Blackberry Smoke Lights Up New Orleans’ House of Blues With Gutsy Rock & Blues (SHOW REVIEW)

There are two things you need to know about Blackberry Smoke:

1 – When they play a show anywhere near you, go. Do not hesitate, do not worry about the ticket price or what time you will get home; just go.

2 – If their new song “Flesh & Bone” is an indication of what their upcoming album, Find A Light, releasing on April 6th, will sound like, then it will be one hell of a ride.

Blackberry Smoke has become the pinnacle of what good, southern-flavored rock & roll should sound like. Not sticking to their deep twangy Georgia roots, they have swum around in the creek of many colors, coming up for air with psychedelic, prog, country & western, Americana and plain ole ass-kicking rock & blues stuck on them like leeches. And boy does it smell good.

Coming into a chilly New Orleans two days after an unusual falling of snow in the city, the band played the first of two shows (January 19th) at the local House Of Blues before their departure on Monday as headliners on the Outlaw Country Cruise. After a few weeks of vacation time, they were ready to knock the rust off and get down and bluesy. Opening with “Testify” from their first album, 2003’s Bad Luck Ain’t No Crime, they tore through songs from every studio release up to the aforementioned new album, keeping the fans singing, dancing and raising the roof for a good two hours.

There were many highlights during those couple of hours, especially when they hit upon the funk nerve or revved up kiss-my-ass rabble-rousers like “Waiting For The Thunder,” “Payback’s A Bitch” and “Sleeping Dogs,” which lit up a fire in singer Charlie Starr after someone yelling for a certain song wouldn’t let up. “If you’re worried about one song out of all these fucking songs you came to the wrong place.”

The ballad “Free On The Wing,” written by Starr and organ player Brandon Still and featured the late Gregg Allman, was dedicated to their southern brother and Tom Petty. “I still can’t believe he’s singing on this,” guitar player Paul Jackson told me during a 2016 interview for Glide about Allman’s contribution. “I thanked him when he did it and he was like, ‘Oh thank you so much for letting me. I hope I didn’t make ya’ll look bad or anything.’ I was like, ‘Dude!’ (laughs) He was just awesome and such a nice guy and super cool.”

Longtime fan favorite “Up In Smoke” opened with that Richard Turner bass rumbling thunder and had the crowd singing to high heaven. The combination of Still’s organ and Starr’s acoustic guitar fingerpicking on “Ain’t Got The Blues” was a sparkling delight of front porch swing; and Brit Turner’s drum intro to Little Feat’s “Fat Man In The Bathtub” brought a fun sassy beat to a song forty-five years old.

Starr pulled out his arsenal of cool guitars, from his customized Tele (which once belonged to the Four Horsemen’s Haggis), a 1956 Les Paul Junior and a beautiful red f-hole Gibson that shimmied with a psychedelic vibration. He played slide on “Ain’t Much Left Of Me,” “Free On The Wing” and “Good One Coming On.” And with Jackson, they strummed acoustics for a trio of songs – “Sure Was Good,” “Ain’t Gonna Wait” and “Ain’t Got The Blues.”

Brother Hawk, a young band out of Georgia, opened for Blackberry Smoke and turned on the people to their music with a load of enthusiasm, guitar solos and a hard-hitting drum beat. They really soared when they mixed their southern roots with moody, atmospheric melodies as on “No Room To Rust” and “Nutshell.” Not ones to let moss grow under their shoes, they kicked off by giving everything they had on “Quittin Time” and never let up. A new song called “The Black Dog” from their upcoming album let us all know they have a bright future ahead.

A few more highlights of the night included Jackson’s acoustic intro to “One Horse Town;” the Starr mind-bending begging-for-more electrified solo that led into a band jam that caused a few chill bumps to pop up on “Sleeping Dogs;” Richard Turner standing to the side like the coolest bass player you’ve ever seen as he integrated the songs with that rumble that makes the songs hum, with the help of the master time keeper, brother Brit; and Still adding those passionate organ sounds you can taste like molasses.

So as they sing in “Ain’t Got The Blues,” “I can’t frown for grinning,” that’s how you’ll walk out of every Blackberry Smoke concert. Guaranteed.