The Grammys

Tracy Chapman and Luke Combs Gave America a Rare Gift: Harmony

Author: Lindsay Zoladz Source: N.Y Times
February 5, 2024 at 22:33
Tracy Chapman joined Luke Combs, the country singer whose “Fast Car” cover became a hit, onstage at the Grammys on Sunday night.Credit...Kevin Winter/Getty Images
Tracy Chapman joined Luke Combs, the country singer whose “Fast Car” cover became a hit, onstage at the Grammys on Sunday night.Credit...Kevin Winter/Getty Images
Culture can too often drive us apart. At the Grammys on Sunday, two artists delivered something different.

When a beloved artist who has not performed live in some time returns to the stage, we often expect them to appear fragile, unsteady, ill at ease. But during Sunday night’s Grammy Awards, when the camera first pulled back from a tight shot of a woman’s fingers picking a familiar riff on an acoustic guitar and revealed the face of the great, elusive folk singer Tracy Chapman, what you noticed was the joy radiating from her face. Her contented smile. The unwavering tone and rich steadiness of her voice.

It was a genuine moment of warmth and unity, the sort seldom offered these days by televised award shows — or televised anything, really. Singing her rousing 1988 hit “Fast Car” live for the first time in years, duetting with the country star Luke Combs — whose faithful cover of the song was one of last year’s defining hits — and taking in the rapturous applause of her musical peers, Chapman gave off the feeling, in the words of her timeless song, that she belonged.

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