On their sophomore full-length CD,
Little Piece of Dixie, the five members of
Blackberry Smoke (singer/guitarist
Charlie Starr, guitarist/singer
Paul Jackson, bassist/singer
Richard Turner, keyboardist
Brandon Still, and drummer
Brit Turner) play Southern rock in the
Lynyrd Skynyrd tradition.
Starr has a strong, twangy voice, and he and
Jackson
keep the heavy riffs coming in country-rock songs extolling the virtues
of a Southern, blue-collar man's blowing off steam by drinking, driving
around, and maybe enjoying a little female companionship. Typical of
the material is "Bottom of This," in which a man gets home from work and
asks to be allowed to at least have one beer before he has to engage
domestic problems or talk politics. Although the band is much closer to
rock than outlaw country, the album has a clear Nashville leaning,
produced by
Dann Huff and
Justin Niebank, and featuring some formula Music City songwriting. At the end,
Blackberry Smoke
try for an anthem with "Freedom Song," another paean to hitting the
road in the pickup truck and putting a cowboy boot to the gas pedal in
search of escape from a workingman's troubles. But when
Starr
declares his desire to "sing along to my freedom song" on the radio as
the guitars play a familiar twin-lead part, it seems likely that the
song he really has in mind is
Skynyrd's "Free Bird," not something by his own band.
aCá
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