Interviewing Charlie Starr about guitarists he’s played with is no straight-forward jam.
“Well letmetellya,” he says in his gentle southern accent. He’s perched at the back of the Blackberry Smoke tour bus, laptop out, reading glasses on, and bound for tonight’s show in Tennessee. “I’ve played with so many, it’s hard to just pick one.”
If you need an introduction — if you’ve been living on a different rock and roll planet for the past 15 years — Charle Starr is the frontman, guitarist and cheery raconteur of southern rock and rollers Blackberry Smoke.
He loves guitars. He loves guitarists. He loves jamming with them. And if you get him on the right day — hello reader, we got him on the right day — he loves talking about them.
When Guitar Player emails him, tentatively asking if he fancies an interview about the players he’s jammed with, he emails back immediately.
“I would love to do that! How’s your day looking today?“
And so it is that, just 10 minutes later, by the power of Zoom, we’re face to face. No prep. No research. No bullshit. Straight into it.
He unfurls a tick list of household names he’s shared stages with. Warren Haynes of the Allman Brothers Band and Gov’t Mule: “There are stories there,” he says, smiling. Billy Gibbons: “What a profound experience to play with him, to travel with him.”
Let’s start at the beginning, I say. Which guitarist sat in with you first?
“Yeah, you might not believe this, but that was Slash,” he reveals. “He played us in this tiny club in Austin, Texas back in 2007. We’d been together about six years but we weren’t well known. But he knew us.
It was packed that night. I think word had got out that Slash was in and he wanted to play. What was it like? Oh man, it was just so exciting.”
— Charlie Starr
“It was packed that night. I think word had got out that Slash was in and he wanted to play. What was it like? Oh man, it was just so exciting.
"You have to know what Slash meant to me as a kid. In ’87 when Appetite… came out I was in eighth grade and Slash’s impact on electric guitar playing was massive.
“I’m a kid of that period. I loved ’80s rock, especially Eddie Van Halen. I loved everything about Eddie Van Halen. He was top of the heap.
“But then I got a bit older and I lost a bit of interest in the rock stuff. I was looking for something else — something different. And then ‘Welcome to the Jungle’ came out and that opening riff — it reeled me right back in.
“And in the video here’s this guy with long curly hair and a top hat playing a Gibson Les Paul. And what a solo — a solo you could sing, you know? It was like another verse to the song. I felt like it spoke to me, personally.”
Fast-forward 20 years and the top-hatted guitar maestro was ready to trade licks with Starr on a tiny stage in Austin.
“Man, Slash walked into that room and I fan-boyed,” he says with a laugh. “I was so embarrassing. I got him to sign something for me — and I remember looking behind me and the whole band was queueing up to get him to sign shit. Like he needed that, you know? But he signed it all.
Man, Slash walked into that room and I fan-boyed. I was so embarrassing.”
— Charlie Starr
“We played three songs — ‘Honky Tonk Women,’ ‘Feel Like Makin’ Love’ and ‘Highway to Hell’ — and this tiny Texas club crammed full of people was jumping.”
A year later, Slash returned. “We were at the Viper Room in L.A., our first L.A. show. And we’re half way through our set and this big security guy came up to me and said, ‘Slash is here — can he sit in with you?’ We weren’t going to say no to that!”
Blackberry Smoke guitarist Paul Jackson had a Les Paul to spare.
“Slash came on and we’re like, ‘Well, what do you want to play?’ We had nothing worked out. And he said, “Let’s do these three songs we did before.’ So we did. And I’ve got to tell you, I was grinning from ear to ear. It was such an experience.
“I remember just looking at his hands — you know, those hands I saw as a kid on MTV growing up. You have to steady yourself. ‘I’m onstage with Slash,’ you know?”
That was 20 years ago — but it still happens, Starr says. You still have to steady yourself when you jam with guitar players that make you feel like a teenage fan.
Or even mandolin players
“A few weeks ago, we were playing North Carolina, and legendary mandolin player Sam Bush jammed with us,” Starr says. “Sam Bush is bluegrass royalty, man. He started the New Grass Revival. He came on with an electric Fender mandolin and that was a treat.”
It’s obvious Starr genuinely loves what he does.
“I do,” he says. “It’s always a thrill.
“Let me tell you about that one time before COVID,” he says, finding his stride.
He has this ’58 Gibson Explorer, it’s a half a million dollar guitar. So I was playing on that, and then Kirk Hammett comes in.”
— Charlie Starr
“I was at home, off the road, and a friend of mine, the curator of the Allman Brothers Museum in Macon, Georgia — the caretaker of Duane Allman’s ’57 goldtop Les Paul — he called me up and he said, ‘Do you want to go to Birmingham, Alabama to see Metallica? James wants to play Duane’s goldtop.’ Of course I wanted to go!
“So we drove down there. It was early in the afternoon, and we went to Metallica’s tuning room." The backstage area is where the band congregates before a show to warm up, rehearse or talk. "I’ve seen this room in pictures and online,” Starr says, “and we took this small amp, a little Fender Princeton. A Princeton, man. It’s not a Metallica amp.
“And James came in with his guitar tech, a lovely fellow called Chad Zaemisch, and we had a little introduction, and he was just so cool and gracious.
“And he played Duane’s goldtop and he handed it to me, I played it, and we were just like a couple of kids, geeking out. It’s such a special guitar, I swear there’s a ghost in it.
“It has a story: Duane traded it for a sunburst Les Paul in Florida in ’70, ’71, and the goldtop made its way around the South. It was stripped and battered, and it was found in a pawn shop and eventually restored by Tom Murphy,” the man behind Gibson’s highly accurate Custom Shop reissues.
“I just enjoyed watching James playing it. And, ah man, even with that old guitar through a little Fender tube amp, with his right hand — that right hand — ‘Master of Puppets’ still sounded like ‘Master of Puppets,’ you know?
“And then he said, ‘Do you want to check out one of my Explorers?’ He has this ’58 Gibson Explorer. It’s a half-a-million-dollar guitar. So I was playing on that, and then Kirk Hammett comes in.”
Metallica’s lead guitarist is an avowed guitar collector whose gems include a 1957 Korina Flying V prototype and the 1959 Les Paul Standard known as Greeny, once owned by Peter Green and Gary Moore.
I was shaking when he handed it to me. I put it in the middle position and played ‘Oh Well’ and it sounded like nothing else.”
— Charlie Starr
“Kirk was the sweetest guy. He knew the band and we were taking turns on Duane’s goldtop and he said, ‘Do you want me to go and fetch Greeny?’ and I hadn’t thought about that but, ‘Yeah, man, of course you should bring Greeny!’
“So his tech brings it in. Kirk handed it over and, let me tell you, I was shaking when he handed it to me. I put it in the middle position and played ‘Oh Well,’ and it sounded, well — it sounded like nothing else.
“He sat there with Greeny and I had Duane’s goldtop and we traded licks, just blues, really. And I was lost.
“Their tour manager had to take him away for a meet-and-greet, and we hung out for a bit, went to catering. They looked after us so well and we watched the show — their ‘in the round’ show — from the bottom of the stage. It was a day I won’t forget.”
