Ashley McBryde presented her friend, Luke Combs, with the ACM Gene Weed Milestone award last night at the ACM Honors show.
Of course, it’s a pretty well-deserved award, seeing as he’s the only country artist in history to ever have his first 11 singles hit #1 on Billboard’s Country Airplay chart. And I’m sure #12 is somewhere in the near future.
Ashley introduced Luke by saying he hasn’t changed one bit since the first day she met him:
“I can say personally, that he is as humble and as grounded as he was on the day I met him. Luke, you are truly one of the best dudes I know.
I can’t think of anyone more deserving to receive the ACM Gene Weed Milestone award.”
“She Got the Best of Me”, from Luke’s debut studio album This One’s for You, was his fourth consecutive number one single when it went #1 back in 2018.
To the surprise of absolutely no one, he was every bit the humble guy we all know and love as he accepted the award:
“I’m 31 years old, I just had my 11th #1 song. Thanks to everybody sittin’ in this audience. Thanks to country music fans. It’s the reason I get to do what I love to do. Why Ashley gets to do what she loves to do.
Why all of us get to do what we love to do is because of people like you. Listenin’ to our music, lovin’ what we do, and that is not lost on me.
A boy from North Carolina who moved here in 2014, standing in the Ryman freakin’ Auditorium holdin’ a milestone award…
There’s a whole hell of a lot more country music in this boy right here and I can’t wait for y’all to hear it. Thank you.”
And with the recent release of the music video for his current (and most likely final) single “Cold As You”, from his 2019 record What You See Is What You Get, we should be hearing something in the way of new music very soon.
Today, he put out the southern anthem “South On Ya” just in time for football season, and all I can say is, BUCKLE up. It’s about to get good.
Check out Ashley’s powerful performance here:
