Luke Bryan talks Beyoncé, Cowboy Carter and country music's crossover appeal
Luke Bryan is as much a chart-topping country star as he is a steward of Nashville's massive socio-economic boom.
Both his success and Music City's rise to America's next great city-as-homage to the power of the American dollar are driven by a seemingly non-stop party that, at its root, is inspired by either the actuality of or claiming association with the notion that blue-collar labor (or being attached to its stereotypes) is deserving of wild celebration.
The five-time Entertainer of the Year, awarded by the Academy of Country Music and Country Music Association, has released two singles in the first quarter of 2024. There's the Jon Pardi collaboration "Cowboys and Plowboys," plus his solo track "Love You, Miss You, Mean It."
He spoke with The Tennessean on April 1.
Success breeds opportunity
A decade ago, he achieved a success level similar to Luke Combs via 13 consecutive No. 1 singles on country radio. Fascinatingly, the decade between 2013 and 2023 marks an era when Bryan and Combs' dominance bridged the era between the marketing and selling of physical units and the surge in streaming as the defining success in country music.
Combs, via his Category 10 honky-tonk on Lower Broadway, is at the place that Bryan arrived at after his run of 13 No. 1s in 2019, which led to the opening of his 32 Bridge establishment.
About 32 Bridge's connection to the recent passing of University of Missouri student Riley Strain, who was found dead on March 22 in the Cumberland River, Bryan maintains his statement from March 14 that the incident was "scary," and the official statement shared one day later by the venue's owners, TC Restaurant Group,
Bryan, however, has surged forward in a manner proportional to the stunning level of pop ubiquity country music stars like Morgan Wallen have achieved via a new level of hit-making prowess — what Luke Bryan did in five years and Luke Combs achieved in three, Wallen has almost matched in 18 months.
"Historically, country music's appeal has been built on hard-working artists humbly making songs that tell their stories to country then, hopefully, mainstream audiences, in the most honest manner possible," Bryan says. "Over the past 20 years, the country and mainstream music industries have recognized that stereotyping the types of artists who (humbly make country songs) limits us in a space where a relevant artist can look and sound like a rapper, Luke Combs, Lainey Wilson, Conway Twitty or Morgan Wallen."
'Country Girl''s impact
He offers a fascinating perspective on country's slow desire to accept mainstream culture's surge into its ranks.
It took three years for his 2011-released single "Country Girl (Shake it for Me)" to become one of the top-five best-selling songs of all time by a male country music solo artist. Given that Nashville is a city famed for adapting to and overcorrecting for mirror trends, the idea that the next three years for Nashville would include the "TomatoGate" scandal, wherein a country radio executive referred to women as the garnishes to the genre's radio formats-as-salad makes sense.
Bryan is willing to accept that country's executives must work harder to broaden the genre again in the fallout from his own rise.
For Bryan, that broadening, including Beyoncé's just-released "Cowboy Carter" album, is "amazing and great."
He doubles down by identifying that artists from outside the genre's stereotypes and traditions, like Jelly Roll and Post Malone, are more in tune with how society interacts with music in a world where streaming's commercial and social impact grows daily.
"The quicker we (as artists and creatives) can intersect, intermingle and work together, stereotypes get removed and we grow and progress as a culture, industry and society," he says.
Maintaining a tireless work ethic
Almost 100 years after economist John Maynard Keynes estimated that technological change and productivity improvements would make a 15-hour, four-day workweek possible, Bryan is perhaps the best person to prove that notion true.
"My kids see me on television, on tours, or before I go fishing and play golf," he says. "They don't understand that meetings, phone calls and Zoom calls are me at work and not just knocking around the house during the day. (My career) is all still very confusing to them."
In 2025, Bryan's "Crash My Playa" festival in Quintana Roo, Mexico, will turn 10 years old, while his "Farm Tour" concept, which aims to create scholarships for students from farming families to attend local community colleges, will have granted almost 100 scholarships in nearly 15 years.
He's entering his third consecutive year as the co-host of the CMA Awards alongside NFL Hall of Famer Peyton Manning. He's also in his seventh season as a celebrity judge on ABC's "American Idol."
Notably, 2021 "Idol" winner Chayce Beckham has been incubated as a mainstream country talent, opening for Bryan for the past three years. That work has led to Beckham's nearly 3-year-old single "23" finally topping country's radio charts.
Beckham joins Carrie Underwood as an "American Idol"-winning country star who achieved chart-topping success on their mainstream debuts after their victories.
"As long as the show feels like it's fresh, fun and reinventing itself, plus developing artists who can break into music successfully, then I won't feel like I'm spinning my wheels by remaining" on ('American Idol')," Bryan says.
Not entirely content there, an afternoon spent golfing with emerging country star ERNEST and joking about the performer's friendship with unlikely breakout crossover star Jelly Roll earned him a songwriting credit — and music video appearance — in ERNEST and Jelly Roll's duet "I Went to College / I Went to Jail."
Maintaining relevancy
Bryan is also keenly aware that an era that saw him and Jason Aldean achieve nearly 60 No. 1 singles in 20 years has evolved. Now, the music industry's broad democratization allows artists to be mainstream, underground and almost solely radio, streaming, or touring-friendly in their approach to success.
"Gaining the eyeballs to make people take notice of your artistry," as Bryan says, is a much more difficult road than ever before.
But it's also one that, for Bryan, feels very familiar and why he became an artist in the first place.
Bryan is now a 47-year-old father of teenagers with similarly aged nieces and nephews. Notably, the artists he's championing on the road include 20-something country artists like Ashley Cooke, the previously mentioned Beckham, Jackson Dean, Kameron Marlowe and Alana Springsteen.
"I'm nurturing where younger artists are at in the infancy of their careers and helping them navigate the anticipation of watching a single go up the charts," says Bryan, who fondly recalls his days opening for Brooks & Dunn, Kenny Chesney and Tim McGraw almost 20 years ago.
"Paying it forward is pretty special stuff," Bryan says. "Diving in there and getting artists ready to hopefully mirror the type of success I've had as classy and savvy artists with integrity is important."
He then pauses as his career and what's next come into a full-circle focus.
"Just like I did when I was a teenager, my son thinks he's sneaking off and listening to rap songs," Bryan says, "but just like I did, those songs, along with say Alan Jackson songs, are the songs that speak most directly to who I am uniquely, living my life. No matter how country music develops, it's a genre that can, by being built on authentic, natural songs, break molds and make people mad. But it also welcomes so many more people who want to smile and have fun.
"I wasn't a naturally gifted performer. I've grown from being all over the map, from being a singer in bars in Statesboro, Georgia, to being a focused, high-level professional recording artist. Because of that focus, I've been able to avoid un-inventing and reinventing (my art and brand). I still feel as inspired and relevant to everything happening at all levels of the music industry as I've ever been."
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Luke Bryan talks new music, Beyoncé, country music's identities
