Casino Scene: New life contentment shows in Worley's mellowed music
Calling from his second home in Mount Juliet, Tenn., just outside of Nashville, country singer Darryl Worley steps out onto the patio momentarily so he can hear over the domestic commotion inside.
Darryl Worley
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These days Worley is never far from his wife, Kimberley, and their 15-month-old daughter, Savannah, named for the West Tennessee town where the Worleys split their time. Even when he heads out on one of his frequent tour swings, like the one that brings him to Gold Strike Casino this on a Fourth of July bill with Phil Vassar, you can find the Worley girls in songs like "Best of Both Worlds" and "Everyday Life," both off of Worley's new disc, appropriately titled Sounds Like Life.
The record, featuring the current Top 25 single "Sounds Like Life to Me," reflects the 44-year-old Hardin County native's newfound contentment after years of failed relationships and career troubles.
"I had a buddy of mine who played on my last album who said it was just an angry project," says Worley of 2006's Here And Now, an effort that seethed with record label resentments and spousal acrimony that resulted in his divorce from his first wife that year.
"This whole project comes from a different place," he says of his latest, released last month on the indie Stroudavarious label. "I'm in a place unlike any place I've ever been in my life. I just know that I'm in the right relationship. I think I'm where God wants me to be. And this child has shown me things I never saw before."
Raised in Pyburn, Tenn., near Pickwick Dam, Worley grew up with a preacher father and a mother who sang in the choir. Music was a constant presence in the Worley household.
"It was just a family thing," he recalls. "We sang at home and at grandmother's house.
It was something we did to occupy ourselves so we stayed out of trouble, I guess. There's not a lot to do around there, you know."
From an early age, Worley knew he wanted to be an entertainer of some sort and flirted with comedy and football. But in high school, the idea of becoming a professional musician came into focus.
"I realized I could take this guitar and the talent I have for rhyming stuff -- just meter, whatever you want to call it -- and maybe write some songs that somebody might want to listen to," he says.
After college, Worley cut his teeth as a songwriter, signing a publishing deal with Muscle Shoals FAME Studios. Then in 1999 he signed with DreamWorks Records and a year later released his debut, Hard Rain Don't Last. His second release, 2002's I Miss My Friend, gave Worley his first number one album and single. A year after that he cemented his reputation as an interpreter of deeply emotional songs with "Have You Forgotten?" a post-9/11 rallying cry that remains Worley's biggest hit.
After Worley's 2004 self-titled collection, DreamWorks folded. For Here And Now, the singer found a home on country artist Neal McCoy's 903 Music label.
"I don't know if you'd call it a venture or an adventure," says Worley of the short-lived start-up.
Now on a label headed by the man who discovered him, producer James Stroud, Worley is as philosophical about his career as he is his home life.
"It's harder being on an indie label, but we've found a way to keep ourselves in the game," says Worley. "I don't know if I could ever go back into a situation like I've been in the past where there's somebody standing over you all the time with input on the songs or how you're recording. And unfortunately, about 90 percent of the time, it's somebody who doesn't have a clue."
Such disregard for the Nashville machine is nurtured in Savannah, where Worley has become a leading civic figure, thanks to his Darryl Worley Foundation, which raises money through events like his "Hitmakers & Harleys" songwriters' nights and this September's three-day Tennessee River Run. The charity, which has given money to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital and Le Bonheur Children's Medical Center, is currently working to raise $3.5 million for a cancer treatment center in Savannah.
Darryl Worley with Phil Vassar
8 p.m. Saturday at Gold Strike Casino in Tunica. Tickets: $29.95; available at the casino gift shop or by phone at 888-245-7829.
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