Charlie Worsham (far right) sings with Dierks Bentley (center) on GMA. (Photo from goodmorningamerica.com)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\nUnwittingly, Worsham had also proved the central tenet of \u201cMississippi on the Map,\u201d produced by Visit Mississippi, where so far he\u2019s shared the mic with Freeman and fellow musicians like Marty Stuart, Mac McAnally, and Chris Stapleton: No matter where he goes, Mississippi is there.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cOne of the questions I ask every guest is, \u2018What do people get wrong about Mississippi?\u2019\u201d he says. Recent guest Wright Thompson, the sportswriter, best-selling author and Clarksdale native whose featured episodes will post Oct. 8 and 22, gave him a half-hour\u2019s worth of answers. But one stood out to Worsham. \u201cMy favorite part of the answer he gave was people mistaking Mississippi for being anything short of absolutely in the middle of everything going on in the world today.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
While recording that episode at the Lyceum on the University of Mississippi campus, Worsham noted the amount of consequential history surrounding them, from Ole Miss football to Civil Rights history.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019ve got the undefeated, winningest football season in the history of Ole Miss in 1962, which is a team named after literal Confederate soldiers, while James Meredith is trying to integrate this school, and I\u2019m sitting in ground zero of that story talking about [that team],\u201d he says. \u201cAnd who\u2019s on that football team? Jim Weatherley. What song did he write? \u2018Midnight Train to Georgia.\u2019 A straight line from James Meredith to \u2018Midnight Train to Georgia,\u2019 and it\u2019s a completely Mississippi story.\u201d<\/p>\n
These connections arise often in Worsham\u2019s line of work. With so much of American music history rooted in his home state, he revisits the pioneers of blues, country and rock and roll who came up in Mississippi every time he sits with a guitar for his own music or while moonlighting with artists like Eric Church, Luke Combs, Carrie Underwood, Keith Urban or Old Crow Medicine Show. Now as a podcast host, he gets to talk with people tied to his homeland either by birth or inspiration about their own journeys.<\/p>\n
Other upcoming episodes will feature HARDY, the hard rock\/country hybrid phenom from Philadelphia, Mississippi, and Worsham is currently working on a visit to the Mississippi State Penitentiary in Parchman to speak with members of the recently revived Parchman blues band \u2014 a historical landmark, he says, linked to a complex story of \u201cgreat pain, but also this great legacy of art and creativity and music and rising above.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to explore it all,\u201d he says. \u201cI want to celebrate those who made a difference, because when you make a difference from Mississippi, you probably had to work twice as hard to get there. And to take an honest look at these harder parts of our story, too.\u201d<\/p>\n
While Mississippi on the Map began as a way to explore how forms of music developed and spread from Mississippi, told through the eyes of its most famous musicians, Worsham sees the format continuing to expand from the original concept.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe whole point of this podcast is music, but the deeper we go, the more we realize we also need to talk about food,\u201d he says. \u201cWe also need to talk about the written word because I mean, Faulkner, Welty, Jesmyn Ward, Donna Tartt, John Grisham, Richard Wright \u2014 we\u2019re stout when it comes to people of letters. And it\u2019s all connected.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p><\/div>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/magnoliatribune.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Screenshot-2025-09-26-105718.png\")