Twenty-five years is a long time for a band to stay together, and Charlie Starr believes there’s a main reason Blackberry Smoke is on a silver anniversary tour in 2026.
“The route we’ve taken has been more to please ourselves than to please someone who might be able to push us along,” said the lead singer and lyricist. Blackberry Smoke will be at the Columbia County Performing Arts Center on Nov. 20. For ticket info, go here.
Once called too rock for country and too country for rock, Blackberry Smoke has created a signature sound that members have stayed true to. They won’t break out into a new genre or try to sound like the latest hot group because that’s not who they are, but if they like a sound it could slip into their work.
“First and foremost, we have to like what we’re doing. At any point if we said, ‘let’s record something that sounds like this person,’ our fans would sniff it out and say ‘ this is BS,’” he said.
But that doesn’t mean other artists haven’t influenced the band’s sound.
Starr loves playing Augusta because there’s “nowhere more funky than Augusta, Georgia.”
Blackberry Smoke has a great fan base here, plus it’s the home of James Brown, whose music particularly touched the song “Believe You Me” from the “Like an Arrow” record, he said.
At the time they recorded “Believe You Me”, it pushed their envelope of music Starr had originally written it for Mavis Staples who ended up not using it. They weren’t sure fans would like it
“Our late drummer Brit Turner was like ‘we should record that,’ and I said ‘I think we should too. Do you think our fans will like it,? He said, I don’t really care; I like it.’ And so we did, and they did like it,” he said.
Turner died in 2024 after a battle with brain cancer.
While their sound hasn’t changed a lot, their delivery of earlier songs has.
“We might play with a little more groove and go further back in the pocket. When you’re young, you’re running hard and heavy,” he said.
Blackberry Smoke will head into the studio at some point in 2027 to record some new music, but don’t expect to hear any of it on Nov. 20.
The silver anniversary tour will feature the old, the new and everything in between.
Charmain Z. Brackett, the publisher of Augusta Good News and Inspiring: Women of Augusta, has covered Augusta’s news for more than 35 years. She’s won multiple Georgia Press Association awards, is the recipient of the 2018 Greater Augusta Arts Council’s media award and was named best local writer by readers of Augusta Magazine in 2024 and 2025. Reach her at charmain@augustagoodnews.com. Sign up for the newsletter here
