Country star Luke Combs has one of the biggest songs in the US right now: On the new Billboard Hot 100 chart dated July 8, his cover of Tracy Chapman’s “Fast Car” sits at No. 2. Furthermore, it also topped the Country Airplay chart this week, which helped Chapman make country music history.
Before the latest chart, Rolling Stone reported that if “Fast Car” did rise to No. 1 (which it now has), it would make Chapman the first Black woman to have the sole writing credit on a No. 1 country song.
Only a handful of Black women have written on a No. 1 country song at all, including Tayla Parx on Dan + Shay’s “Glad You Exist.” She said of Chapman’s song, “Any song that sounds good on guitar, it can more than likely be a country song. With a great song, you can take it and make it sound like seven different genres, so that says a lot about what type of song ‘Fast Car’ is: it can be a pop song, a country song, it can be whatever, because it’s just a great song.”
Combs previously told the publication of the song, “The guitar part on that song is super iconic, and everyone knows the song as soon as you start playing it. They know it, and they sing along. It’s like ‘Free Bird’ or ‘Jolene.’”