The song is among 10 new offerings from the Atlanta-based band, which also includes Brit Turner on drums, Paul Jackson on guitar, Richard Turner on bass and Brandon Still on keyboards. In addition to guests Jamey Johnson (on the country twanger “Lonesome for a Livin’”), Gov’t Mule/Allman Brothers Band maestro Warren Haynes (on the blistering “All Rise Again”) and background vocals from The Black Bettys, Blackberry Smoke recruited Dave Cobb, a fellow Georgian as well as Grammy-winning ace producer, to steer the record.
Cobb was adamant about not tinkering with the band’s signature Southern rock-blues jam sound, but, he said, “I just wanted to make the best record we could make.”
Starr and Cobb first talked about three years ago, but crisscrossing schedules presented too many obstacles to work together.
At the end of 2019, Cobb invited the band to his Nashville, Tenn., studio on March 20.
“We planned to go up to Canada for a tour and come back and go right back into the studio, which is the best time to record because everyone is ready,” Starr said. “But then we know what happened. And we all came home.”
Last May, Cobb invited Blackberry Smoke to head to Nashville and record at the historic RCA Studio A, which Cobb has commandeered since 2016.
With COVID-19 protocols instituted—though Starr jokes that sometimes while listening to playbacks, band members would forget their masks were hanging around their necks—Cobb and Blackberry Smoke knocked the songs out in 10 days.
