Darryl Worley (CD - 2004)

Personnel: Darryl Worley (vocals); Matt Davich (clarinet); Neal Rosengarden (trumpet); Joe Murphy (tuba); Jim "Moose" Brown (piano); Kevin Grantt (bass guitar); Chris Stapleton, Curtis Wright (background vocals); Bryan Sutton (acoustic guitar, banjo); Brent Rowan (electric guitar, baritone guitar); Steve Hinson (steel guitar, dobro); Aubrey Haynie (mandolin, fiddle); Eric Darken (vibraphone, percussion); Greg Morrow (drums, shaker, percussion); Wes Hightower (background vocals).

Audio Mixer: Justin Niebank.

Recording information: East Iris, Nashville, TN; The Castle, Franklin, TN; Thelma's East, Nashville, TN.

Photographer: Tony Baker & His Orchestra.

Following up the success of his patriotic 2003 outing, HAVE YOU FORGOTTEN?, Darryl Worley turns the rhetoric down a bit with a self-titled follow-up that cleaves more to the traditional country-music topics of fidelity, putting in an honest day's work, and living a good life. Producer Frank Rogers helps Worley to cobble together the kind of honky-tonk-flavored fare that seems to be a rarity on the country airwaves in the early 2000s.

The opening cut, "Awful Beautiful Life," sets the tempo immediately with a strong kick drum and a crackling guitar riff that pops up throughout, bringing to mind the late Waylon Jennings. From here, the Georgia native serves up the Merle Haggard-like tearjerker "If I Could Tell the Truth," the New Orleans-flavored shuffle ""Work and Worry," with its combination of rollicking piano and crying fiddle, and the murder ballad "If It Hadn't Been for Love." Worley does keep to his patriotic reputation via the ominous "Wake Up America," a stark song about the drug scourge of crystal meth and crack cocaine that affects people in red and blue states alike. minimize