It would make sense for Southern rockers Blackberry Smoke to tailor its performances to the situation — playing for its own diehard fans or opening up for the likes of Zac Brown Band or ZZ Top. But lead singer and guitarist Charlie Starr has been there, done that, and says it doesn’t work.
“I quit trying years ago to second guess an audience and what they might like,” Starr tells The Post. “Because every time I think I’m right, it turns out I’m wrong.”
The Atlanta quintet has been doing a lot right, however, for nearly 20 years, helping blur the line between rock and country and debuting its latest full-length album, last year’s “Find A Light,” at No. 3 on Billboard’s Top Country Albums Chart and No. 2 on the Americana/Folk Albums chart. And the acoustic EP, “The Southern Ground Sessions,” finds the band expanding its sound even further.
The EP wasn’t planned; the group went into Zac Brown’s Southern Ground studio to record some videos for “Find A Light” with no plans to release any tracks.
“We set up in a circle, like we were playing in our living room,” says Starr in advance of Blackberry Smoke’s “Brothers and Sisters Big Apple Breakdown” this weekend at Brooklyn Bowl. “The audio was really an afterthought. We didn’t have room mics up. When we listened back we said, ‘It sounds better than it looks. Maybe some people would want to own this.’ So it made sense for it to be an acoustic EP.”
The six-song release includes bare-bones versions of “Find A Light” songs as well as a version of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers’ “You Got Lucky,” featuring Amanda Shires on fiddle and harmony vocals.
“It’s just a fantastic song,” Starr says of selecting the song by the late legend. “We had played it live a couple of times, and I kind of started playing it on the acoustic guitar a few months before. I don’t know, it was just one of those things. [The original version] has ’80s production and synths, but if you strip that way it’s still a fantastic song. It translates well no matter how you play it.”
Blackberry Smoke’s two-night run at Brooklyn Bowl on Friday and Saturday will mark the second year of the event.
“We have a lot of fans in the area, and we’ve been coming up there for a long time,” says Starr. “New York is always special. It’s like the center of the universe. The last couple years we thought, ‘Well, let’s play more than one show,’ multiple nights, as it were, and try to come with something that’s special to do that weekend. Funny as it may sounds we’re going to have a bowling tournament.”
Starr said the next album the band will release will be a live set from the Tabernacle in Atlanta — and asked his favorite live albums, he quickly rattled off the Grateful Dead’s “Europe ’72,” Little Feat’s “Waiting for Columbus” and “of course, the Allman Brothers’ ‘Fillmore East.'” They also plan to hit the studio before the end of the year to work on new songs.
The band played more than 20 shows with Tedeschi Trucks Band this summer, one of many high-profile bands Blackberry Smoke has toured with over the years.
“They treated us well,” Starr says of the crowds at such shows. “I think those bands, they are very different, but at the end of the day it’s about songs and it’s about guitar. You think about it, those are guitar bands and we are a guitar band, and I think if people like guitar, they like what we do.”
Next week Blackberry Smoke will support Kid Rock at two shows in his home state of Michigan.
“People either love him or hate him,” Starr says. “That guy, he is a stadium show — it’s huge. He can’t be pigeonholed either, he’s a bit of a chameleon. He’s a very nice due. He polarizes people, but I don’t really care.”
