Starr Power – Blackberry Smoke front man Charlie Starr comes to Columbus for intimate acoustic show January 17th

“My dad was a bluegrass guitar player and loved traditional country, bluegrass, and gospel,” Charlie Starr says when asked what music he heard as a child. “My mom liked the Stones, the Beatles, and Bob Dylan. And my sister liked Rock 103.”

Speaking by phone two days before Christmas from his Atlanta-area home, Starr – a Chattahoochee Valley native, having bounced across the river a few times growing up between Chambers County, Alabama and Troup County, Georgia – has spent the last 22 years as conductor of the nightly Southern rock locomotive that is Blackberry Smoke. The prolific, hard-touring band has achieved the rarified duality of global appeal while staying true to their real-as-red-clay roots. And a lot of those roots’ lingering inspiration were beamed out of Columbus on mega-watt sound waves absorbed by a teenage Starr jamming along to Rock 103.

“I can probably put as much emphasis on rock-and-roll radio as anything else,” Starr explains. “Rock 103 was coming out of every car and truck when we were teenagers. It was the first place I ever heard Charlie Daniels, Lynyrd Skynyrd, and the Allman Brothers Band.”

Starr recalls he was 11 or 12 when he first started to understand music — not just hearing it, but really absorbing it. “I especially remember figuring out ‘Honky Tonk Women’ is the same as ‘Roll in My Sweet Baby’s Arms’ – just faster and louder. I started to see it all comes from a specific place.”
His dad taught him “the rudiments” of guitar, Starr says. But strumming classic tunes his dad enjoyed such as “Wreck of Old 97” and “Blue Moon over Kentucky”?

“My friends didn’t give a shit about that stuff,” he says with a laugh. “They wanted to play Led Zeppelin. I thought, ‘Man, I better get an electric guitar and learn to play some Led Zeppelin. Because I’m not very cool right now, playing [bluegrass founding father] Bill Monroe.”

Charlie Starr is cool now. Blackberry Smoke has sold out tours around the world, crafted acclaimed albums, and lovingly developed a rabid, loyal fanbase. And he’s definitely cooler than his last couple trips downriver to Columbus. He played in a cover band at (now-closed) Victoria’s bar on Milgen Road in the ‘90s. Before that, having just turned 18, he walked tall into a Victory Drive tattoo parlor and got his first tat.

What was the tattoo?

“A Rolling Stones tongue.”

A humble yet hard-charging rock star for sure, Starr returns to Columbus on a more mellow vibe than vintage Blackberry Smoke. Playing in a duo with the band’s touring guitarist Benji Shanks (long-time shining star of the Atlanta jam scene, formerly in Outformation) for an intimate, acoustic performance on January 17th that marks the debut of a new venue in Columbus, The Pearl.

“The Uptown Life group is reactivating a historic building on Broadway called The Pearl,” proprietor Buddy Nelms tells the LocaL. “It houses the Mix Market on the ground level, a second floor music and event venue and a third floor gallery space. It ties into the Loft music venue and recording studio.”
Acoustic or electric? Starr says he has no real preference. “It’s all music,” he says. “I do love the acoustic shows because it strips those songs back to how they were born.”

This space and format will give fans the chance to listen to a pristine set of covers sprinkled among top-notch Blackberry Smoke tunes. So look for Starr originals, such as “Old Delilah” – a modern retelling of the biblical Sampson and Delilah love saga, complete with witness stands and cell phones – and “One Horse Town,” written from the perspective of a small-town Chattahoochee Valley boy shackled to his roots. People all over the world have told him that the song is about their hometown, too, Starr says, “So I guess it could be a pretty universal idea.”

“I think it’s really healthy,” he explains of having a creative outlet as a solo artist. “Especially at this point. After 22 years, it’s not like anybody’s going anywhere. It’s healthy if people want to do things outside of what they feel they can do within the confines of Blackberry Smoke. Look, the world doesn’t want Blackberry Smoke to make a bluegrass record. But I would definitely like to make one myself.”

By Frank Etheridge