Carol Bell wasn’t going to miss watching her son Luke open for Dwight Yoakam, even if it meant leaving her sick husband at home and flying across the country from Wyoming to Charlottesville, Virginia. Though Luke had been getting some traction around Nashville for the album he self-released in 2014, it was when he hit the road with the Bakersfield-sound legend that Carol began to recognize just how deeply her son’s breed of traditional-minded but deeply idiosyncratic country and roots music was connecting with listeners. The music career Luke Bell had dreamed about, and chased from the family ranch through Austin, New Orleans, and Nashville, was starting to feel real.
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“I always told Luke, ‘When you open for Dwight Yoakam, I’ll know you’ve arrived,’” Carol says. She’s sitting in a coffee shop on a September morning in Nashville, the night after a boisterous and emotional tribute to her son during the city’s annual AmericanaFest…