Charlie Worsham Reflects on His CMA Musician of the Year Nomination: ‘It’s Very Emotional For Me’ [Exclusive]

Singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist Charlie Worsham has been nominated for his second CMA Musician of the Year award. He joins fellow nominees Tom Bukovac, Jenee Fleenor, Paul Franklin, and Rob McNelley in this prestigious category.

The soon-to-be father of two reflected on his nomination and what it means to him while chatting with Country Now at the Luke Combs Bootleggers Bonfire in Miramar Beach, Florida over the weekend.

Following his beachside performance, Worsham sat down with us, visibly emotional as he shared how much his nomination means to him. 

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“It’s very emotional for me, he admitted. “I’m probably the only guy who grew up in Mississippi and left home, went out into the world… I couldn’t have told you what was going on if a football game was on TV. For me, it was always music shows. It was the CMA awards in particular, and Vince Gill being my all-time hero, it was during the era when he hosted the shows and the music was just so good.” 

Worsham, who happened to be sporting a vintage Vince Gill t-shirt that day, went on to reflect on his musical journey and shared how he began his career as a musician first. 

“I always knew that they recognized musicians. Before I sang, before I wrote songs, I was a guitar player. And before that, I was a banjo player. I was a student of liner notes as much as I was a fan of the big stars from day one. And that’s one of the reasons Vince and Marty Stewart are my heroes because they also have a foot in both worlds,” he explained. 

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The Mississippi native transformed his passion for music into a successful career, contributing as both a vocalist and instrumentalist to projects by prominent artists such as Eric Church, Brandy Clark, Vince Gill, Kacey Musgraves, Hailey Whitters, Marty Stuart, Carrie Underwood, Keith Urban, and more. Most recently, he’s been touring as part of Dierks Bentley’s band. 

His nomination is well-deserved and yet still “humbling” as being nominated alongside his friends and heroes is something that he doesn’t take lightly. 

“It’s an honor to get put in the same category as people like Paul Franklin. He’s my friend, he’s my buddy. I call him to play gigs back home and stuff, and I’ll light up when I see him on a session. But he’s also my hero,” Worsham said. “And Tom Bukovac is a fellow nominee this year, and he was the first guy to bring me in on session work when I first started doing that. And Jenee Fleener, Rob McNelly, who I’ve played on records with and who were buddies of mine.”

Whether he leaves the CMA Awards with a trophy or not, Worsham says he’s “extremely humbled to be considered.” 

“I know it’s such a cliche how people say, ‘Well, it’s an honor just to be nominated.’ And maybe it is just a cliche in these other categories, but at least in my experience and in the category of Musician of the Year, it truly is an honor just to be considered in the same company as them.”

By the time the CMA Awards roll around, Worsham and his wife, Kristen, will have welcomed another little one into the world. And sometime next year, he hopes to release a new album, which will serve as the follow-up to 2023’s Compadres project, which featured guest vocals from Dierks Bentley, Luke Combs, Elle King, Kip Moore and Lainey Wilson. 

“I’m probably about two-thirds of the way through working on this next record. We got some of the songs mixed. Some of ’em are half recorded, and we’ll record a couple more in November,” he revealed. “I’m really excited about it. It’s sort of a picture of me right now. It’s where I am in life. Some days I’m flying down the road in a bus or up in the air getting to the gig, and other days I’m coming up the driveway to be dad and all the life in between those two extremes of the spectrum. And I’m excited for people to hear these songs.”