It may seem hard to believe, but it’s been a whopping five years since Charlie Worsham was last over in the UK, after his planned trip for C2C in 2020 was cut short due to the pandemic.
In that time he’s released his EP ‘Sugarcane’, played alongside the likes of Dierks Bentley, HARDY and Ashley McBryde and turned his hand to production on Elle King’s version of ‘Jersey Giant’. Now, at long last, he’s finally made it back over here, touring alongside Ward Thomas and winning over fans old and new with his much-loved blend of open, honest songwriting and incredible musicianship.
Whilst he was here, I sat down with Charlie before his show at London’s The Slaughtered Lamb to talk about his latest visit, plans for new music, playing as part of ‘Lindeville Live’, his Pickers Radio show on Apple Music and much more.
Welcome back to the UK!
Thank you. It feels so good to be back.
Is it five years since you’ve been here now?
I’m trying to think. 2018, yeah, I think that might have been the last time. ‘Cause in 2019 I know I wanted to go but I was playing both with Old Crow Medicine Show and with Vince Gill. And then I was set to come here – I was actually five minutes from the Nashville airport to fly to C2C with Old Crow in March of 2020 and then of course everything happened.
You’ve been out with Ward Thomas whilst you’ve been over here – how was that?
It’s been so wonderful. You know, I got to meet Catherine and Lizzie for a co-write, back in Nashville, and when we had the write we had been talking, their management and mine, about doing this tour. But then after we hit it off I knew I had to do the tour with them. So I’m so glad that it happened and I’m amazed that Catherine is touring at nine months’ pregnant. She’s a hero. But it’s been lovely. They’re fantastic, their band is fantastic and the crowds have just been wonderful.
Have there been any highlights from this particular trip for you?
So many. Goodness. This trip marked my first time to visit Liverpool, so I had to make my pilgrimage and pay homage to the Beatles, of course. It was my first time to see York, fell in love with that beautiful place. And then many many more things, but one that’s really close to my heart – Bexhill-on-Sea, we played, and not long after the Battle of Hastings at Bexhill-on-Sea is the first recorded situation with the Worsham surname. And to this day you can go, and I did, go to Worsham Farm on Worsham Lane that’s still run by Worshams. So it was pretty cool to see that.
And are there any songs you’re particularly enjoying playing live at the moment?
Absolutely. You know, a song that I had kind of felt I’d lost my way, just because I’ve been playing it now for over ten years, was ‘Tools Of The Trade’. But I brought my mandolin with me on this tour, and one night I decided to try playing ‘Tools Of The Trade’ with the mandolin. And it gave that song new life. So that’s been one. And then there have been some new songs that have been released later this year and those have been really fun to play. One’s called ‘Things I Can’t Control’ and another called ‘Kiss Like You Dance’ and fortunately they’ve been getting good responses.
Is that experimenting and trying new things something that’s really important to you as an artist?
Yes it is something that’s important to me, and it’s something that I’ve actually got a history of doing particularly here in the UK. I know that I was here before my second album was released, ‘Beginning Of Things’, and I sort of smuggled in some CDs, advance copies of the record. Because honestly those songs on that record are songs that I first introduced on stage here in the UK. So I’m keeping that tradition alive.
Even though it’s been a while since you’ve been here I feel like you’ve had so much going on in that time…
Yeah! [laughs]
So the first thing I wanted to ask you about was Pickers Radio [Charlie’s Apple Music show] – how did that come about and what’s it been like to work on?
Yeah, thank you for asking about it. So years ago, really a decade ago, I was on my radio tour. And Nashville’s hometown station, Big 98, WSIX, the programme director was a guy named Michael Bryan. And now Michael Bryan works at Apple Music in Nashville, and we reconnected after all this time, and he pitched me the idea. Because I’d been talking about doing some type of… in my mind it would be a podcast but the issue would be that you can’t really play full songs, full records on podcasts. But what I’ve always wanted to do was have conversations about stories that involved the recording and the writing and making of records.
Because that’s like… you know, kids that collected baseball cards growing up, my version of that was reading liner notes and going “oh my gosh, can you believe this happened?!” And I’ve always wanted to turn that into a show. So thanks to Michael and Chelsea Kent and the folks at Apple, they gave me an opportunity to do that. It’s been such a blast. Got to call on a bunch of buddies and make some new friends doing it. We actually wrapped up season one just this past weekend with Sam Bush as a special guest. I mean it’s just like, pinch me. It’s such a dream gig.
And have there been any standout moments for you from that so far?
Yeah, well actually Sam, every guest brings an instrument with them. And for me the standout moment is when the guest is talking about something musical, and they go “well let me grab my instrument and show you” and then they’ll play. And so what Sam did on his episode, I asked him about the mandolin chop. I don’t have my mandolin with me but it’s how mandolin players play rhythm. And he just went into this history of the chop, and there it is, you know, right in front of me.
Of course getting to talk with Vince Gill is always a highlight. And then talking with some of the newer faces in country is really fun. Like my buddy Jerry Pentecost, we spent some time together in Old Crow Medicine Show, or my buddy Billy Justin – we played together on Eric Church’s ‘Heart & Soul’ record and we’re reminiscing about some of the standout moments from those sessions as well. So it’s something I hope to get to continue to do for a long time.
Is there anything from that experience that you’ve brought into your music or other projects?
Oh, goodness! You know, I’d say the way that it’s shown itself in my live performance, I practice more. Because I get so inspired after these interviews, and I discover cool new records and instrumental parts. So I’ll just start practising more, and it’s made me a better musician. What I hope in the future to do is marry the world of Pickers and the world of touring, and perhaps do an episode of Pickers after soundcheck at a gig one day. Or maybe the opening act from my own set is an episode of Pickers. That would be the ultimate.
One thing I’ve noticed on your Instagram recently is you’ve been working on various solos for different songs. Are there any of those that you’re really like, “oh yeah, this is a good one”?
Oh, all of ’em! [laughs] It’s funny because I grew up playing bluegrass, and studying bluegrass records, but especially with my time playing with Dierks Bentley, he’s a big bluegrass fan. Dierks and the guys in that band, we have a sort of alter ego – well we have the Hot Country Knights of course, but now we have Long John which is our bluegrass band, all the same guys. And we have a monthly gig at Station Inn and so Dierks, his entry into bluegrass, he took a different path. I studied all of the first generation bluegrass pickers growing up – Flatt and Scruggs, Bill Monroe, Jimmy Martin and everything. And Dierks, his entry through bluegrass was the Travelling McCourys and Sam Bush and New Grass Revival and stuff. So I’ve been discovering new to me bluegrass music that’s really inspiring – a lot of JD Crowe, a lot of Tony Rice.
You’ve mentioned Dierks and I know you’ve been working with loads of other artists recently, but the other thing I really wanted to ask you about was Lindeville Live with Ashley McBryde…
Yeah! Oh, well first of all, I was out last year playing with Dierks and Ashley was the main support, and Ashley and I are both on Warner together. And one of my longest standing friends and best friends in country, John Osborne, produced that record. So I had heard about Lindeville but I had not heard ‘Lindeville’. And so I pulled Ashley aside one day and she was kind enough to take me to a dressing room and just play me the record front to back, and it was love at first sight, that record. And so when they did Lindeville Live I was so tickled to get the call to be a part of the bluegrass band. Half of Dierks’ band was the band, and then TJ Osborne – and of course I knew this from back in my early days in Nashville working with John, but he’s a great upright bass player. And so it was the coolest little one-off gig and band that nobody ever saw coming, and I certainly hope that they do more live engagements around that album. I’m always voting for it with the Grammys and the CMAs and stuff. I hope that record gets a lot of love over the years to come.
And you know, the great thing too about the show, even before the curtain went up, it kind of unleashed the inner child in all of us. You know, we all felt like we were 14, at the high school auditorium, putting on a play or something. It was cool.
You’ve recently been doing some production work with the likes of Elle King – how has that experience been for you?
Oh, yeah. You know, it’s always something I’ve wanted to do more of, and it’s so closely associated with session work. And so many of my producer friends, that’s how they became producers, as session players. And of course for me the session playing part, I’ve done a lot of that. It was the most natural thing to fall into ever. Elle had that song ‘Jersey Giant’ blowing up on TikTok and so they were trying to cut it really quickly, and Elle and I had connected a little bit prior. She had cut a song of mine for her album. And it was just magical. It was great.
I also saw on Instagram you got your ceiling tile for the Basement East in Nashville – tell us a bit about that…
Oh yeah! I love that you’re asking about that, because that’s such a specific to East Nashville badge of honour. And Lord knows that venue has been through it. I mean, the ripped up Basement East has become the image of the Nashville tornado, and that was a couple of weeks right before Covid too. I just love the folks there and I was so honoured to get to be a part of the Basement East story. A good friend of mine, Skyler Wilson who’s a brilliant, multi-talented dude did the drawing and made it look great. We were trying to figure out a cool… you know, being here, a stone’s throw from Abbey Road, we were taking a little bit of a Sergeant Pepper approach to it.
What does the rest of the year look like for you? Can you tell us more about the new music yet?
Yeah, no, I certainly can. I’ve actually got a collaborations project in the can. We have most of it finished, and every song on it has a special guest, and every special guest is someone that I’ve already collaborated with, either playing on their record or writing songs together or whatever. I can’t quite say who is on it just yet, but people wouldn’t have to do much imagining to guess who the guests are. And it’s gonna be a fun collection of songs too. It’s some new material. We recorded a song of mine, ‘How I Learned To Pray’, from my debut album ‘Rubberband’ and reimagined that one a bit. And then the song I might be most excited for, we recorded an old favourite song of Patty Loveless’s that I’m excited for the world to hear.
Have you got plans to come back to the UK after this trip?
Oh yes. I was actually just texting with my management and I was like, “It is not debateable. I have to be back in the UK, either by the end of the year or early next year”. It’s just so important to me and I never forgot about the UK all those times in Covid. But it’s something when you experience something after so long and then you’re reminded in person of how good it feels. It’s just been so wonderful these past few weeks reconnecting with folks and meeting new people, and so I’ll certainly be back.
And the intention was for my family to join me – [Charlie’s wife Kristen and] our two-year-old son, Gabe, you know, halfway through this tour. But the passport office is moving a little slow these days and so his passport didn’t get in in time. So it’s ever more reason for me to get back and bring them with me.
Charlie Worsham’s latest EP, ‘Sugarcane’, is out now on Warner Music Nashville.
