Luke Combs is the Kind of Leader Mainstream Country Needs

photo: Zach Massey

Yeah aye, I get information technology. All of yous purists out there aren't going to e'er let upwardly on Luke Combs. Each time you lot hear one of his radio singles playing over the speakers at the supermarket, you profess you tin't tell the departure between his stuff and anyone else in the pop country mainstream. But I'thou here to tell y'all, in that location is a difference, and not only in the music, just the leadership and character Luke Combs continues to display in his career.

It's not that Luke Combs is ideal, because he isn't. Hell, who is? And for many independent fans, he will never compete with the likes of Cody Jinks or Tyler Childers in their hearts. Only who would you rather have being the face of mainstream land at the moment. Maren Morris? Luke Bryan? Morgan Wallen? As much as the response to the Wallen "n-discussion" incident has been an gross overreaction, he clearly did a very dumb thing, and brought tons of estrus on the entirety of state music information technology didn't need or deserve. The last matter we need is Morgan Wallen as the face of the franchise, which is what much of the media is attempting to enact for their own designs and purposes.

Meanwhile Luke Combs is out there doing all the right things. When Margo Toll came after him for appearing in a video with Confederate flags in information technology earlier in his career and tried to turn information technology into Morgan Wallen Role 2, he handled the situation with grace. Luke Combs has been one of the biggest proponents of worthy songwriters in the mainstream this side of Miranda Lambert, using his platform to elevate guys similar Brent Cobb and Adam Hood, Rob Snyder and Channing Wilson, fifty-fifty going out of his way to praise The Wilder Bluish, while collaborating with people like Billy Strings, Amanda Shires, and Leon Bridges.

In fact a couple of months agone while attending the Fundamental W Songwriters Fest, it was crazy how many times the name of Luke Combs came up when some of land music's nearly creative behind-the-scenes contributors were playing acoustic sets, and explained how Luke Combs had cut or co-wrote this song and that song from their catalog.

So there's this contempo case from the Faster Horses Festival in Michigan where three immature men died. No, this was not one of those instances similar nosotros saw a few years ago where there was a rash of deaths, injuries, and arrests at mainstream country festivals that were regularly making headlines for out-of-command incidents. xx-year-old Dawson Brown, 20-year-erstwhile Richie Mays II, and 19-year-old Kole Sova died while sleeping in a camper, and inhaling mortiferous fumes from a generator. Two other men found unresponsive luckily survived.

Though Luke Combs has made no public statement about information technology and no press release was ever drafted, it has been confirmed by the families of the deceased young men that Luke Combs who headlined Faster Horses the nighttime earlier had reached out to pay for the funeral expenses for the 3 young men.

"For him to reach out and do that, I don't fifty-fifty have the words. I wish I could but give him a hug," said Meeka Sova, the mother of Kole Sova to the AP.

Yes, Morgan Wallen continues to have the #1 anthology in country music with Unsafe: The Double Anthology, due in part to the fact that there's xxx tracks racking up spins, putting the championship at a metadata advantage. Simply the #two and #iii albums in land music at the moment are Luke's What You lot Encounter Is What You Get and This One's For You. And if you heed beyond the sometimes sappy or simple radio singles, y'all'll hear some really great songs, washed in a country style, and frequently written or co-written by some of your favorite artists.

Yous don't accept to honey or fifty-fifty like the music of Luke Combs to honey the kind of example he's setting for the rest of the genre. Certain, lots of big country artists practice charitable things … and and then they send a press release out near it, and pose for a photo op, and use information technology to ultimately promote themselves. Luke Combs is the kind of guy that only does it, whether it's working with a songwriter he respects, or quietly paying for the funeral expenses of some of his fans. Luke Combs is the blazon of superstar, and the blazon of leader mainstream country music needs. He's also the one that the media should be portraying as the electric current face of state, because that's what Luke Combs is.

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