FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — McCoy Moore was a modest 16-year-old Florida high school sophomore with no discernable musical talent — didn’t sing or write, couldn’t play a lick of guitar, and had no plans to do any of it — until his mom somehow got him inside Luke Combs’ tour bus. And everything changed.

The latest chapter in Moore’s unlikely success story begins this weekend, when the 24-year-old Lakeland native makes his debut at the Tortuga Music Festival at 3:40 p.m. Sunday on the Next From Nashville Stage at Fort Lauderdale Beach Park, where he used to watch his country music heroes from the crowd.

The show, which comes during a break from his role as an opening act on Hardy’s North American tour, also will return him to the place that inspired his new debut album, titled “Sunshine State.”

Set for release May 22 on Sony Music Nashville, the 14 songs on the record pay tribute to the Florida you rarely hear about, the out-of-the-way one that Moore reached by dirt roads under moss-draped live oaks in the 2010 Ford F-150 that he still drives. The cover of the album shows Moore in such a scene, relaxing in his grandparents’ garage.

“I tell people all the time, if you move to Nashville and you want to write songs, just go back where you came from, and do it often,” says Moore, who relocated to Nashville at 19. “I probably went back to Florida every month and a half and just lived. Like, I didn’t play guitar, I didn’t write songs, I didn’t do anything. I get my subject matter just living. I can write those songs when I get back to Nashville, but when I’m in the moment, I like to go home and just kick back with my buddies.”

With their sturdy, unvarnished workmanship, songs such as “Something to You” and “Prayin’ for Me” come from a humble place, but seem destined to catch on with audiences yearning for an honest, relatable storyteller. These songs may remind you of the comfortable virtues of another country craftsman, his mentor, Luke Combs. Which is Moore’s most consequential Florida story.

The express version goes like this: Moore and his girlfriend had tickets to see a June 2017 concert in Tampa, where Combs was opening for Brantley Gilbert. But in the days before the show, the teens broke up and Moore’s mother tried to cheer him up by getting him front-row tickets that included a Combs meet-and-greet session.

“My mom, being a mom, she asked him some questions in the meet-and-greet about music and stuff. My mom facilitated all of it,” Moore says. “She kind of got us backstage and then I was on Luke’s bus for like an hour and a half, just hanging out, talking life.”

They also talked about music and songs, and Moore was struck by how Combs encouraged him like an equal — they even exchanged phone numbers — but also how such a “normal dude” had managed to find stardom.

“It kind of changed my life and made me pick up a guitar,” Moore says. “I was like, man, if Luke Combs is telling me I can do it, I’m gonna work my ass off to make something happen.”

He quit the high school baseball team and traded Lakeland Christian School for the flexibility of home-school instruction, enrolling in guitar and voice classes, while devouring online videos of guitarists.

“I would log how much time that I played guitar and practiced each day, and I blew the expectations of what they were requiring with the curriculum out of the water by a mile. It’s pretty much all I did,” he says.

Getting ahead on his school work allowed Moore to take trips to Nashville to write songs, and after graduation in 2020 he moved to the Music City, where he wrote for singers Shane Profitt and Bryce Mauldin, among others. In 2025, he signed a record deal with Sony Music Nashville, also Combs’ label.

Moore hopes his new album will help remind people that the Sunshine State deserves a spot on the county music map.

“Everything’s growing down there nowadays, but I grew up like any other country kid, you know? We have the land, we have the horses, we had the room to roam when I was growing up in Lakeland. It’s true to me. It’s my version of country, and I’m really proud of the way that I grew up down there, and the people that I had around me. Hell, that’s why I go back all the time,” he says.

“There’s a Jake Owen song, another Florida boy, from years ago, and it says, ‘It’s every reason that I left, and every reason I go back.’ I couldn’t have said it better myself.”

But someday maybe he will.

Moore is one of several acts lower on the bill that are worth seeking out at the 2026 edition of Tortuga Music Festival. Below, find a sampling of others.

Ashley Cooke

Friday, 2:50 p.m., Main Stage

The Parkland-raised singer and songwriter’s career continues its steady upward trajectory, with the nine-song EP “Ace” released last fall and a new album set for release this year. Last month, Cooke played on the Country to Country tour in Britain and Ireland with Keith Urban, Zach Top and Brooks & Dunn, which included a stop at The O2 in London, and also did a cameo appearance on CBS’s new “Yellowstone” spinoff “Marshals,” with her ballad “Next to You.” Expect her Tortuga performance to include the just-released single “xs.”

Adam David

Saturday, 1:05 p.m., Next From Nashville Stage

The Fort Lauderdale singer-songwriter, winner of Season 27 of NBC reality competition “The Voice” last year, comes to his music with a powerful backstory about addiction and recovery, and a voice of uncommon versatility and soul. His new single, “Waterline,” is buoyant, groovy and magnificent.

Buffalo Traffic Jam

Saturday, 1:25 p.m., Sunset Stage

Best friends Frankie Cassidy and Nathan Ross, who met as students at Montana State University, are gathering critical attention and fans who respond to what American Songwriter called “an incredibly listenable mash of styles with country undertones and an indie rock angst.” Cassidy told the magazine their live shows are “this weird place where hipsters are shaking hands with cowboys. We want to keep it to that, because that’s just who me and Nate are. We’re trying to keep the live show as authentic as possible.”

Solon Holt

Saturday, 1:50 p.m., Next From Nashville Stage

His dad is a blues artist and his mom is a classically trained pianist, but the 22-year-old Holt’s expressive vocal style — a gritty mix of country, pop and blue-eyed soul — may owe as much to his years performing at People’s Missionary Baptist Church in his hometown of Tyler, Texas. Some critics are predicting a breakout year for Holt, who will spend the summer opening for Megan Moroney (her tour comes to Amerant Bank Arena in Sunrise on July 18).

Brittney Spencer

Saturday, 2:30 p.m., Sunset Stage

The versatile country singer was among the featured voice on “Blackbiird” from Beyoncé’s acclaimed “Cowboy Carter” album; she backs up Lucinda Williams on the searing title track of her’ album “World’s Gone Wrong,” released in January; and she’ll reunite with Brandi Carlile and The Highwaywomen this summer. But Spencer deserves her own spotlight.

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The Tortuga Music Festival takes place from noon to 10 p.m. April 10-12 at Fort Lauderdale Beach Park, 1100 Seabreeze Blvd. For passes and other information, visit TortugaMusicFestival.com.

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