Two-year-old Tex Combs simply didn’t perceive. There was the stuffed Winnie-the-Pooh that he knew so effectively, however why was it now caught behind a thick sheet of glass?
His dad, Luke Combs, needed to chuckle recounting the second that had occurred a couple of half-hour earlier on Wednesday when he and his spouse, Nicole, privately took their two sons by way of the expansive new exhibit dedicated to the celebrity at Nashville’s Nation Music Corridor of Fame and Museum.
“He was like, ‘Open it, open it,’ Combs, 34, recalled to PEOPLE as he stood in entrance of the identical show. “I used to be like, ‘It doesn’t open, buddy.’ “He requested me for the Pooh. He stated, ‘Maintain it.’ And I stated, ‘Oh, you possibly can’t maintain it, buddy.’”
The stuffed animal is definitely the artist’s childhood toy, and it’s in any other case in everlasting residence at his dad and mom’ Nashville residence, the place Tex and his 11-month-old brother, Beau, have frequently performed with it. Museum curators, nonetheless, borrowed it for the exhibit to depict Combs’ formative years.
Luke Combs’ Nation Music Corridor of Fame and Museum exhibit.
Jason Kempin/Getty
However how do you clarify all that to a 2-year-old?
How do you inform a toddler that his dad is the creator of multi-platinum-selling music, the headliner at sold-out stadium live shows, and a two-time CMA entertainer of the yr — all accomplishments which have earned him a serious museum exhibit? How do you inform him that greater than 1,000,000 folks will ultimately be taking a look at that stuffed bear?
If you happen to’re Combs, you don’t even attempt. Not less than not but.
“I can’t get it for you proper now, buddy,” he lastly advised Tex. “However you possibly can have it subsequent yr.”
Combs explains that he introduced his two sons to the museum figuring out they’d be too small to grasp all of it, however that didn’t matter to him. “I simply wished to have these footage of going by way of it with them,” he stated.
He additionally realizes the day will come — maybe before he desires — when he has to have “the speak” along with his boys about who he’s moreover their dad. If he wants any type of cheat sheet, he may do no higher than “Luke Combs: The Man I Am,” the participating and authoritative exhibit that formally opened on Friday.
By images and private artifacts, it deftly tells the story of Combs’ unbelievable and meteoric profession ascent. The one youngster of hard-working blue-collar dad and mom, he was raised in Asheville, North Carolina, to like music and singing, however he didn’t take into account it as a livelihood till he was a 21-year-old faculty junior in 2011. At his mom’s urging, he taught himself the guitar, and inside a yr, he was taking part in his first present, at a bar with a $1 cowl. Two years later, he was Nashville-bound.
Nicole, Rhonda, Luke and Lee Combs at Luke Combs: The Man I Am at Nation Music Corridor of Fame and Museum on July 10, 2024 in Nashville.
Jason Kempin/Getty
Combs stated he visited the nation music museum a number of instances after his arrival, lingering over the historical past that he wished to be part of. Nicely conscious he didn’t appear to be the standard male artist of the period, he knew he had an uphill battle to show his price.
“I used to be undoubtedly not a man that you simply thought would have his personal exhibit within the Corridor of Fame —and that was lots of people’s opinions after I moved right here,” he allowed. “It was like, effectively, perhaps he may very well be a songwriter, you realize, good luck or no matter. Not that that was all people’s sentiment, however to me, it’s all the time felt like a little bit of an underdog story.”
But Combs rapidly flipped the script: He signed his major-label report deal in 2016. His first No. 1, for “Hurricane,” arrived a yr later, and shortly, he turned the artist — and the sound — that everybody else was chasing.
Luke Combs: The Man I Am at Nation Music Corridor of Fame and Museum on July 10, 2024 in Nashville.
Jason Kempin/Getty
The artifacts assembled by museum curators to hint Combs’ steps will probably be deeply satisfying to any of his legions of followers. For his earliest years, grade college work supply a touch of his artistic facet. (Combs simply chortled over the art work: “You possibly can inform I used to be destined for greatness, proper?”) Snapshots and occasion applications reveal his rising curiosity in choral singing in center college and highschool. In reality, Combs really made his Carnegie Corridor debut as a sophomore when his highschool chorale appeared on the legendary New York stage together with different pupil teams. The ensemble returned the following yr, and Combs carried out a solo.
Among the many exhibit’s best treasures is the precise boxed cassette tape of Tracy Chapman’s self-titled 1988 debut album that launched Combs to “Quick Automotive,” the music he’s credited with firing his early ardour for music. In fact, in 2023, he turned the music into his personal blockbuster hit. Accompanying the well-worn plastic field is a photograph of Combs’ dad, Lee, sitting beside his 1988 Ford F-150 pickup, the place Combs first heard the music as a boy, in addition to the formal put on — together with chocolate velvet jacket — that he wore onstage with Chapman for his or her epic Grammy efficiency of the music in February.
Luke Combs: The Man I Am at Nation Music Corridor of Fame and Museum on July 10, 2024 in Nashville.
Jason Kempin/Getty
Combs was gratified that the cassette had been included within the exhibit, however when requested to select his favourite artifact, he didn’t hesitate: “The sofa.”
Accurately for a person who’s all the time prided himself in being a daily man: The fake-suede behemoth is a chunk of furnishings that may very well be present in any common Joe’s first-time bachelor pad. In reality, it’s one-third of the sectional that Combs bought for his unique Nashville-area condo. Combs ultimately handed down all three items to a school buddy, who lent the middle part to the museum.
“I’m shocked that survived this lengthy, to be trustworthy,” Combs stated, clearly delighted that it did.
The sofa has clearly seen its higher days, however all of the singer may see was its recollections.
“That’s the primary sofa me and my spouse frolicked on collectively,” he recounted. “I imply, so many nice recollections on that. I watched the [Carolina] Panthers lose a Tremendous Bowl on that sofa, which was heart-wrenching. My first songs I ever wrote as a Nashville resident had been on that sofa with the blokes that I nonetheless write with.”
Luke Combs: The Man I Am at Nation Music Corridor of Fame and Museum on July 10, 2024 in Nashville.
Nancy Kruh
For Combs, that point was additionally the primary chapter of career-building that he admitted he misses now.
“That’s the funnest half,” he stated. “Getting thus far is the half that was so cool. Like, how can we do that? Do we predict we may accomplish this?”
He acknowledges now that his profession has reached “cruising altitude,” and “you’re employed simply as laborious to maintain it on the similar [height].” However, he provides, “it might’t actually go wherever else in some methods, you realize what I imply?”
Maybe that’s why Combs has simply accomplished such a shocking turn-about, going deep along with his newest challenge, Fathers & Sons, an intimate idea album that was launched final month.
“That’s one thing I wished to do for my sons,” he defined. “I wished them to have the ability to reference afterward of their life that even on the peak of my success they had been nonetheless my primary precedence. If anybody’s dad had the chance to do one thing like that, I feel that they’d take it. Not less than I’d hope so. I did it for them.”
That big-heartedness is what Combs hopes museum guests will sense as they take within the exhibit. “I simply wish to be remembered as good friend and husband and dad — a man that cared, you realize?” Combs stated. “I imply, I do care loads about music, and it’s an enormous a part of my life.”
However his relationships — with household, buddies, and colleagues — are clearly what matter most to him, and he was happy to see the eye that the museum has given to his workforce and his fellow songwriters within the shows. “My largest takeaway [from the exhibit],” he stated, “is that I’m very grateful for being surrounded by superior folks.”
Luke and Nicole Combs get a more in-depth have a look at Luke Combs: The Man I Am at Nation Music Corridor of Fame and Museum on July 10, 2024 in Nashville.
Jason Kempin/Getty
And what does he hope will probably be guests’ largest takeaway?
The reply isn’t any shock coming from nation music’s most distinctive common man. “That if I can do that,” he stated, “anyone may do it.”
“Luke Combs: The Man I Am” is open by way of June 2025 on the Nation Music Corridor of Fame and Museum in Nashville.
