\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div> \t\t\t\t\tLuke and his dad, David Bell, spring of 2015, up the Southfork of the Shoshone River near the TE Ranch where Luke was working between tours<\/span><\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy of the Bell Family<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n \n\tBut Luke was suffering. Suffering from the pain of losing his dad so quickly and tragically, and suffering as his mental health<\/a> declined just as rapidly \u2014\u00a0He would later be diagnosed with bipolar disorder. In the last years of his life, he spent time unhoused, sleeping in cars or at camps, and riding trains. When he was open to getting help, he was never the right \u201cfit\u201d for a treatment center. Some didn\u2019t take addicts or self-harmers, as if those things didn\u2019t exist part and parcel with mental illness. He was encouraged to stay on the road even as his health was worsening, in an industry that prizes the idea of the \u201ctortured\u201d artist and deprives them of even the most basic resources, all in a country that often refuses to properly treat or even acknowledge mental illness as a valid disease.<\/p>\n \t\tRelated Content<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<\/section>\n \n\tBell died before \u201cThe King Is Back\u201d could ever be released. He was found dead, at 32, in a Tucson, Arizona, parking lot from a fentanyl overdose on Aug. 26, 2022, after going missing for nearly a week. The news became a story of national fascination. Luke always had grandiose plans for himself, but he deserved to be famous for his songs \u2014 not infamous for how his life ended. Still, despite the trauma-thirsty embrace of Luke\u2019s story from the media, the music lingered. Luke Bell<\/em> quickly rose to Number One on iTunes\u2019 country chart, and his top song on Spotify, \u201cWhere Ya Been?,\u201d <\/a>now has close to six million streams. Luke\u2019s tragic story may have grabbed people in, but his music kept them there.<\/p>\n \n\tThis Friday, The King Is Back<\/em>, a 28-song collection of Luke\u2019s existing recordings, will be released, compiled by Carol and Luke\u2019s sister, Jane. It shows an incredibly gifted songwriter and vocalist with an empathetic touch, who often recognized the unease in his brain and used music to articulate it. And the album exists with a bigger purpose: The King Is Back<\/em> will benefit the Luke Bell Memorial Affordable Counseling Program, which his family launched in the wake of his death to support residents in his hometown by providing affordable mental-health services. Carol, who now works as a counselor after a career shift in her fifties, isn\u2019t interested in trying to gloss up the factors that led to her creatively brilliant and warmhearted son\u2019s death. She wants to share the truth of his life to help others, and find a little bit of her own healing along the way.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cMentally ill Luke was a really sad person to live with,\u201d Carol says. \u201cIn many ways, listening to this music gives my heathy son back to me.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tIN A TOWN OF YOUNG MUSICIANS BATTLING over their country bona fides, Luke rolled in as close to an actual cowboy as one could get. Growing up in Cody, Wyoming, he was a warm, curious kid, far more affectionate than Carol\u2019s family was used to in the ranch culture of the west, where emotions weren\u2019t something often put on display (instead of saying \u201cI love you,\u201d her family used a code word: \u201cDoritos\u201d). On his dad\u2019s side, he was descended from Kentucky tobacco farmers and ministers. \u201cWe are realists,\u201d Carols says.<\/p>\n \n\tWhen Luke was 16 months old, Carol took him to the doctor. He wasn\u2019t walking yet, and she was getting concerned. The doctor laughed. Luke was already speaking in complete sentences, and telling stories. \u201cI just don\u2019t think he has time to focus on his motor skills yet,\u201d the doctor said, \u201cwith all that\u2019s going on in his mind.\u201d<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\tLuke Bell reading on the back porch of the family home, Cody, WY, spring of 1993<\/span><\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy of the Bell Family<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n \n\tThe Bell family loved music, but they weren\u2019t performers. As a kid, Carol would wander around the ranch singing \u201cDelta Dawn,\u201d daydreaming about growing up and becoming a famous singer who could pay off the family\u2019s debt. But she never told anyone about that dream. Luke, however, didn\u2019t mind sharing his sometimes pie-in-the-sky fantasies and hopes with others. He had an innocent, almost unedited approach to the possibilities of the world. He was willing to try anything \u2014 wrestling, guitar playing, rock climbing, basketball \u2014 regardless of how easily it would or would not come to him.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cMaybe this is partly why Luke never got to be in the cool crowd,\u201d Carol says, \u201cbecause he would tell people, \u2018I\u2019m going to be a professional basketball player when I grow up,\u2019 but then he was never even good at basketball. He shared things about how he was going to be famous and such. And that made people uncomfortable. But he was just so openhearted.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tYoung Luke was unfiltered and impulsive \u2014 what teenagers aren\u2019t? But Carol knew she had to pay extra attention, even years before his bipolar diagnosis. \u201cI just remember feeling like I needed to get up at 2 a.m. to make sure he hadn\u2019t gone camping,\u201d she says. \u201cHe had that attraction to living on the edge, to being unique, to doing something really outlandish that nobody else would think of.\u201d At one point, he became fascinated with the book Into the Wild<\/em>, about a young man who ventures into the wilderness, making it 113 days before his death. Carol read it at Luke\u2019s urging, and \u201cI didn\u2019t sleep for a week,\u201d she says. \u201cI just remember thinking that was just the kind of hair-brained thing he would come up with.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tIn the summers, Carol put Luke to work at the family ranch, about an hour away from Cody. She knew he had energy to burn, and didn\u2019t want him idling away at home and getting into trouble. Though he started playing guitar in the seventh grade, it was that summer, shuffling through his grandfather\u2019s old records after carrying out his daily duties, when he fell in love with honky-tonk music.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cI come from a traditional background,\u201d Luke told The Boot<\/em> in 2016<\/a>. \u201cThe things that I love are traditions \u2014 you know, cowboy culture and American culture. When I started digging back through records and listening\u00a0to older music, I kind of became fascinated with all the techniques and flat-tire shuffles on the drums on\u00a0Ray Price\u00a0records or the\u00a0George Jones\u00a0boogie and guitars.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tThough he tried college, Luke ended up dropping out of the University of Wyoming shortly after his 21st birthday, and moved to Austin, eventually floating between Texas and New Orleans, where he made a living by working construction, busking, or any combination of tasks that could keep the lights on. His charm and warmth made him a good salesman, and people were drawn to his earnest, unpretentious approach to life, not to mention his sheer dedication to his craft. He wanted to be exposed to all the music he could, from New Orleans jazz and ragtime to Texas country, and everything in between. He met artists like Riley Downing from the Deslondes and hung with Mike and the Moonpies, starting to form the community that would be central to his life.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cMy life was kinda like a scene from\u00a0Urban Cowboy<\/em>\u00a0at that point,\u201d Bell said in 2016. \u201cOther than [working], I was just screwin\u2019 around and playin\u2019 shows; I had a rock \u2019n\u2019 roll band for a while\u2026I was enamored of that honky-tonk scene; they had dollar-fifty High Lifes \u2014 that didn\u2019t hurt, either.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tLuke put together a crowdfunding campaign in 2012 to produce his first set of songs, a collection that showed how he could pull from his hard-worn life but also put himself easily into someone else\u2019s shoes, mostly by connecting on an empathetic level. He could take his experiences working on the ranch or in the streets and spin it all into characters and scenes that spoke in unusual depth, especially for someone his age. It surprised Carol and David.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cI remember when his first album came out,\u201d Carol says, \u201cand there was a song about a homeless boy in Mexico stealing a dead man\u2019s shoes. I remember looking at David and saying, \u2018How does an upper middle-class kid from Wyoming write these songs that feel honest and true about homelessness and poverty?\u2019 Now, that\u2019s just another thing that makes me think about what it means to be mentally ill, to have a bandwidth for human suffering.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tLuke was always on the move \u2014 between jobs, between songs, even between cities. In 2013, he followed his friend Matt Kinman to Nashville, and it didn\u2019t take long for him to become a central, uniting figure on the Nashville indie music scene, which at the time was flourishing, if not financially, at least creatively. Long before traditional country made its way back onto radio via artists like Zach Top, it was filling the venues and house parties of Nashville thanks to artists like Luke, who could scrape together enough money to live before the crush of gentrification and the tourist economy made it nearly impossible for young artists to thrive.<\/p>\n \n\tThe musician Zach Schmidt remembers meeting Luke at East Nashville club the 5 Spot a few days after Schmidt moved to town from Pittsburgh. Luke played a set, and afterwards they became instant friends: Luke was always open to expanding his community, and didn\u2019t see fellow artists as competition. \u201cHis energy was infectious,\u201d says Schmidt, who regularly played with Luke at Nashville\u2019s Santa\u2019s Pub<\/a> with the Ice Cold Pickers band. \u201cIt was kind of unrivaled in everything he did, and it translated to his music.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cCommunity\u201d is the word that his friends keep coming back to. It\u2019s what musician Gowa Gibbs lingers on. \u201cHis goal was always that community,\u201d Gibbs says. \u201cAnd to just always feel close to other people.\u201d<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\tJohn James Tourville, JP Harris, Luke Bell jamming on the road<\/span><\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tLaura E. Partain<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n \n\tIn 2014, Luke\u2019s plan was to release an album on his own again, using Kickstarter funds. He recorded Don\u2019t Mind If I Do<\/em> with producer Andrija Tokic at the Bomb Shelter in East Nashville after easily reaching his goal, inviting musicians like Steve Daly, who would go on to become a member of his touring band and dear friend, and Dave Roe, bass player to artists like Johnny Cash and Yoakam, into the studio. Daly remembers arriving to the session and spotting a man sitting casually in untied boots, a dirty shirt, and trucker hat, who then started to help him carry his gear from the car.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cI thought maybe he was an engineer or something,\u201d Daly says. \u201cBut then I realized he was actually the artist, just there helping me load in my stuff. He was immediately the friendliest person in the room.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tIn a video he recorded for the Don\u2019t Mind If I Do<\/em> Kickstarter, Luke described his music as \u201croots music \u2014 specifically American roots music. I write songs about where I\u2019m from, where I\u2019ve been, people I\u2019ve met, jobs I\u2019ve had, memories I recall, and dreams I have.\u201d Daly was in awe of how Luke clearly referenced country traditions but drew on influences like Jerry Lee Lewis and the delightfully \u201cgreasy\u201d sounds of New Orleans to create something timeless, often incorporating his own breed of humor. In the songs, you could also hear a man trying to understand what was happening inside his own brain, through the vehicle of his tender baritone. \u201cSometimes I feel well, and sometimes, oh honey I feel so swell<\/em>,\u201d he sung on \u201cSometimes.\u201d \u201cBut other times, oh lord I feel like hell<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cA lot of different music is about examining the human condition,\u201d he told Rolling Stone<\/em> in 2016, \u201cbut with honky-tonk, you get to have a sense of humor in the delivery. You can laugh at yourself.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tLuke was picking up steam. He played a Daytrotter<\/em><\/a> session, and by 2015 he was appearing at CMA Fest as one of Rolling Stone<\/em>\u2019s Must-See Acts<\/a>. Few conversations about the burgeoning scene in town, where artists like Sturgill Simpson and Margo Price were emphasizing a more country-forward sound over the Auto-Tuned, pop-influenced mainstream, could be had without mentioning Luke\u2019s name. He was becoming a hometown hero back in Cody, and thanks to opening gigs like the Yoakam show, he wanted to keep up illusions and take care of his friends and bandmates, despite being pretty broke. Carol could track his spending since he used a bank account she opened for him as a kid, and she\u2019d call him when things looked unsustainable. \u201cI\u2019d say, \u2018Luke, I can see you spent fifty bucks at the Silver Dollar last night,\u2019\u201d she says. \u201cBut he\u2019d go, \u2018Mom, everybody thinks I am a big shot. I had to buy the beer.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tCarol wonders what difference it would have made on his life if he was taking in a more livable wage. \u201cEven if Luke had made $5,000 instead of $1,000,\u201d she says. \u201cWhy aren\u2019t the opening acts insisting on that? Why [isn\u2019t the industry] supporting and nurturing these younger artists?\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tDespite his growing notoriety, Luke was having an increasingly difficult time keeping appearances and conducting life normally after his father died in 2015. His mental health went into a steep decline. At one point while visiting family back in Wyoming, he and Carol went for a hike around the property, about a year after the Charlottesville Yoakam show. Some members of his team were pressuring him to release \u201cThe King Is Back,\u201d because they thought it could be his hit-making moment. Luke was distressed.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cI can\u2019t do it, Mom,\u201d Luke said emphatically. He was in the middle of what Carol now understands was a psychotic episode. \u201cIf I release that song, people are going to think I am trying to be Jesus, and want to kill me.\u201d Carol encouraged him to call his therapist and get some help; she could see that what was once a charming disconnect with reality had become something more. It was a sickness far beyond his control or anybody else\u2019s.<\/p>\n \n\tNewly signed by Thirty Tigers, Luke released his self-titled album in 2016, and it ended up on Rolling Stone<\/em>\u2019s year-end list<\/a> of the best country albums alongside those by Maren Morris and Dierks Bentley (without \u201cThe King Is Back\u201d on the track list). Songs like \u201cWhere Ya Been?\u201d hinted at a man wrestling with an unreliable mind: \u201cHey, mister in the mirror, where\u2019s my friend<\/em>?\u201d He was drinking a lot, and sometimes friends like Schmidt would have to come retrieve him in the middle of the night when Luke would show up in someone\u2019s lawn. He stopped calling Carol as often and pulled away from his family. He sought therapy, but lacked health insurance and could rarely afford a regular care schedule.<\/p>\n \n\tStill, his team wanted the show to go on (and so did Luke: as he told the Quad-City Times<\/em><\/a>, \u201cIf it\u2019s for country music<\/a>, I\u2019ll do anything\u201d). Luke had tour dates coming up, and Carol was asked if she\u2019d accompany her son on the road, instead of canceling. The whole thing infuriated her: How was the bottom line more important than the health of the artist? A few days later he fired off a gun at a party and was hospitalized; Carol says that was the only real reason the tour was called off. \u201cEven then, they waited a few days to see if he was going to stabilize,\u201d she says. \u201cAnd so then begins this period where I cannot get him help anywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
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