Darius Rucker Talks Cherished Friendships with Charles Kelley, John Osborne

Darius Rucker is grateful for his friends in country music, two of whom show up on his latest album, Carolyn’s Boy. Rucker has been longtime friends with Charles Kelley of Lady A, whom Rucker opened for on the trio’s Own the Night Tour in 2012, and Lady A sang backup on Rucker’s megahit “Wagon Wheel.” Rucker and Kelley are also frequent golfing buddies and now songwriting collaborators. The two wrote “7 Days” off Carolyn’s Boy with fellow hit songwriters Ashley Gorley and Ross Copperman, wherein Rucker plays the role of a heartbroken man who goes to a bar to forget his woes.

“Charles is my best friend of the business,” Rucker professed to Kelleigh Bannen on Today’s Country Radio on Apple Music Country. “We toured together. … My second big tour was opening up for Lady A and we had a blast.” Rucker raved that “7 Days” is “so smart,” particularly the chorus that utilizes clever lyricism like: But it’s one drink, one shot there at the bar / I see two people dancin’ out in the dark / It’s that three in the morning telephone call / That I wanna make, staring at these four walls.

“It’s so smart, and if you pay attention and see what’s happening, it is just a smart chorus, and I love that,” he continued. “That’s one of my favorite songs I’ve ever written, man. Singing that song is so much fun. I love it.”

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Rucker also has a friend in John Osborne of Brothers Osborne. Similar to his relationship with Kelley, the Hootie & the Blowfish frontman brought on Brothers Osborne as an opening act on his 2015 Southern Style Tour. That friendship has turned into a musical partnership. Rucker, Osborne, and Lee Thomas Miller co-wrote “Never Been Over,” an organic-sounding number that finds Rucker singing: We’ve never been a headlights weaving / Taillights fading / So long, move on / Goodbye waitin’ / Never been one last long look across your shoulder / We’ve been a lot of things / But we’ve never been over.

“A lot of people [don’t] know… John can really, really sing,” Rucker said, praising Brothers Osborne as “awesome.” “He sang the demo. And I tell him, ‘When you listen to me sing it on the record, I’m just trying to be him. That’s my John Osborne imitation.’”

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