By Dean Poling
VDT View — LITTLE PIECE OF DIXIE: Blackberry Smoke
Blackberry Smoke is a band that’s bringing back the roots of Southern rock. Charlie Starr, vocals, guitar, pedal steel, and banjo, Richard Turner, bass, vocals, Paul Jackson, guitar, vocals, and Brit Turner, drums, present a series of tight, rowdy rockers, smartly written, composed in a rousing manner. One of the more enjoyable things about Blackberry Smoke is feeling like you’ve discovered an old ’70s band rather than a new 21st century group. There’s a feeling of uncovering some lost Skynyrd-type gems in Blackberry Smoke’s CD, songs that extol the virtues of redneck nights and workman’s days in the land of the red, white and blue. Call it what you will, Southern rock, country rock, whatever, it’s worth going up in Blackberry Smoke.
SUPERSONIC: Jared Gold
Organist Jared Gold opens this CD with a bippy-boppy instrumental of John Sebastian’s “Welcome Back,” best known as the theme song for the ’70s TV show “Welcome Back, Kotter.” He slows down, with a stutter step arrangement of The Beatles’ “In My Life”; Gold’s life has apparently been a little more funky than John Lennon’s. Gold also presents about a handful of original songs on “Supersonic,” a new album with something of a ’70s rhythmic sensibility. With effective help from Ed Cherry on guitar and McClenty Hunter on drums, Gold gets funky with his keyboards.
