One of my all-time favorite Luke Combs stories.
Today, he was the guest on Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s podcast, The Dale Jr. Download, and it was a great and lengthy conversation that details Luke’s childhood in Asheville and Huntersville, North Carolina all the way through his college years in Boone and ultimate country music superstardom.
But of course, Jr. also had to bring up the iconic 1986 Wrangler ad campaign that featured his dad, the great Dale Earnhardt, along with Willie and Richard Childress.
As the story goes, to summarize in Jr.’s words:
“They’re ridin’ down the road in a limousine, and Willie Nelson fired up a joint and asked dad and Richard if they wanted a smoke, which I thought was one of the coolest moments ever.
And dad always said he didn’t take a drag off of Willie’s joint, but damn, that had to have been pretty tempting.”
You can read the fully detailed version HERE, but Luke also has a great Willie Nelson story that occurred during a writers retreat of sorts in Maui, Hawaii quite a few years ago now. Willie has a place there, and Luke met him briefly in passing during the festival.
Luke would up staying a couple extra days after the festival was over, because he had to be in Seattle soon after and didn’t want to do all the flying to and from Nashville for such a short time, and ended up getting invited to Willie’s to play poker with some of his local friends.
Luke got higher than a kite, basically, and you absolutely have to read about what he witnessed Willie do during that poker game HERE… it’s amazing.
And Luke told Jr. that, looking back, he definitely should’ve taken the Dale Earnhardt route when it comes to willie Nelson offering you a joint (saying no):
“I ended up at Willie’s house in Maui one time. It made me wish that I would’ve taken your dad’s route, if that makes any sense… if that makes any sense to you.
You wanna talk about probably the most surreal moment of meeting somebody, being in the same room with somebody.”
That one got Jr. laughing pretty good, and honestly, it was one of the funniest parts of the interview.
But he also told part of the story I’d never heard before, saying that he actually got to talk to Willie one on one for about 20 minutes when he first got to his house, which had to be an incredibly surreal moment:
“I’m gonna pop in, there’s gonna be all kinds of stuff going on, I’ll just kinda slip in. When I tell you I walked in there, and I walked down the hallway in the garage and it’s only Willie Nelson in there. There’s nobody else in there.
It’s this garage room, and he’s just sitting there watching TV on this little TV above the refrigerator sitting at the poker table. I walk in just holding this thing of beer, he was just like ‘Oh, hey man.’
There was no like, who are you? What’s going on? And we just talked fro 20-some odd minutes and nobody was in there, that guy was still on the phone… I don’t know if that was intentional, but I have no inkling of this at all. “
Luke said they of course talked music, and obviously, it’s something he’ll remember for the rest of his life. I mean, meeting Willie alone has to be a crazy moment, let alone getting high with him in his house in Maui.
I think that’s how you know you’ve officially made it… or at least how I would personally measure that kind of success.
And speaking of that Wrangler and Red Headed Stranger branded Dale Earnhardt car, check it out:
Dale Earnhardt would have been 72 today #RIP
Today is Willie Nelson’s 90th birthday 🎂
In 1987, Willie Nelson promoted his movie “Red Headed Stranger” on Dale Earnhardt’s car at Daytona. pic.twitter.com/j7cjzJ5B31
— NASCAR Legends (@LegendsNascar) April 29, 2023
You can watch the entire Dale Jr. Download episode here, and I’d highly recommend doing so because it’s a great interview:
