Darryl Worley

Country singer/songwriter Darryl Worley grew up in Pyburn, TN, the son of a father who left his job at a local paper company to become a Methodist preacher and a mother who was a featured singer in the church choir. He became a hard-working yet rebellious young man — earning a degree in biology with a minor in organic chemistry while drinking bootlegged whiskey and partying at honky tonks — who never gave up on making music his full-time pursuit. While holding various jobs, including a stint as a teacher, Worley played clubs on the weekends and occasional weeknights; finally, he signed a publishing deal with Fame in Muscle Shoals and began playing bars nearly every night of the week, and even broke his engagement to become a full-time performer and songwriter. He signed to DreamWorks Nashville in 1999 and released the single "When You Need Love" the following spring; his debut album, Hard Rain Don't Last, arrived in mid-2000. The album got a decent amount of play on radio and CMT, and after a successful tour of the U.S. Worley returned to the studio for his next album. I Miss My Friend arrived in the summer of 2002 at the top of the country charts, hitting number one in its first week. Before the year's end, Worley toured Afghanistan during Christmas time, spending time with American troops. The experience was overwhelming and mindblowing for Worley; and he captured such emotion in his sophomore effort, Have You Forgotten?. This album, which appeared on DreamWorks in May 2003, was a small tribute to the U.S. troops fighting for Iraqi Freedom as well as a great musical progression for Worley. A third Dreamworks release, the self-titled Darryl Worley, hit shelves in 2004, but it was to be his last for the label. Here and Now appeared from 903 in 2006 and Sounds Like Life from Stroudavarious Records in 2009.