It’s the opening night of C2C, the weekend where country music takes over the O2 in London. The CMA Songwriters Series is the traditional kick off for the festival, with some of the crowd heading to the show straight from the airports, their stetsons tied to their suitcases. The premise of the evening is simple: four amazing solo artists take turns sharing a story and a song across two hours to celebrate the best of country music. This year’s host is CMA nominated singer songwriter Charlie Worsham, who’s very pleased to return to these shores.
Charlie Worsham - CMA Songwriters Session @ C2C: Country to Country Festival 2024
“This was my first gig in the UK,” Worsham reveals. “I’m very honoured to say I’m the first songwriter who’s been invited back. I grew up travelling, and came to London as a thirteen year old kid, and loved it since then. But my first time to play here was at C2C in 2016 or 2017 at the Songwriters’ Series. I remember playing brand new songs I’ve never played then having a show the next day at the Plaza, and people were singing along with every word. I was thinking, “Man! These are my people!” It’s been true ever since. I come every chance I get to tour in the UK.” It’s definitely the way that we in the UK respond to Worsham’s music that really connects with the singer. “I don’t mean this as a knock to anyone,” he apologises in advance, unnecessarily, “but the thing about audiences in the UK that I love…even when you’re playing in a bar, with people standing up, you can hear a pin drop. Not that they won’t get rowdy if you want them to, and they will, but they listen intently. At the end of the night, when I’m signing CDs and stuff, the questions I get are very different. I get questions like, “I noticed you worked with this other producer, and they put you with this different rhythm section, why is that?” I love that! I’m a nerd, a music nerd.”
Charlie Worsham might be most recognisable from his biggest hit, How I Learned To Pray, which has amassed a staggering eleven million streams on Spotify. He smiles bashfully when this achievement is mentioned. “The original version has about half that many, and it’s been out for ten years now on my debut record, Rubberband. It was one of the first songs I first played when I came to England, to C2C. I guess one of the reasons that song has taken off is part of this new project, Compadres, where I’m singing duets, and having Luke Combs on it doesn’t hurt for sure!” He laughs. “What I love about having the chance to reimagine that song is, ten years ago, when I first put that record out and that song was part of that record, I didn’t know Luke at that time, but he’d just moved to town. It turns out that record was inspiring to him! That song in particular, we joke about How I Learned to Pray has changed so much for us over the last ten years, because we’ve both become new dads. You’re just kinda praying that you get enough sleep that night, or that they don’t do something to greatly injure themselves. I love having Luke on that song, it really makes it come full circle.”
Compadres, as Worsham mentions, is his latest EP which was released in autumn 2023 made up of duets with his friends. “That really came from my work as a session musician,” he elaborates. The 38-year-old is a born storyteller, his points meandering across time, but always compelling. “I had this moment one day, driving to the studio…I love playing music, and my favourite way to do that, for me, is to write songs on my own, make my own records, play my own shows, and get to be the one to play all the guitar solos and whatever! But my other favourite way to do it is just to be a part of playing music and making music. In Nashville we’re so fortunate that we are the ‘world’s capital’, in a sense, for session work, for going into a recording studio at 10am and by 1pm you’ve recorded one to three songs with a full band: drums, bass, guitars, steel guitar, fiddles, everything. For many many years, especially in my early years when I was just getting to town and struggling, that’s how I was paying bills, by playing on records. I worked my way up from demos of not-so-great- songs to mostly playing on big records. I remember one day, towards the end of the pandemic times, just driving to the studio and thinking to myself, ‘the only way this day could be better is if I was making my own record’. I thought, well, I’ve been a part of all these folks’ stories, why not invite them to be a part of mine? I reached out to Lainey [Wilson], reached out to Luke [Combs], and Elle King, and Dierks [Bentley]…these days I play in Dierks’ band, in the summer months. Everybody said yes, the songs naturally found their way to the right person, and it’s a mixture off old songs, new songs, and there’s even a cover of my favourite Patty Loveless song on there. That was really the inspiration: this is who I am, how can I tell this story in a way that the fans will enjoy?”
At IndigO2 that night, Worsham performs Creek Water Clear, originally his duet with Elle King, solo. Under the echoing blue spotlight of the theatre stage, the song appears from the dim backdrop of his guitar like a spectre, all wistful and faded, outlined by the simplicity of memory, as soft and meandering as the streams he evokes. Years Go By feels more tense when it’s played live with delicate tweaks on the high notes, weaving present and past in late summer nostalgia. Stephen Wilson Jr, seated on the opposite side of the line of artists, silently joins him on guitar, his deeper notes building a piling, falling clap from the crowd. Another fan favourite, Kiss Like You Dance, is an optimistic play on classic country whirling chords, glowing with hopeful devotion, and Lawn Chair Don’t Care has a peppy quality that slips into mellow appreciation of life’s small pleasures. His brief shared set is a joy, summarising one of the most interesting newer voices in Country.
Charlie Worsham - CMA Songwriters Session @ C2C: Country to Country Festival 2024
Perhaps the most familiar face Worsham has shared a stage with was Taylor Swift on her 2011 tour, and it was a big turning point for the Jackson, Mississippi-hailing musician. “Taylor was the first person to take me out on tour, and it’s emotional to talk about! It’s not just the tour, which was amazing, but it’s a big reason why I got my record deal. She looked back over her early years, and she pinpointed people who had given her a leg up, and she made a point on the Speak Now tour that every night, somebody that needed a leg up got it. The first opening slot she divvied up among how many of us there were. I got ten shows, starting with Nashville and ending with Dallas Cowboys stadium. I got to play two stadiums on that tour: it’s funny, my first time playing a stadium gig was at Arrowhead Stadium, which is where her boyfriend plays football now. Who knew? My publisher has been the first to sign her to a publishing deal, that was her connection there. I was the only one on that tour who didn’t yet have a record deal and it made record labels take notice. Being on tour with her was great, it was a first class education in how to be as a person, as an entertainer, as a professional. Her whole team was great, they let me ride on all the buses so I’ll forever be thankful to Taylor.”
While touring with Swift might have been a huge boost to Worsham’s career, he was already on the way to a life in music long before they crossed paths which started when he was very young. “The original ‘this is what I want to be when I grow up’ moment was actually my dad. My dad, who has made his career is a banker and is semi-retired now…I’ve always known him as ‘my dad the drummer’. And we’ve always had a drum kit set up in the house. But my earliest memories of music were sitting on his lap as a toddler and banging on the drums. He’d let me tag along to local gigs he played. Before my bedtime I’d get to see the lights go down and the stage lights go up and watch him play. He would let me bang on the drums through the speakers at soundcheck and I thought ‘whoah, you can be this loud and powerful!’. But the moment that got me, this band of his, the guitar player picked up his guitar and played the solo with his teeth, and the grownups went crazy! And I thought ‘grownups on stage are acting like kids, and I’m a kid, and I don’t ever want to not be a kid, and they seem to have this power over other grownups to make them act silly, this power must be mine one day!’” He widens his eyes and laughs at the memory of being so impressed as a kid. “I struck out at T-Ball, so I was never gonna be a sports guy. I was oddly enough good in school, having a mom who was a really good teacher and in the same school district didn’t hurt my chances there. It was all just to get to the music. I would go for runs, when I was in high school, and just practice my acceptance speeches in my head. It’s always been the thing that made sense to me, and I’m grateful to say it’s the only job I’ve ever had since high school. Before then I was playing in bluegrass bands, in middle school and grade school, and selling records out of the trunk.”
Charlie Worsham - CMA Songwriters Session @ C2C: Country to Country Festival 2024
The power of country music runs deep as Worsham explains. “I think country music is particularly good at reaching in and finding the blue collar in all of us. It’s my favourite way to play any and all forms of American folk music in one, because you can’t have country music without the blues. Growing up in Mississippi – and I call it the ‘Spinal Column of American Music’ because from New Orleans to Memphis, you get everything you need, all the great American music that Black Americans gave us to work with. Country music is this tightrope that people walk back between Saturday night and Sunday morning, that’s the human condition. Rock n Roll is part of country music and there’s so much crossover. For the last few years I was in the room for the medallion ceremony (it’s like Easter Sunday in the Vatican for country music, it’s when we induct people in to the hall of fame), and I’ve experienced that night in every way you can: in the audience, performing as the singer onstage, helping induct people, then I came back and played in the medallion all star band which inducts people. What I’m getting at here is that Jerry Lee Lewis and Ray Charles, they’re in the Country Music Hall Of Fame, as they should be, because country is a little bit rock and a little bit bluegrass. Country is the best way to express your heart, it’s the simplest way to get to do that, and it’s the best way to indulge all your creative curiosities.” It’s this philosophy which explains the enduring success of C2C as the UK’s biggest country music event, and what makes Charlie Worsham’s music such a shining star in the galaxy of fantastic entertainment which the weekend offers. By the end of the weekend he’s bound to have won many new fans with his heartfelt and open music, even if they ask him detailed ‘music nerd’ questions as soon as he finishes his set.
Interview with Charlie Worsham at the CMA Songwriters’ Series at IndigO2, part of C2C: Country to Country Festival on 7th March 2024 by Kate Allvey. Photos by Luke Dyson / CMA.
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