#677 - Charlie Worsham on His Opry Invitation, the Hardest Part of Having Kids & Growing Up a Prodigy
Bobby Bones Presents: The BobbyCast
In this episode of The BobbyCast, host Bobby Bones sits down with musician Charlie Worsham to discuss his recent invitation to join the Gran
Key takeaways
- Charlie Worsham was recently invited to join the Grand Ole Opry by Vince Gill.
- Worsham's new album is titled 'Once Upon a Second Time Around'.
Main topics
- Grand Ole Opry Invitation
- Musical Influences and Records
Notable quotes
I've always known I had a gift, and being the right size has been an ongoing struggle.
Conclusion
The episode offers an intimate look at the discipline and passion requ
Transcript preview
Speaker 8 (0:00) This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human. Lisa, tell them about our new show. We have a new podcast. It's called Don't Lie to Me. I'm Lexi Iwano. We're two best friends, 22 years apart, but so close at heart. And I'm Lisa DiGiulio, the old one, which means we have wildly different references, occasionally different opinions. And at this point in my 50s, I've lived it all. Now in my 30s, being the founder of New Shoes, good taste is my business. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Speaker 4 (0:35) Hi, this is Kylie Brakeman, Angela Geratana, Speaker 1 (0:38) Jeremy Colhane, Patrick McDonald, and Speaker 4 (0:40) we're the hosts of the Artists on Artists on Artists on Artists podcast, the Speaker 1 (0:43) improvised character comedy podcast, where each week a new panel of artists discuss their craft. Join us for a panel of Eurovision participants. Speaker 8 (0:52) And we do a little Halloween sometimes. Does the Pope dress up? He winks on Halloween. Speaker 1 (0:58) He gets right up next to the microphone. Speaker 4 (1:00) I hear you can almost hear the eyelashes hit each other. Speaker 1 (1:03) You've never seen Italy so quiet as when the Pope gets up to wink on Halloween. Speaker 8 (1:08) Listen to Artists on Artists on Artists on Artists every Thursday on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Speaker 7 (1:16) I'm Lacey Mosley, author, actor, stand-up comedian, creator, and host of Scam Goddess Podcast. The true crime comedy podcast all about robbery, fraud, and those who practice it. Each week I bring on an amazing guest. Speaker 1 (1:28) Ooh, I scammed him. What? I could talk to you for an hour. Speaker 7 (1:31) You're a generational yapper, like me. That's why I had to make yapping a job. And now you can catch full episodes of my show on YouTube. Start listening to Scam Goddess on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Speaker 5 (1:46) Self-care September is your reminder to slow down, check in with yourself, get off your phone and maybe ask. Why am I like this? I'm Gemma Spegg, host of the Psychology of Your 20s podcast, and this month we're helping you make sense of the person that you are becoming, from setting boundaries and navigating friendships, to understanding anxiety, confidence, relationships, and attachment. Sometimes our biggest decisions, without us even realizing it, aren't driven by what we truly want, but by what will prevent us from feeling lonely or being alone. Listen to The Psychology of Your 20s on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Speaker 8 (2:27) So like by age 11 or so, at least 70 % have a phone. Speaker 6 (2:32) I'm Dr. Joy, and this is Therapy for Black Girls. We spend our surviving middle school run getting into what's happening inside your kid's brain, their group chats, and their friendships, and what you can do about it. Speaker 1 (2:43) Your child is not doing this on purpose. Speaker 6 (2:45) That's the kind of perspective we've been pulling from the psychologists and psychiatrists who study this for a living. Listen to Therapy for Black Girls on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Speaker 6 (2:57) The Speaker 1 (2:57) new NFL season is here, and you should be listening to NFL Daily as we march along to Super Bowl 61. It is in the name, NFL Daily. You'll have fresh content in your feed every day, all season long. That game-winning drive. Maybe it's Herbert. Maybe it's Geno. Maybe it's Mahomes. We'll have the highlights. If Fernando Mendoza or any of the rookies are balling out, we'll break down the tape. Join me, Greg Rosenthal, and an all-star cast of co-hosts as we preview and recap every game. Listen to NFL Daily. on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Brett Coleman. And I'm Trevor Sykema. If you love football and want to understand what's really happening on the field, check out our show, NFL Pro. Every week, we break down the biggest plays, trends, and matchups using exclusive next-gen stats insights and NFL content you will not find anywhere else. Whether you're new to football, a fantasy football fanatic, or a diehard fan, NFL Pro will help you analyze the game like a pro. Listen to NFL Pro on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Speaker 2 (4:09) I mean, I tried t-ball and I struck out. I tried karate. I chickened out when it was time to break the boards. And then there was piano lessons and then a banjo and then guitar and bluegrass festivals and playing in bars. And it just never stopped. It just kept going. Speaker 3 (4:27) Hey everybody, I'm talking with one of Nashville's most talented artists and musicians, Charlie Worsham. He's put out wonderful albums. He's played guitar for Dierks Bentley. I mean, you don't even know, but you've probably heard him on some of country music's biggest records with some of the biggest stars. He's an award-winning solo artist and songwriter. And all that to say he's got a brand new album that's out called Once Upon a Second Time Around. It just came out. And there's a pretty big reason this release is extra special. He was just invited to become the newest member of the Grand Ole Opry. That's crazy. That's cool. He deserves it. And he was invited by Vince Gill. So we'll talk about that. We'll talk about the new album. We'll talk about being a dad. I love this guy. But here's the thing. I don't know if there's anyone as beloved in this town, also as talented as Charlie Worsham. So here he is. I love to have people bring music that they love and to show it, which is why we do vinyl too, so people on Netflix can see it. Will you hold up a record and tell me why you love it Speaker 2 (5:32) and Speaker 3 (5:32) what it is? Yes. Speaker 2 (5:32) I brought a trifecta of records. This is Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Will the Circle Be Unbroken. It was actually recorded, I just found this out, 55 years to the weekend. that I got invited to become a member of the Opry. And it was recorded at Woodland Sound Studio in East Nashville. I live in East. And Woodland Studio is right across from Five Points Pizza. So if you're coming to Nashville, be sure to see Woodland Studio. It's a very famous old studio. And basically, Nitty Gritty Dirt Band had a hit with a song called Mr. Bojangles. But they loved and revered all the old Opry stars, like Earl Scruggs, the Bluegrassers and stuff. And they played a show where they crossed paths with Earl. And they just were scared to death. They were nervous. Would you consider recording with us? And he said yes. So then they asked another person. They asked another. Next thing you know, they had all these people, Mother Maybel Carter, Roy Acuff, Jimmy Martin, and this fiddle player, Vassar Clements, who's legendary. Anyway, they posted up and they recorded all these amazing old tunes. And this was a record I learned to play banjo to. And long before I knew where it was recorded and the details. This is my personal little addition. It's the new Mississippi flag. Thank you, by the way, for the phone call and interview back when Mississippi changed its flag. Anybody who wants to do research can find out why that sticker is there. But this is an amazing record and piece of country music history right there. Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Will the Circle Be Unbroken. What else you got over there? Everybody knows I'm a huge Vince Gill fan, huge Marty Stewart fan. But when I was a teenager, this dude and this record in particular helped me connect the dots that, oh, that's a... That's a torch that gets Speaker 3 (7:09) passed down. You Speaker 2 (7:09) have Speaker 3 (7:09) to Speaker 2 (7:09) say what it is in case people are just listening. Yes, in case they're just listening, we are looking at a beautiful young Keith Urban debut solo record, self-titled. Beautiful and young. Features It's Speaker 3 (7:19) a Speaker 2 (7:19) Love Thing, Where the Blacktop Ends, But for the Grace of God. One of the guys in King Billy would always, when we'd jam, that was his song to try and impress the girls, was But for the Grace of God. I've played that song a lot. You're Everything, I thought all these songs were like multi-week number ones in my... in my mind. But my favorite tune on here is the next to the last song. It's called Roller Coaster. It's an instrumental. And what this unlocked for me was I actually saw Keith play. I had a banjo gig at a festival in Jackson, Mississippi, played for 20 people. Well, this record was out and my dad figured out, oh, Keith Urban's playing at three o'clock around the corner. So we walk around the corner and he's playing to 40 people. And he's ripping it, man. Just small band. He's carrying the whole thing. Just all the licks, all the singing, all the moves. Great songs. And it was Rollercoaster, this instrumental that was his big finale thing. And I was just like, oh my gosh. You can be famous and successful and just rip nerdy guitar. I am in. So I studied this record. It was a big part of my high school years. Speaker 3 (8:26) Ever have that soul patch? Speaker 2 (8:28) Never really could. Wasn't brave enough. No. Yeah. Like the five o'clock shadows, like I can like blanket, and this is about as much as I ever get, but I'm not as brave as that man right there. What Speaker 3 (8:39) a great looking guy. He's a good looking dude. Yeah, what a great looking guy. Speaker 2 (8:42) And he's a cool dude too. I had a record release show at Station Inn, and he had reached out when I posted a particular thing on social media, just kind of a mental health thing, and he reached out, and I thought that was so cool of him. He ended up... We've messaged a couple times since, and he showed up at the station inn. He brought Brian Adams with him. I'm looking at these two guys like, do you two guys understand how many hours I have spent covering your music? It was unreal. Really, really cool dude. Great record. Keith Urban. Debut project. Self-titled. Here's the third, the trifecta. Eric Church, Sinners Like Me. This is Eric's debut record. This record was out a couple months before I drove to Nashville. I was in a coffee shop in Boston. One of my classmates, actually, we split a Penske truck rental, drove to Nashville together with all our stuff in the back. He was listening on headphones, and he was like jamming out, and he saw me. He took his headphones off. He's like, dude, you got to check out this guy, Eric Church, Sinners Like Me. And so I did, and the lesson here was the song Lightning because it only has Eric's name as a songwriter. He wrote it by himself, and that was a note for me of like, okay. You can be big time and write a song by yourself. That's a move. That's possible. And then our son, Gabe, was born to Sinners Like Me playing in the background, kind of orchestrated that on purpose. And Sinners Like Me, co-written by Jeremy Spillman, I wrote a bunch of my songs with Jeremy, How I Learned to Pray, a song called Old Time's Sake. And then it wasn't long after this, I was playing on Eric's records. The first number one I played on was off of Chief, two records after this. like Jesus does. And I've always loved Eric's songwriting and the way he and Keith both, the way that they bring rock and roll influence into country. That's good stuff. Yeah, man. Are those new? These are new. I have copies at Speaker 3 (10:37) home. Oh, so we donate these records. So that's so nice. They're actually going to get good stuff. Sometimes people bring crap. Oh. I know, and I'm like, no one's going to like this. But it means a lot to them. That's good stuff. Speaker 2 (10:49) No, Speaker 3 (10:49) these are good. These are not even played yet. That's Speaker 1 (10:51) like, Speaker 3 (10:51) you're the house at Halloween that gets to full candy bars. Yeah, man. So when we donate those, they're going Speaker 2 (10:55) to Speaker 3 (10:55) be like, oh, this is actual good music. Yeah. Yeah, because sometimes kids don't give a crap. But that's good stuff. No, I care about it. You have massive Snickers. Knock, knock. Yes. Yeah. Speaker 2 (11:08) How do you feel about the word prodigy? You know, now that I'm a parent, Speaker 2 (11:16) It's a word you got to be really careful with because it can come with a lot of expectation. And since I'm in the business of trying to raise a tiny human, the first thought I have is not of being, and that might not have been what you meant by it, but not of being the recipient of that word, but being the one who would hand it off with an unknowing sense of everything that would come with that. What Speaker 3 (11:39) was your relationship with the word before you had a kid? Speaker 2 (11:43) I always thought if it was ever thrown around, I'd be like, not me. What are you talking about? I just love to pick. How'd you really feel, though? I've always known I had a gift, and being the right size has been an ongoing struggle that I feel like here recently I'm finally getting the hang of. What do you mean the right size? For a long time, it was hard to be anything in between. I'm the greatest thing ever. Even if outwardly I'm super humble, which of course when you do that, you swing to the other end, which is. imposter syndrome. I don't know how I fooled everybody. They're going to find out any day now and it's all going to be over. And now I'm just kind of like, yeah, I'm good at what I do. And I love to get to hear recordings I made 10 years ago and be proud of them still and cringe a little bit too. Speaker 3 (12:42) Okay. I'm glad you said the last part. There's nothing I did 10 years ago that I'm proud of. Maybe a book I wrote, but I had an editor go through that like three times. Yeah. But any... thing that I did. five years ago and I listen to it or watch it, like I hate it. And hopefully I always hate it. And this may not be healthy. Hopefully I always hate it because hopefully I feel like I've grown since. Speaker 2 (13:05) That's my whole point. That's how I hope I always am. But I think, and I would hope for you too, because you should be proud of the things you've done. But I mean, it's what you said, growth. It's the sign of growth. And boy, if I were back in that position now with everything I've learned, I would knock it out of the park more. But I'm also proud of younger me because I was doing the best I could. When Speaker 3 (13:29) I said you were coming to do this, a friend of mine said, he was a prodigy, right? That's why I asked about that word. It's a weird word. It's a weird one. Because what exactly does it mean except you're a little too good and a little too young? Speaker 3 (13:46) You're way more proficient than you should be. But is that because your brain is different or is it because you loved it so – this could be anybody – or because you loved it so much so early you actually focused and most kids don't focus on anything because we don't have to. What do you think your version of that was? Speaker 2 (14:02) I think it was that I was focused and I think it was because part of the gift for me was I understood pretty early on, oh. this is what I want to do. And then I also had the gift of having an environment in which I grew up where that was always supported. So it's not lost on me that that's very fortunate. But yeah, I mean, I tried t-ball and I struck out. I tried karate. I chickened out when it was time to break the boards. And then there was piano lessons and then a banjo and then guitar and bluegrass festivals and playing in bars. And it just never stopped. It just kept going. Speaker 3 (14:41) I feel so lucky to have always known what I wanted to do. But as a kid, I didn't understand why people didn't know what they wanted to do. Yeah, Speaker 2 (14:48) I Speaker 3 (14:48) can struggle with that myself, Speaker 2 (14:50) actually. I Speaker 3 (14:50) would be five years old and I was living with my grandma. She was raising me when I was five and she kept, before she died, she kept this thing. It was like, what do you want to be when you grow up? And I wanted to be on TV, on the radio and a standup comedian at five years old. And so I always knew, and I thought it was so bizarre that the other kids didn't know what they wanted to be. And I wasn't judging them, but how do you guys not know? It was just so a part of what I wanted to do. I feel so fortunate that I've always known. I mean, I have friends now that will go, I still don't know. But now I get it. You don't have to know. And sometimes it changes. But I feel like when you say that. You always knew. And so was it weird when the kids around you didn't know what they wanted to do yet you knew exactly Speaker 2 (15:37) what you did? I was so excited to get home and grab the banjo or play along to a Vince Gill record that I wasn't really thinking or worried about them. Did you have friends? Yeah, I was in a nice kind of middle space between being super cool and being an outcast. And I think looking back, that was a good thing. And my mom, Being a teacher, I was also the kid that was hanging out at school after everybody left. And if I had an instrument, it made the time pass more quickly. Speaker 3 (16:09) Did you ever almost... I have an alternative band. Speaker 2 (16:13) Ooh. I mean, I think country music was always at my core through the bluegrass lens. I mean, you know, I took those piano lessons and I had a great teacher who really instilled in me the discipline, the delayed gratification, which I think is a key. I mean, no matter what you end up doing like that is such an important. lesson to grasp. And so I got my technique. I knew how to hold my hands right. And I learned how to read music. But she also didn't reprimand me when I heard something on the radio and tried to pick it out by ear. And once I got that basis, you know, the foundation laid and got a banjo and could just learn by ear, that was it. And everything around me was just country. I mean, the guitar. When I first got a guitar, the record I learned to play to was a George Jones record that all the 90s country stars guessed it on. It was called Bradley Barnes Sessions. And my parents took me to all these great Vince concerts and Marty Stewart concerts. And, dude, I went through a Def Leppard phase. I'm still a massive Aerosmith fan. My favorite song to play in the bar band I played in in high school was Hash Pipe by Weezer, which is behind you. And so, I mean, I loved it all, but I always came home to country in my heart. Speaker 3 (17:30) You never had a year of Charlie and the Slashers and you guys were just out with the flying Speaker 2 (17:34) V? I mean, we played a little bit of everything. When I was in high school, we'd do four 45-minute sets every night, and we played stuff to make people dance. It's interesting how it's not unlike what the radio gig is. I mean, your job is to keep people engaged. And that was maybe the most valuable part of that piece of my journey was realizing, okay, doesn't matter how much fun we're having up on the stage if the dance floor is empty all night. And so whatever means necessary to fill up the dance floor. Speaker 2 (18:08) Bluegrass alone, country music alone was never enough to engage all of my curiosity. It just is what always felt like home. Delayed gratification. Speaker 3 (18:19) It's so important. I even watch these videos on TikTok and... there will be like a baby or maybe like a two-year-old and they'll be like, don't eat the M &M. And if you don't eat the M &M and I come back and it's not eaten, I'll give you two. Yeah. And it's fun to see the kids that it clicks in right away. And they go, oh, I get two. So I'm going to delay this. Yeah. And then also the two-year-old brain isn't super developed. So most of them just gobble it up. But I mean, that's... Like the earliest version of delayed gratification, like being a child and going, if you don't eat this right now, you can have a little more later, like an understanding of it. But I mean, I think that is such a big part of success in anything. Understanding, and it's weird delayed gratification, but it's all the work that it takes before you actually get the payout. And that's delayed gratification. That's it. Like putting in the time. Speaker 3 (19:10) Were you someone who put in all the time in the bedroom? Like, did you go in and just, would you just stay if you could for hours and hours and hours? Speaker 2 (19:16) I... Speaker 2 (19:18) I was dreaming constantly. I had a Walkman, a Sony Walkman, the little CD player with the foam headphones and a lot of woods around the house. And before I had a guitar, I would go walk around in the woods with the foam headphones on and a Marty Stewart CD playing. And I'd grab a stick and I was on stage with Marty. And the further in to the journey I got, the more I... was actually practicing it and I would learn as much as I could from a record. Speaker 2 (19:52) get to a point where I just, I was completely stuck, walk away, go to something else. And then some weeks or months later, come back to it. But yeah, I mean, that was, that was my happy place was getting to be in the, in the room, uh, and just making music and learning, figuring something out. That was the most exciting feeling in the world. Can Speaker 3 (20:11) you tell when people are full of crap when they, they like reference an artist and you go, there's no way they'd actually know about that artist. In terms of, uh, How so? Well, I'll sit across from an artist, and right now, the very, the cool person to say you're a fan of, and he was great, but everybody now is on Keith Whitley. And I'll go, all right, who are your favorite artists? Well, Keith Whitley, and I know for a fact, they know three songs, and they, that's the, and I've been in a couple, you know, cycles here in Nashville at this point, where it's been Waylon and Merle. And then it shift. And now it's Keith Whitley. And everybody needs to say that because that's what they, that's what you have to say to prove that your country. Right. I just feel like you can see right through that crap because you're actually it. And when you're it, you can tell when people aren't it and they're lying and they're being kind of fake about it. Speaker 2 (21:03) That's true. It's funny though. I, I, uh, I more want to go into professor mode or nerd mode maybe and just whether or not they really know about Keith Whitley, just be like, oh, man, did you know? He kind of got his start in bluegrass. He actually backed up a guy named Ralph Stanley. Ralph Stanley's band is going to go on the Country Music Hall of Fame later this year. Next thing you know, I'm talking to a wall. Who had all that music at your house? Both my parents had great – they do have vinyl that I have now become the caretaker of, but CDs, I was in a CD household. And the local radio station, you know. Funny enough, mine would be Joe Diffie because, like, I didn't really know a ton about Joe Diffie. I just loved when his song came on the radio. He had great songs, and they sounded rocking to me. But – They had a great collection. My dad grew up in the 60s, so a lot of Beatles, a lot of Stones. And, of course, when I got into bluegrass, they got into bluegrass, and my banjo teacher became another musical influence. Check out these CDs. Get this box set. Sing live music. A lot of country. I remember counting how many CDs they had of each artist once, and they had the most George Strait and Vince Gill. records. And for whatever reason, I never really dove into the George Strait records. I think it was because he didn't play. He wasn't like a player. And I was, and I ended up singing out of necessity, really. I kind of just was a player until those four-hour gigs came up and everybody in the band needed to chip in. And boy, I'm glad that happened because I love to sing now. But yeah, we had a great collection, a lot of different things. And then an interesting thing, I was a little bit of a, I was judgy as a young person about music. Like if my parents didn't think it was cool, I wouldn't think it was cool. And now I've gone back on a lot of that and thought to myself, oh, that's really interesting and gotten to sort of own the music and become a fan of different artists now as an adult. Speaker 3 (23:11) Can you hear how complicated some of these artists are? You say the Beatles, and I've watched videos of their stuff being broken down into different parts, and I'm like, oh, I had no idea that this was so complicated because all I hear, I'm just a normal dude that hears a song, and it's like, ah, it's a fun little catchy Beatles song, but when you start to peel it back. Speaker 3 (23:33) the layers are seemingly so different until they're put together and it works. What are other artists do you know of that maybe we underestimate like just how skilled they are as composers or writers or Speaker 2 (23:49) musicians? Speaker 2 (23:52) There are a lot. I was going to say Prince, but I think everybody kind of understands. Speaker 3 (23:56) Oh, Speaker 2 (23:56) I Speaker 3 (23:56) think you should say Prince because I don't think they understand that he's one of the greatest guitar players to ever live in the whole world. Well, Speaker 2 (24:02) and how much of that he was just, I'm going to stay up for three days and play everything on this record. But he definitely, and like with the Beatles, sometimes it's accidental. Like, I don't think that they were, well, I'm going to do this seventh chord here and put that against a minor. flat five or whatever. I think they were just kind of experimenting until it sounded and felt right. But I mean, even some of the old bluegrass stuff, even old Merle Haggard records and Buck Owens records, there's complexity in there. I actually had this crazy opportunity to drive to Georgia and record Patti Loveless singing on a project that I can't talk about yet, but I'm really excited about. And for people that don't know, she's married to a legendary musician named Emery Gordy Jr. who was there. And in the 20 minutes I sat with him that day, he started unpacking the harmony parts on a Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs song. And that was his whole thing was, man, they were doing complex harmony and it's a bluegrass song. You would never think that. So I'd have to put them in that category too. Let's take a quick Speaker 1 (25:07) pause for a message from our sponsor. Speaker 8 (25:11) Lisa, we should tell them about our new show. Oh my God, Lexi, we have a