Over his career, Combs has had 18 songs reach No. 1 on the Country Airplay chart, where they have stayed for a combined 53 weeks. That makes him one of the most enduring artists on country radio, alongside genre greats like Kenny Chesney, Tim McGraw, George Strait, and Toby Keith. “I never thought I would get one week at No. 1, but when I did, I felt like I had won the lottery,” Combs told Billboard in September 2024. “So, for my songs to have spent a full year at No. 1 with guys I grew up listening to and admiring is more than I could have ever dreamed of.”

Some of his most popular songs include “Beautiful Crazy,” “Forever After All,” “The Kind of Love We Make,” “Better Together,” “Even Though I’m Leaving,” and most recently “Ain’t No Love in Oklahoma” from the 2024 movie Twisters.

Combs has also found success as a touring artist. He launched his first concert series in 2017, called the Don’t Tempt Me With a Good Time Tour. His 2023 tour, Luke Combs World Tour, broke records after instantly selling out 37 of 39 venues, including some stadiums. It grossed more than $120 million through late August 2023, bringing his career total to more than $225 million.

Throughout his career, Combs has collaborated with fellow country artists Miranda Lambert, Eric Church, and Lainey Wilson, as well as crossovers with artists like Post Malone and Ed Sheeran. In 2023, he scored a major hit by covering a folk song that came out before he was born.

“Fast Car” Success

In March 2023, Combs released a cover of singer-songwriter Tracy Chapman’s 1988 song “Fast Car.” Combs’ dad, Chester Lee, inspired him to record his version of the song. “When I was 5 years old, my dad and I would be in his truck, and he would always play music for me. He had a Tracy Chapman cassette tape, and ‘Fast Car’ is one of the first songs I remember,” the musician told People. “I’ve always been a huge fan of it and think of my dad and our time together when I hear it.”

Within six months of its release, the multiplatinum-certified cover had sold the equivalent of 5 million copies and topped Billboard’s Country Airplay chart. “Fast Car” then won Song of the Year and Single of the Year at the 2023 CMA Awards. At the 2024 Grammy Awards, where the song was nominated for Best Country Solo Performance, Combs and Chapman performed a surprise duet of the song.

Combs has received a bevy of awards for his music. In 2018, he won the Country Music Association (CMA) Award for New Artist of the Year. Combs has also earned CMA Awards for:

• Male Vocalist of the Year (2019 and 2020),
• Song of the Year (“Beautiful Crazy,” 2019),
• Album of the Year (What You See Is What You Get, 2020; and Growin’ Up, 2022),
• Entertainer of the Year (2021 and 2022), and
• Single of the Year (“Fast Car,” 2023).

He similarly won the Academy of Country Music (ACM) New Male Artist of the Year award for 2018. Combs then took home 2019 awards for Male Artist of the Year and Album of the Year (What You See Is What You Get) as well as 2023’s Single of the Year (“Fast Car”). ACM’s 2020 Gene Weed Milestone Award recognized his career success that year.

Elsewhere, Combs has been nominated for eight Grammy Awards but has never won. His nods include Best New Artist, Best Country Album for Growin’ Up, and Best Country Song for “Doin’ This.” At the upcoming 2025 Grammys, Combs’ song “Ain’t No Love In Oklahoma” from the movie Twisters is competing for Best Song Written For Visual Media.

The musician is married to Nicole Combs, formerly Nicole Hocking. The pair first crossed paths in 2016 at a songwriting festival in Florida. At the time, Nicole was working for recording label BMI.

“I could tell she was different than anybody I had ever met,” Luke told Nashville Lifestyles in 2021. For her part in the joint interview, Nicole said: “I realized we could hang out and just be ourselves in front of each other. I could wear no makeup and be my weird self—because we’re all weird, but we get to choose who to share that side of us with. We could be each other’s weird in front of each other. That’s when it was like, ‘You know what? This guy’s a keeper.’”

The couple got engaged in November 2018 and exchanged vows in August 2020 in Florida.

Luke wrote his 2018 song “Beautiful Crazy” about his then-girlfriend Nicole. “It’s fun and it’s lighthearted, but it also has a message: You’re supposed to love someone for who they are. That was the idea when we wrote the song,” Luke told Forbes, alluding to his “Beautiful Crazy” co-writers Robert Williford and Wyatt B. Durrette III. “There might be things that are quirky or weird about somebody, but sometimes, those are the things that draw you to that person.”

Despite his fame, the singer has a low-key family life. “I spend a lot of time with my wife, sitting on the couch, watching TV, cooking dinner. We live a pretty normal existence,” Luke shared with Variety. “We’re not on some jet every week going to exotic locations. On our farm an hour outside of Nashville, we have chickens and dogs and cats.”

The couple also has two sons together: Tex, who was born in June 2022, and Beau, who was born in August 2023.

Luke is soaking in his life as a dad of two. “I’m lucky to get to spend three, four days a week at home with the kids when I’m not on the road,” he told Taste of Country Nights On Demand. “You know, we play two nights a week, and so the rest of the days I’m home with them… I go out and play some shows and come home and, you know, make breakfast and lunches and naps and diapers and it’s, yeah man, it’s cool.”

In 2021, photos of Combs and a music video from 2015 resurfaced. The footage showed the musician performing in front of a Confederate flag while holding a guitar with a Confederate flag sticker. “There is no excuse for those images,” Combs said in February 2021. “I think as a younger man, those were images that I associated to mean something else.”

He addressed the controversy again in a 2022 New York Times article. “There were fans that were upset that I apologized and fans that were glad I did,” he said. “That was a tough time. Before, it was all roses, then this thing happens and it’s like, ‘Hey man, you’re a racist.’ I’ve never been that political of a dude, but someone telling me I’m racist was a big problem for me, because I’m not racist.”

• I didn’t get into music to be famous or rich. I got into music because I love singing. I love singing for big crowds of people, and I feel like I’m good at it. People like to hear me do it. And I want to continue to do that as long as possible.
• I’m older now and less afraid of saying certain or writing different things. It’s fun to do that stuff and push the limits and see what people think.
• Bringing in people who have different outlooks and different perspectives on life is what keeps music interesting. I don’t want to hear the same version of the same song from the same person every day. I think having those different viewpoints, whether it’s from a Black artist or a woman or a guy like myself or whoever, everybody has different views and different takes, and that’s what makes music awesome.

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