Over the past 20 years, Blackberry Smoke has earned a reputation as a hard-driving, hard-working Southern rock band. Their new album, the Dave Cobb-produced Be Right Here, confirms the band’s place in the rock pantheon with its combination of propulsive […]
In 2020, Blackberry Smoke released an EP recorded at the storied Capricorn Studios, including covers of well-worn Southern rock classics from the likes of The Allman Brothers Band, The Marshall Tucker Band, and Wet Willie. (A delightful bonus was two […]
Sandwiched between the straight-ahead, take-no-prisoners rockers “Lord Strike Me Dead” and “Nobody Gives a Damn” on Blackberry Smoke’s new album Find a Light, “Let Me Down Easy” appears as a palate cleanser, a soft, folksy ballad about love lost. The […]
They carried peace flags with doves skimming pale blue skies and huge American flags. There was a sea of tie-dye reaching across a sunny horizon and the smoky dust of lit reefers spreading an aroma I’d not smelled so prevalently […]
Part Four (of four parts) Lockn’ Festival: LOCKN’ Festival celebrates its fifth year in 2017. Located in Central Virginia, in the Blue Ridge Mountains, the festival site is halfway between Charlottesville and Lynchburg. According to their website, “We’re a group of dedicated […]
PART TWO (of four parts) The Lockn’ 2017 Talent Magazine, Inclusive, A survey of American hot music, Lockn’-Style: Delivering the Goods to the Soul: The bands and performers of Lockn’, my snapshots, interiors of the soul, mapping by angels, a […]
PART ONE (of four parts) Lockn’ Festival: LOCKN’ Festival celebrates its fifth year in 2017. Located in Central Virginia, in the Blue Ridge Mountains, the festival site is halfway between Charlottesville and Lynchburg. According to their website, “We’re a group of dedicated […]
Refortification and regeneration are the results when new music possesses the power to excite and inspire. If the unearthed source of artistic enlivenment comes from a familiar face and voice, it manages to give assurance and affirmation – somehow it […]
Robert Randolph and Charlie Starr at Bluesfest Byron Bay, NSW Australia. Blackberry Smoke’s Starr dropped in to sing with Randolph’s band, The Word, on day two of the festival.
December 12 was an unseasonably warm day for Warren Haynes’ 27th Annual Christmas Jam, held each year in the Smoky Mountains enclave of Asheville, North Carolina. It was so warm, in fact, that not only were some folks in T-shirts, but […]
