Tracy Chapman makes history as first black woman with sole songwriting credit National No. 1 hitthanks to Luke Combs for covering her 1988 song “Fast Car.”
as rolling stones pointed out that Chapman is the fourth to have any Compose the music for a #1 country song. She joins the club currently occupied by Alice Randall, who co-wrote Trisha Yearwood’s 1994 single “XXX’s and OOO’s (An American Girl)”; Ester Dean , co-writer of Lady A’s “Champagne Night” in 2020; and Tayla Parx, co-writer of Dan+Shay’s 2021 song “Glad You Exist.”
Combs’ version of “Fast Car,” the second single from his latest album, getting old. It rose from No. 8 to No. 4 on the Hot 100 earlier this month, surpassing the No. 6 peak of Chapman’s original. explain is his “probably number one favorite song of all time”. As of this week, it’s at No. 2 on the Hot 100 chart.
“I remember being about four years old and me and my dad listening to it in his truck,” Combs added. “He had a tape, a tape, and we had this old brown camper-roof F-150. We went around that thing, and he had a tape recorder in there, and I had the original tape—a few years My dad brought it to me… I have one and I have it in my shop.”
Combs aside, “Fast Car” has been covered by far too many artists, including Sam Smith and Jamila Woods.You can hear the country star perform on his big world tour, tickets you can buy here.