Luke Combs covers one song on his new LP, Gettin’ Old: Tracy Chapman’s “Fast Car.” The 1988 original, which Chapman wrote solely, won the Grammy Award for best female pop vocal performance and sparked her coronation as best new artist.
Combs is clearly getting fans up to speed on “Fast Car,” as his version cruises from No. 14 to No. 10 in its second week on Billboard’s streaming-, airplay- and sales-based Hot Country Songs chart (dated April 15), becoming his 19th top 10.
On the Billboard Hot 100, it zooms 44-32 in its second frame.
Combs’ interpretation drew 11.1 million official streams (up 27%) and sold 6,000 downloads in the United States March 31-April 6, according to Luminate.
(Chapman’s original was up 22% to 3 million in radio airplay audience and 5% to 2.5 million streams in that span.)
Gettin’ Old spends a second week at No. 2 on Top Country Albums, with 54,000 equivalent album units, after launching with 101,000 units.
Combs supporters who have been to his live shows won’t be surprised about his update of “Fast Car,” as it’s been a fan favorite among his setlists.
While the song isn’t a radio single, some country stations are giving it airplay, one being Audacy’s WPAW Greensboro-Winston Salem, N.C. “Luke’s take on ‘Fast Car’ is a gift to the original fans – the ones that instantly fell in love with him early on,” program director Clay Walker tells Billboard. “No doubt if you paid to see him in the clubs around North and South Carolina, you know that. Even though his version stays true to the Tracy Chapman original, he really is thanking his foundational fans with this.”
The song’s crossover appeal is also evident in SiriusXM’s support: Country channel The Highway is playing Combs’ cover, as is pop-focused TikTok Radio.
Combs isn’t the first artist to turn in a charted rendition of “Fast Car.” Jonas Blue’s version, featuring Dakota, hit No. 7 on Hot Dance/Electronic Songs, as well as No. 98 on the Hot 100, in 2016.
Those remakes mark the two that have hit the Hot 100 since Chapman took the original to No. 6 in August-September 1988. Until this week, the composition last ranked in the chart’s top 40 (at No. 39) on the list dated that Oct. 1 (as Bobby McFerrin’s “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” breezed to a second week at No. 1).
While country artists aren’t exactly known for redoing pop hits, a few have charted highly since the late ‘80s. Rascal Flatts’ repaved “Life is a Highway” reached No. 18 on Hot Country Songs in 2006, after Tom Cochrane’s original hit No. 6 on the Hot 100 in 1992.
Mark Chesnutt scored his most recent of eight Hot Country Songs leaders with his version of Aerosmith’s “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing” in 1999. Aerosmith’s recording of the Diane Warren-penned ballad debuted atop the Hot 100 and dominated for four frames in 1998.
In the mid-‘90s, country artist John Michael Montgomery and pop/R&B vocal group All-4-One shared hits simultaneously: In 1994, “I Swear” was a Hot Country Songs No. 1 for the former and an 11-week No. 1 Hot 100 smash for the former. A year later, “I Can Love You Like That” became another Hot Country Songs No. 1 for Montgomery and a No. 5 Hot 100 hit for All-4-One.
Back to the late ‘80s, Rosanne Cash’s update of The Beatles’ “I Don’t Want to Spoil the Party” became her most recent of 11 Hot Country Songs No. 1s, in 1989. The Lennon-McCartney original reached No. 39 on the Hot 100 for the Fab Four in 1965 (as the B-side of “Eight Days a Week,” which hit No. 1).
