Throughout a career that has produced nearly twenty hit singles, including three #1s, as well as chart-topping albums and sales in the millions, Darryl Worley has set himself one primary goal.
“I’ve always set out to make sure every song on every album is a good one,” he says. “I want every cut to be a potential single.”
It is an approach that has helped to make Darryl a mainstay of modern country music. His unquestioned musical integrity earned him an enviable connection with the American public and a reputation as a genuinely traditional country artist who doesn’t follow trends or fads, but rather his own bedrock convictions as an artist and a person. It doesn’t hurt that he is a distinctive singer and first-rate songwriter whose music chronicles life, love and the world situation with equal facility.
He has topped the charts with singles including “I Miss My Friend,” “Awful, Beautiful Life” and “Have You Forgotten,” which accomplished the feat for one, two and an incredible seven weeks, respectively. He hit the Top Twenty with the first three singles from his impressive major-label debut, Hard Rain Don’t Last–”When You Need My Love,” “A Good
Day to Run” and “Second Wind”–and followed with smashes like “If Something Should Happen,” “I Just Came Back From a War” the iconic “Tennessee River Run,” and “Sounds Like Life To Me.” Along the way, he earned nominations for five major ACM and CMA awards, including “Song of the Year” and “Single of the Year,” and wrote songs for other artists including George Jones.
A dozen years into his remarkable career, with his upcoming studio album, his outlook is as positive as it has ever been.
“This is one of the most exciting years I’ve had in a long time,” he says. “My personal life is better than ever.”
Musically, the latest addition to his highly respected catalog is One Time Around, which more than lives up to his every-cut-a-potential-single pledge. He calls it without hesitation “as strong a project as I’ve ever put together.” In essence a celebration of his longevity and of artistic maturity, One Time Around is at once a renewal and a return to the approach that marked Worley’s dramatic entry into the national spotlight a decade ago.
“I consciously made a decision I wanted this record to have the same kind of substance as my very first record,” he says. “That album was pretty straightforward country and it had some really great songwriters’ songs on there–well crafted, clever, but with substance. I also wanted something uplifting and fun, something that sounded different and had great grooves.”
Produced by longtime friend Jim “Moose” Brown, the record took shape slowly, a process he prefers.