Tyler King grew up in Bartlesville, taught himself guitar as a teenager and will be back in Oklahoma on Saturday when Luke Combs and his band play Sooner Stadium. King, who has played with Combs for 11 years, said the show will be one of those nights that feels bigger because it is happening close to home.
King said his family pushed him to sing when he was little, and by 14 he was already performing for a friend of his dad’s at the Southern Supper Club in South Coffeyville. He moved to Nashville at 18, then found his way into Combs’ orbit after meeting him at a house party and later filling in as a guitar player on April 24, a date King now marks as the start of his run with the country star.
That path has taken him from small Oklahoma rooms to stadiums across the country. At every show, Combs introduces each band member, and at Sooner Stadium he will point to King and say, “from Bartlesville, Oklahoma, Tyler King.”
King said that kind of introduction still lands hard. “So playing Cain’s was a pretty, pretty large time,” he said, recalling an earlier Oklahoma stop when family came out to watch. “We had a bunch of family come and, and, it was—is a pretty full circle moment there,” he said. He added that coming back home still gives him chills: “I know I’ll get chills, like, just cause I’m like, yeah, that’s. I’m here, I’m home. And, it’s pretty cool.”
The Oklahoma connection does not stop with King. Mat Maxwell, from Tishomingo, also plays in Combs’ band, another reminder that the group’s road show carries a piece of the state with it. King said growing up in Oklahoma taught him how to treat people and how to work, values he carried from Bartlesville to Nashville and now back again for a stadium date that starts tomorrow at 5 p.m.
For King, Saturday is not just another stop on a touring calendar. It is a return to the places and people that helped launch him, with a national stage waiting in Norman and a home-state crowd ready to hear his name.
