Just before midnight, in the new Savannah studio of producer Dave Cobb, Anderson East was wondering if he and his longtime band of bassist Gregg Garner and drummer Darren Dodd were actually capturing anything worthwhile with Cobb, their collaborator and mentor for a decade. Or were they just passing some days with an old friend? But when Cobb pressed play on "Never Meant to Hurt You" late that night, everything changed. The sound coming through the speakers was exactly what Anderson had imagined decades ago, recording on his TASCAM four-track in northern Alabama—real, grand, convincing. As a songwriter, singer, and even producer, this was the music he'd been working toward his entire life, realized here in a moment of unexpected and absolute triumph, through a country-soul classic that felt like an apologetic and warm hug.
"Never Meant to Hurt You" stands as the cornerstone of Worthy, Anderson's debut for Rounder and the most commanding and affecting album he's ever made. In fact, it is a record he nearly never made at all. Anderson has always treasured the magic of musicians together in a room, conjuring in real time. But he shaped 2021's Maybe We Never Die largely alone, grappling with cold technology in his little Nashville studio as the world grappled with a pandemic outside. He abhorred the process, even if he liked the results. The subsequent tour yielded a conundrum of its own. As he sang these songs into rooms full of people desperate for live music, he wondered if it all wasn't a bit artificial. When his major-label deal ended, the relentless cycle of recording and touring had begun to feel hollow against what he truly wanted from music.
But in June 2023, he and the band decided to head to Cobb's place, without agenda. During songwriting sessions with Nashville collaborators, he'd found melodies and lines that resonated deeply with his life—regrets of the past, aspirations of the present and future—and tucked them away for the right moment. There was "Before It Gets Better," a dashing bit of vulnerability penned with Natalie Hemby, and "Fool Myself," a surrealist confessional written with his pal Trent Dabbs. Perhaps he and the band could explore these, see if anything caught their ears and imaginations? A lifelong recording nerd who was then finishing his own second home studio, Anderson wanted to see Cobb's new setup and console, regardless, to geek out on gear together. There were no expectations, no labels, no sense that a record had to be made.
Worthy blooms from that lack of pressure, from the freedom it afforded. After recording with Cobb, Anderson took the results back home to Nashville and dove in alone. He recorded his own vocals and used some of the digital know-how he'd harnessed on his prior LP to augment his analogue loves. He deliberately left space for accidents and magic, often taking days-long breaks from tracks so as not to overwork them. He kept things casual. When Foy Vance and Bonnie Bishop stopped by to spend the night during a road trip, he asked if they might like to sing on "Never Meant to Hurt You." Their mighty vocals reinforce its powerful embrace, giving it an unexpected gospel conviction. He could do what he wanted.
These 10 tracks radiate that new conviction, and they simply feel good to hear, even as Anderson grapples with darkness and near-defeat. Rising from a wintry drone, "Before It Gets Better" is a stirring testimonial about anxiety and aspiration, about persevering even when the roller-coaster of existence only seems to ever drop. Hemby's vocals galvanize its heroic hook. With its country-gothic production and slow sway, "Fool Myself" is a study of the games we play to exist in chronic delusion, to put on a mask to convince everyone else we're doing just fine.
So much of Worthy, though, feels like a love letter, borne of gratitude and acceptance. Anderson has rarely sounded so grounded and candid as he does during opener "I'd Do Anything," a song so sweet it recalls the most tender works of Nick Drake and Sam Cooke alike. By the time it reaches its chorus, full with horns and background swells, it feels like a fight song for love, for holding onto the sanctity of it. "Say I Love You" stares into an encroaching apocalypse and is content just to have found real happiness at least once. Anderson's semi-whispered croon rises through a surrounding Wall of Sound, a lighthouse amid a storm. Over the twinkle of a Wurlitzer, he delivers closer "Right Where You're Meant to Be" as a secular psalm, his vow to stick around when the chaos and concern of life become overwhelming and ostracizing. It is the promise of Worthy—a record inspired by a pure love of song and sound, despite a fatigue with the entertainment trappings of music—delivered.
Rather late into Worthy, at the start of the swooning "Chasing You," Anderson contemplates life's constant flux: "They found a new star and named it 'Tomorrow,'" he sings gently over astral piano chords, pausing between lines like he's waiting for clarity to emerge. "Let them all fall, let them all crumble/Long as I have you in my arms." The lyric nods to Last Thursdayism—the notion that the universe might have been created just last week, with all our memories and history constructed in that moment. For Anderson, it becomes both an act of defiance and devotion. In a world where even our past might be an illusion, he's found something real to hold onto.
Indeed, Anderson made Worthy on his own terms, with its Muscle Shoals radiance, soulful horns, and interior lyrics a portrait of the artist he has become. But it is also a portrait of the person he has become, capable of seeing his past as a gateway to a present of love and happiness, of someone worthy of those things. Worthy is a reintroduction to Anderson East, more confident and commanding than ever now that he knows there is nothing to prove.
