A country way of life, Episode 37 (Glenn Worf, Dallas Davidson and Ben Hayslip)
Author: Jonny Brick.
Player: Glenn Worf
The bass is a fulcrum of a country music band rather than a lead instrument, but it always helps to have a world-class bassist in the band.
Born in Ohio and raised in Wisconsin, Glenn Worf has become a sideman for Mark Knopfler in the guitarist’s post-Dire Straits career. As a studio musician he has played electric and upright bass on songs cut by a panoply of stars: from Kenny Rogers, Marty Stuart and Trisha Yearwood, through Brooks & Dunn, George Strait and Tim McGraw, to Alan Jackson, Faith Hill and Joe Diffie.
Worf also served as co-producer on Miranda Lambert’s albums Four the Record and The Weight of These Wings. ‘We’ve grown up together and gone through stuff together,’ Miranda told one interviewer. ‘We can grab on to each other’s and use it for our art. And that’s such a blessing.’
Songwriters: Dallas Davidson and Ben Hayslip
Alongside former country star Rhett Akins, Dallas Davidson and Ben Hayslip form the Peach Pickers, a trio who have had notable success writing songs for a series of Southern fellas.
Akins and Hayslip went to high school together, while Davidson went to college with Luke Bryan. Akins and Davidson came together to write Kiss My Country Ass, which was recorded by Blake Shelton, and then Hayslip came on board for weekly songwriting sessions.
Over the last two decades, the Peach Pickers have contributed several songs to the contemporary country songbook, often setting the lyrics to only two or three chords. The biggest smash has been Small Town Girl, which was a radio-conquering hit for Dustin Lynch, while other songs have been cut by Joe Nichols (Gimme That Girl), Craig Morgan (This Ole Boy), Brooks & Dunn (Put a Girl in It), Jack Ingram (Barefoot and Crazy) and Josh Turner (All Over Me).
Luke Bryan joined the trio to write album closer Dirt Road Diary and two hot songs that have become concert perennials: I Don’t Want This Night to End, and Huntin’ Fishin’ and Lovin’ Every Day. The partnership holds to this day; the title track of Bryan’s 2024 album Mind of a Country Boy was written with the Peach Pickers too.
‘I enjoy being a daddy too much to be an artist,’ Hayslip says, justifying his status as a backroom figure where for a fortnight every year he gets to hit the stage when he, Akins and Davidson play their copyrights opening for Bryan at his farm shows. Hayslip says that the commonality of their upbringing means that they have common reference points, ‘just four good buddies from Georgia having fun doing what we love’.
Outside of his work with both Akins and Davidson, Hayslip’s copyrights include Anywhere with You for Jake Owen, It Goes Like This for Thomas Rhett and Honey Bee which, as he and Akins were writing it, they already decided that if Shelton wouldn’t record it then nobody would.
Like Hayslip, and unlike his best friend Bryan with whom he wrote Rain is a Good Thing, Davidson had no inclination to be an artist: ‘I like to write my songs and go home’. His guiding principle is to Keep It Simple, Stupid, with a focus on ‘that groove and that melody and a big hook’.
Davidson was in the room for plenty of songs with big hooks, starting with Honky Tonk Badonkadonk, which was a hit for Trace Adkins. He has credits on Just a Kiss (Lady A), I Don’t Dance (Lee Brice), Runnin’ Outta Moonlight (Randy Houser), Where I Come From (Montgomery Gentry), The One That Got Away (Jake Owen) and Thirsty, which appeared on the soundtrack to the movie Country Strong and was written with Akins and Brett Eldredge.
Plus there’s Play It Again, an enormous smash for his old college pal that gave Bryan the biggest of his many US Hot 100 hits.
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