Atlanta-based Blackberry Smoke has been making quite a bit of noise all across the South since forming in 2000. Now with their album Little Piece of Dixie drafting new fans as fast as bars sell draft beer during a heat wave, the band is blurring the Mason-Dixon Line – and international time lines - as easily as its music blurs the lines between country, southern rock, gospel, bluegrass, and the blues. Simply put, these boys boogie with the best of them, and don’t quit till closing time.
Gettin’ To The Bottom Of This: If you’re not saying to yourself “Ah, so that’s what the Georgia Satellites have been doing for the past 25 years” less than thirty seconds into the opening track “Good One Comin’ On” (voted No. 1 on CMT’s “Pure Country 12-Pack” two weeks in a row), well then you’re just not paying too close attention. The guaranteed party starter instantly kicks Little Piece of Dixie into fifth gear, and jumpstarts the band’s multi-genre musical journey. “None of us have ever said, ‘Let’s be a southern rock band or a bluegrass band or a country band,” explains Charlie Starr, the group’s Alabama-bred frontman. “We all love the Allman Brothers and Lynyrd Skynyrd and the Stones and the Faces and Hank Williams and Bill Monroe.”
It should be noted that despite Blackberry Smoke’s deep-seated southern roots, the group first caught fire closer to the south of Canada than anywhere near Dixieland. “We got big in Wisconsin and Michigan and worked our way back to Georgia,” drummer Brit Turner points out. But the band’s initial northern exposure aside, Starr insists the south and its music are always at the heart of Blackberry Smoke’s songs. “There are moments in our show that are straight out of a Jimmy Martin or Flatt & Scruggs set list. Bluegrass is a beautiful form of American music.”
American music is the perfect description for classic slices of Americana like the stubborn man anthem “Like I Am;” the I can’t be bothered with world problems until I finish my beer declaration “Bottom of This;” the Blackfoot-meets-Black Oak Arkansas driven “Up In Smoke;” the playful these are the rules, take ‘em or leave ‘em “I’d Be Lyin’” (“I’ll let you take your time/I’ll never rush/swear I’ll never drink too much/never think about another woman’s touch/ but baby I’d be lyin’”); the ZZ Top-meets AC/DC perfect pole dance pick “Shake Your Magnolia;” and the album’s hidden treasure, the bonus track “Yesterday’s Wine” featuring guest vocals by country legend George Jones and multi-Grammy nominee Jamey Johnson.
Music – no matter what genre or geographical location it’s derived from – doesn’t get much better or more genuine than the dozen tunes found on Little Piece of Dixie. “It’s not about what kind of music it is, as long as it’s good and it’s honest,” says Starr. And to see Blackberry Smoke live is to experience five guys playing like their lives depended on it – whether it’s in front of thousands, or a handful of regulars at a bar. “Performing is never a waste of time, even if there’s 20 people and the bartender there,” Starr confirms. Blackberry Smoke is one of those rare bands whose music defies tidy definitions; unless your definition of music is “good.”
Good One While It Lasted: Share the pleasure of a night out, and the pain of the morning after in the video for “Good One Comin’ On”:
As A Matter of Fact…
* The members of Blackberry Smoke are Charlie Starr (vocals, guitar), Paul Jackson (guitar), Brandon Still (keyboards), and brothers Brit and Richard Turner (drums and bass, respectively).
* Dann Huff (Keith Urban, Rascal Flatts, Reba McEntire, Faith Hill, Martina McBride) and Justin Niebank (Keith Urban, Rascal Flatts, Brad Paisley, George Strait, Vince Gill, Marty Stuart) co-produced Little Piece of Dixie.
* In a recent Q&A, Charlie Starr was asked what the single best piece of advice he’d been given was: “’Don’t ever change’ by Lee Roy Parnell. ‘Get some good lookin’ boots’ by Billy F. Gibbons.”
* Blackberry Smoke’s never-ending U.S. tour resumes August 6 in Milwaukee and rolls on and on and on, with dates inked through April 30, 2011. The road trip includes a stop October 31 at the New Orleans Voodoo Experience festival, where they’ll share the stage with hundreds of acts, including Ozzy Osbourne.