Worsham issues his first independent album, Once Upon a Second Time Around, including collabs with Lainey Wilson, Stephen Wilson Jr. and The Travelin' McCourys.
His new album, Once Upon a Second Time Around, out Friday (Aug. 7), is his third full-length solo project, following 2013’s Rubberband and 2017’s The Beginning of Things, as well as the 2023 EP Compadres, but also launches a new independent era: The album is out on ONErpm after he spent years with Warner Records Nashville.
Concurrently with releasing his own music, Worsham has lent his prowess on guitar, mandolin, banjo and songwriting to albums by Eric Church, Carrie Underwood, Ella Langley, Kacey Musgraves, Kip Moore, Sam Williams, Luke Combs, and Dierks Bentley. He’s been part of touring bands for Vince Gill and Bentley, as well as briefly joining Old Crow Medicine Show. Early in his career, he played in the country group Kingbilly, where one of his bandmates was Brothers Osborne’s John Osborne.
Two decades in the industry have helped Worsham, 40, arrive at a moment where he’s redefined for himself what constitutes success.
His experiences are woven into his new album. Guiding him as a mantra was “The impossible takes longer,” a saying he found in a book of quotes from Nobel Laureate honorees.
Worsham co-wrote around half of the album’s dozen songs, though he also worked with Sony Music Publishing’s exec vp of creative Josh Van Valkenburg, who played a key role in finding several of the album’s cuts, including “Family Man,” written by Josh Jenkins, Ben Stennis and Matt Rogers, and “They Never Do,” which was an older song written by Lainey Wilson, Dallas Wilson and Josh Nix.
Songs like “Powers That Be” and “Family Man” center on Worsham’s balancing act between his musical duties, his roles as husband and father, and his podcast, Mississippi on the Map, which highlights his home state’s contributions to musical culture, as well as the 50 Years From Home with Gill.
Time spent at home influenced “Years Go By,” which came from a COVID-era writing session over Zoom with Stephen Wilson Jr., as Worsham and his wife were expecting a child, and Wilson was teaching his son how to drive.
“At that time– and still do–I looked to dads who were farther down the road, like, ‘All right, help me out. What’s some wisdom?’ So it was half that and half co-write,” Worsham says.
The album closes with a reprise of one of the album’s earlier songs, “Wrap My Porch Around,” this time a nod to Worsham’s affinity for bluegrass by collaborating with The Travelin’ McCourys. In doing so, Worsham gives a nod to Bentley, who has often closed out his albums with a bluegrass cut, and Gill, who on his 1996 album High Lonesome Sound included two versions of the title track, one featuring Alison Krauss & Union Station.
Professionally and personally, he continues to view Gill as a role model.
Fontes
Informação baseada em material público de Billboard, reescrito pela redação ULTRA NOTÍCIAS.
