The August Cover Story: After Two Decades in Nashville, Charlie Worsham Is Right Where He Belongs

Charlie Worsham has been involved with music for as long as he can remember. Growing up in Grenada, Mississippi, as the son of a banker (his dad) and a teacher (his mother), young Charlie was an accomplished musician by the age of fourteen, honored as such by the Mississippi Senate. In high school, he attended a five-week summer program at Berklee College of Music and fell in love with Boston. 

By the time he graduated from high school, Charlie was ready to pursue his music dreams at Berklee. “That’s a magical place for me,” he says. “All the big fish from all the little ponds gather there, and I made great friends from all over the country and the world.” 

Many of those friends moved to Nashville, and Charlie joined them in Music City. “It’s been twenty years now,” Charlie says. He has covered a lot of ground during that time, collaborating on tour and in the studio with the likes of Dierks Bentley, Taylor Swift, Miranda Lambert, Ella Langley, Eric Church, Lainey Wilson, and Kenny Rogers. 

Throughout 2019, Charlie pulled double duty in both Vince Gill’s touring band and as a touring member of Old Crow Medicine Show. “It was fun for me to juggle playing in those two bands. Ketch Secor became a great friend and mentor, and playing with Old Crow was helpful for me as a performer. I try to incorporate what I learned from them into my own shows. Ketch has become a dear friend and is godfather to our son.” 

By 2021, Charlie won his first industry award for his work as a musician, the ACM for Acoustic Guitar Player of the Year. He would earn the honor again in 2023 In 2024, Charlie took home his first CMA Award for Musician of the Year. 

Charlie met his wife, Kristen, at a scholarship fund meeting at the Music Community Foundation. “Eleven months after that meeting, she reached out to me,” he laughs. The rest is history. They got married and had two children: their son, Gabe (5), and daughter Harper (18 months). “Nowadays, coming home from a run of shows has never been sweeter.” 

Charlie is preparing to launch a new full-length album, Once Upon a Second Time Around, slated for release on August 7. “Records should be a picture of who you are in a particular season of your life,” Charlie says. “Once Upon A Second Time Around is an honest portrait of who I am today. I’m so proud of this body of work. It feels like a bookend to my debut album, 2013’s Rubberband. I feel like I’m settling into my seat at the table of country music.”

Listeners will hear tinges of bluegrass and Southern rock throughout the album. “Those are two of my favorite genres, and both speak to my core influences.” Three songs have been released as singles, including “Grass,” “They Never Do,” and “Family Man.” Each song speaks to Charlie’s life these days, juggling the chaos of a music career with his role as a husband and a father. “I get to make music every day with people who inspire me to be better. That, to me, is living the dream. The work is the reward.”

Back in May, Charlie spent a week performing in Mississippi with the rejuvenated Parchman Band, comprised of men incarcerated at the infamous Mississippi prison. “The men in the Parchman Band have blessed me with a transformative experience. I’m so proud to know them and proud to see the way they are living a story of redemption and grace. Mississippi needs more new narratives like the one being written by the Parchman Band.”

Charlie also hosts a podcast, Mississippi on the Map, produced by the state’s tourism bureau, Visit Mississippi. “I’ve had a blast hosting the podcast,” he says. “I am proud to have a platform to share some of Mississippi’s best stories. After all, stories here tend to be a size or two bigger than others.” With one foot in Mississippi and the other at home in East Nashville, Charlie Worsham knows where he is from and where he is going, and life for the talented singer/songwriter has never been better. 

https://www.charlieworsham.com/