Guitarists Charlie Starr and Paul Jackson work like a southern-fried Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood: Their rhythms are just as important as the leads, and they’re all about telling a story.
Like the band, the album is a mix of just about every uniquely American musical genre wrapped into one. From the mountain-country calm of “Azalea” to “Watchu Know Good”’s smokey barroom groove, Blackberry Smoke is what happens when real musicians tell authentic stories through great songs.
Listening to lead vocalist/guitarist Charlie Starr and guitarist Paul Jackson name-check their influences, it’s apparent where they got their versatile yet classic sound. For Jackson, it was simple.
“My dad asked me, ‘Do you want to hear something really cool?’” he remembers. “He put on Chuck Berry, and that was that for me. I got turned on.”
“I grew up playing bluegrass and gospel and traditional country music with my dad,” Starr adds. “But my mom liked the Stones, the Beatles, and Bob Dylan. He says these influences and Jackson’s high-pitched vocal ability brought the two together over two decades ago.
“I remember hearing [Ratt’s] Out of the Cellar for the first time, which is something that me and Paul really bond on, and we were playing the same honky-tonks and little bars around West Georgia and East Alabama,” Starr continues. When he moved to Atlanta, he met brothers Brit and Richard Turner, who would become Blackberry Smoke’s drummer and bassist.“I had started writing some songs coming from bluegrass and southern rock music and was like, ‘Well, we need another guitar player, and we need somebody who can sing high.’ Harmony is very important, but the only bands that could sing around there were my band and Paul’s bands,” Starr chuckles. “I called Paul and was like, ‘I don’t know what you’re doing, but we’re putting this band together. Would you like to be in it?’”
“That was that, and here we are,” Jackson laughs, “23 years later.”
Since then, Blackberry Smoke—which also includes Brandon Still (keyboards), Preston Holcomb (percussion), and Benji Shanks (guitar)—has taken their music around the world, garnering fans and critical acclaim. Starr’s bluegrass-meets-southern rock sound has also grown to embrace the best elements of blues, country, soul, jazz, and R&B. These genres share a traditional heritage, one that comes from the Southern states Blackberry Smoke calls home.
“My dad asked me, ‘Do you want to hear something really cool?’ He put on Chuck Berry, and that was that for me.” —Paul Jackson
Blackberry Smoke’s music is definitely a kind of stylistic and cultural gumbo. But, according to Starr and Jackson, the recipe only comes together because of the players that make up the band. “It’s the way that people play their instruments and the way that they express themselves, all seven of us,” says Starr. “You get the way that the instruments are being played and then the way that it’s all glued together. That’s where two decades of playing together comes into it. It’s like a football team where everybody’s moving and working toward the same goal.”
Be Right Here, Blackberry Smoke’s eighth album, was recorded live off the floor by Dave Cobb, who wanted to capture the band as they learned the songs.
Be Right Here embodies that human element better than, perhaps, any of the band’s previous work. Together with producer Dave Cobb, they took their already honest approach to writing and recording and stripped it back even further, tracking right off the live room floor. While there may have been some initial hesitations, Starr said the process soon proved its value.
“I had my doubts at first, but he had already done it. I think just previously, he had made Slash and Myles Kennedy’s newest record that way. He just said, ‘I want everything in the room and everybody in the room.’ There’s some bleed, but it was really about the feel, and he was right.”
“That’s where two decades of playing together comes into it. It’s like a football team where everybody’s moving and working toward the same goal.” —Charlie Starr
That “feel” dominates the record. From the greasy riffs of lead track “Dig a Hole,” the guitars are loose, raw, and packed with attitude, just like the classic records of rock’s heyday. That’s no accident.
“Dave’s coming from that ’60s recording mentality,” explained Starr. “He doesn’t allow a click or auto-tune. It’s all analog. That’s his MO. And if you think about it, we all spend every waking hour in the studio chasing records that were made in the ’60s and ’70s, because it sounds so good. Especially as guitar players and instrumentalists, it’s like, man, that’s the pure drop right there! It’s the way that Neve consoles and Neumann microphones make music sound.”
Charlie Starr's Gear
Starr and Jackson usually drop off a truckload of high-wattage amps at the studio when they record, but Cobb encouraged them to keep things small and simple.
Photo by Steve Kalinsky
Guitars
- 1964 Gibson ES-335
- 1957 Gibson Les Paul Junior
- 1963 Fender Esquire
- 1958 Fender Telecaster
- 1965 Gibson ES-330
Shared Acoustics:
- 1950 Martin D-28
- 1953 Martin D-18
- 1946 Martin 000-18
- 1955 Gibson J-45
Amps
- 1964 Fender Champ
- 1950s–’60s Supro Super
- 1950s Fender Custom Champ (modified to Dumble spec)
Effects
- 1990s Menatone Red Snapper
- Vintage MXR Phase 45
- Vintage Maestro EP-3 Echoplex
Strings & Picks
- D’Addario (.010–.046)
- Blue Chip picks (acoustic)
- InTune picks (electric)
Tracking live through classic studio gear wasn’t the only way Cobb and the band changed things for the new record. Much to Starr’s surprise, Cobb also wanted the band to come in fresh—as in, not-having-heard-the-songs-before fresh. Starr remembered Cobb saying, “Hey, man, don’t send demos of the songs to the guys this time. Don’t even play the songs yet. I want you to sit in the studio, get the guitar, and say, ‘The song goes like this.’ I want to capture the first thing that people play when we start to roll tape. That’s usually the best.
”As a result, often what you hear on Be Right Here is the sound of seven talented musicians playing off each other and reacting to the music in real-time like only a band of musical brothers can. Not even the band’s gear escaped Cobb’s less-is-more approach. Jackson and Starr, both diehard vintage-gear collectors, are well known for using Marshall and Marshall-style heads and cabinets. But Starr said the amps hardly got any use in the studio.
“If you think about it, we all spend every waking hour in the studio chasing records that were made in the ’60s and ’70s, because it sounds so good.” —Charlie Starr
“Over the last 20 years, you know, we’ll go to make a record, and then it’s like, ‘Oh, I can’t wait to take this Plexi to the studio,’ or, ‘I got this new Bandmaster I can’t wait to take in,’” he explains. “We’ll literally bring a truck full of shit. And Dave’s got a whole studio full of shit. But Dave called and said, ‘Hey, call Benji and Paul and tell them not to bring any amp bigger than a 10" speaker. Let’s make a funky little amp record.’”
“And, believe it or not, I used just two amps on this record,” adds Jackson. “They just sounded great. I was on the verge of just using one, my Gibson Lancer. It’s a ’59. I used it for most of the record. Then, I think, on the last two songs, it took a dump on me, and I used Dave’s ’58 or ’59 Rickenbacker amp for the last songs.”
Starr kept his recording rig just as streamlined. On almost every song, you can hear him play through a 1964 black-panel Fender Champ, with a few cameos from a Supro Super. But the holy grail turned out to be a 1950s Fender Custom Champ, which had some particularly special magic.
Paul Jackson's Gear
Guitarist Paul Jackson says the best solos ought to sound like you’re singing.
Photo by Jordi Vidal
Guitars
- 1960 Gibson ES-335 (owned by Dave Cobb)
- Gibson 40th Anniversary Les Paul
- 1979 Gibson Les Paul Standard
Amps
- 1958–’59 Rickenbacker combo
- 1959 Gibson GA-6 Lancer
Effects
- Neo Instruments Ventilator
Strings & Picks
- D’Addario (.010–.046)
- InTune picks
“Dave actually had an email from Dumble that he showed me. He’s like, ‘This is the advice that I got from Dumble on what to do with your Champs and Princetons.’ I can’t tell anyone what it said. It’s a Dave Cobb, Howard Dumble secret. But it was a speaker trick. Our tech was out there with his soldering iron, like a crazy professor, modding these vintage amps on the live room floor.” The unmistakable tweed grit on “Don’t Mind If I Do” is just one of the stellar guitar tones that drive Be Right Here.
Both Jackson and Starr managed to work a few of their favorite pedals into the sessions as well. “I actually fell in love with this pedal that Dave had called a Red Snapper by Menatone,” Starr says. “It was a mid-’90s pedal. I was like, ‘Dude, that is great! I got to have one of those.’ It’s Klon-ish but a little brighter, actually. And you were using a [Neo Instruments] Ventilator for the solo for ‘A Little Bit Crazy.’ Isn’t that what it is?” Jackson confirms. “The chase never ends, does it?” Starr continues. “You can’t help it.”
“The way I look at it is, we’re singers anyway. When we play guitar, the vocal comes through the guitar.” —Paul Jackson
There are delicious tones to be found on every song, and getting those tones was a journey in itself. Because of their tracking process, each sound had to fit the whole and perfectly translate the songs’ meanings. Cobb and the band understood this, and as Starr explains, they took their time dialing things in one chord stab at a time. “For each song, [Dave would] plug in a little amp, and you’d hit a G chord. He’s like, ‘No.’ Then it’s like, ‘Okay, how about this little Super amp?’ He’d be like, ‘No.’ Then you land on the one, and he goes, ‘That’s it!’ He would do that with every person in the band.”
“That chase is the fun part to me,” adds Jackson. “When you’re in a room with a bunch of guys and trying to find that sound, it’s exciting. I could sit there all day and just listen and watch.”
Photo by Andy Sapp
Southern rock revivalists Blackberry Smoke have been going strong for 23 years, and guitarists Charlie Starr and Paul Jackson say they have no intentions of slowing down.
While both Starr and Jackson put many of their vintage instruments to work during those sessions, Jackson spent a lot of time working one of Cobb’s prized 6-strings. “I mainly used Dave’s blonde ES-335,” he says. “He said it was a late ’50s or early ’60s. I fell in love with that. I used it for most of the tracking.” Jackson also turned to his black 40th Anniversary Les Paul and a ’79 Standard Les Paul, but the 335 won the day.
Starr relied on his personal arsenal of old-school Gibsons and Fenders, including a 1964 ES-335, a ’65 ES-330, a ’57 Les Paul Junior, a ’63 Esquire, and a ’58 Telecaster. Of course, great songwriters are never far from their favorite acoustic guitars, and Blackberry Smoke gets the most out of a prized collection that includes a 1950 Martin D-28, a ’53 D-18, a ’46 000-18, and a 1955 Gibson J-45.
“I called Paul and was like, ‘I don’t know what you’re doing, but we’re putting this band together. Would you like to be in it?’” —Charlie Starr
The band’s gear and tones are likely enough to make most Premier Guitar readers misty-eyed. To Starr and Jackson, though, they are a means to an end. To them, it’s still all about the songs and the emotions. This goes double for their approach to solos, of which there are plenty on the new LP.
“When I’m putting together a solo for a song, the best place to start is the melody of the vocal,” explains Starr. “Then just expand on that. I mean, when you’ve played with traditional bluegrass guys, if you came in there playing a solo on ‘Faded Love,’ and you aren’t playing the melody, they’d be like, ‘What the hell are you playing? You’re not playing the song!’”
“The way I look at it,” Jackson adds, “is we’re singers anyway. When we play guitar, the vocal comes through the guitar. That’s what gets me on solos. I could rip at home and do that by myself. I’m not worried about that. It’s about the songwriting, and when I hear Charlie throw something out there, it just works.”
The duo agrees that rhythm is 90 percent of a guitarist’s gig, which is why they complement each other’s rhythm styles perfectly. Even on straight-up rockers like “Hammer and the Nail,” the two fill the space with a combination of powerful chords, punctuating slide flourishes, and Stones-like juxtaposition. Starr admits that it’s something they’ve worked on since day one.
“Paul and I, in the early days of the band, had talked about not doing the same exact thing and how it’s so interesting for a two-guitar band. Think about it: When we were young, and we listened to Highway to Hell, you would turn the balance left and right [on the stereo] and get Malcolm on the left and Angus on the right. It was always a little different. Even Appetite for Destruction. That’s an even better example of how Izzy and Slash played totally different parts. That’s what Keith Richards and Ron Wood talk about, taking these different parts and making something greater.”
Blackberry Smoke’s 23-year career shows how far you can go with a handful of chords and the honest truth. Through rock’s attitude, blues’ swagger, bluegrass’ melodicism, and soul’s sensuality, they keep creating records that resonate with fans worldwide.
Yet in the modern music age of algorithms and AI, you have to ask: What keeps them going? Why crank old guitars into tube amps after all these years? The romantic answer is, “the song.” The more practical answer—and every bit as true—is that they simply have to.
“It’s an addiction,” says Starr. “Look at the Stones. They’re 80. They can’t stop.”
“Exactly,” agrees Jackson. “It’s still exciting.”
YouTube It
Blackberry Smoke takes a soulful ramble through their hit, “One Horse Town,” live in Atlanta back in 2019.
Millennial folk philosopher Billy Strings joins this episode of Wong Notes. The Grammy-winning acoustic picker is an open book—nothing is off limits with Billy, from recounting his days selling magic mushrooms in exchange for passing grades in math class, to an emotional drunk-driving revelation that might have saved his life.
Now, Strings can recount war stories of playing with his heroes in the bluegrass scene, and learning important lessons from the greats about respect while onstage. Strings is at the intersection of the old and the new, often stuck between the traditionalists and the new era of American folk music. He says he doesn’t belong to one or the other; his music is more of “a goulash of all the things put together.” Speaking of which, Billy and Cory connect for a brilliant mashup of Cory’s funk stylings and Billy’s bluegrass flatpicking, proving that music really can be a universal language.
Wong Notes is presented by DistroKid.
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Rob Ickes and Trey Hensley first connected in Nashville in 2013, after the two had individually established themselves as formidable players in the bluegrass scene.
“Three crappy gigs in Ohio had a lot to do with it,” Ickes recalls with a laugh as he recounts the story behind the title cut to Living In A Song, the duo’s fourth album together, and their second with Maher producing. “I remember I was sick that weekend, just wore out, and I was sleeping in the car between soundcheck and showtime. It was just a weird experience, and then a couple of weeks later, Trey started singing this song. In the end, I think it’s about persevering. It can suck out here, but this is what you do when you love something, you know?”
Rob Ickes & Trey Hensley - Thanks
To be sure, the journey to where they are now has covered a lot of miles. After moving cross-country from the Bay Area to Nashville in 1992, Ickes emerged as a fleet-fingered demon on the dobro, first as a founding member of bluegrass band Blue Highway, whose early albums were released on Dick Freeland’s Rebel Records, the original home of bluegrass heroes the Seldom Scene. (That band’s Mike Auldridge, a key influence and eventual collaborator with Ickes, is a dobro legend in his own right.) A long-time player of Tim Scheerhorn’s resonator guitars—with his Wechter Scheerhorn 6500 series signature model introduced in 2006—Ickes is renowned for his singularly wide range of expression on lap steel. Folding down-home blues, country, and jazz into his repertoire, he has shared the spotlight with such heavyweights as Merle Haggard, Earl Scruggs, Vince Gill, and Alison Krauss, to name just a few.
Rig Rundown: Rob Ickes & Trey Hensley
Full Rig Details: https://bit.ly/Ickes-HensleyRRSubscribe to PG's Channel: https://bit.ly/SubscribePGYouTubeClick here to check out their new album Living in ...In 2013, he connected with Hensley in Nashville. Then just 22, Hensley had already carved out his own path as a child prodigy, having made his Grand Ole Opry debut with Earl Scruggs himself at the tender young age of 11. Brandishing a stalwart ’54 Martin D-28, he’s a sterling and technically gifted flatpicker whose own contemporaries claim him as an influence, but one of his most endearing traits is undoubtedly his humility. Just ask him to tell the story of how he came to play at the Carter Family Fold for Johnny and June Carter Cash; he still sounds as bowled over by the experience as he must have been when he was a kid.
For Living In A Song, the picking duo worked with producer Brent Maher, with whom they collaborated on 2019’s World Full of Blues.
“Actually, I think we borrowed one of Johnny’s tube mics to record vocals this time,” Hensley says with a smile. In the same train of thought, he name-drops Luther Perkins, whose licks on Cash’s “Folsom Prison Blues” were an early inspiration, as well as Roy Nichols—the understated but precision flatpicker on Cash’s classic “Tennessee Flat Top Box,” and later known for his long and legendary stint with Merle Haggard’s band. When it comes to knowing his craft, Hensley is still just as much a student as he is an innovator of country, bluegrass, rockabilly, and good old-fashioned rock ’n’ roll.
All that experience came to bear on Living In A Song, which has its roots in the songwriting sessions that Ickes and Hensley took up in earnest with Brent Maher at his Blueroom Studios in Berry Hill, just outside of Nashville. “Mostly I come at it as a guitar player,” Hensley says with his usual modesty. “I’m a guitar player first, a singer way out in second somewhere, and a songwriter in distant third, you know? So from my perspective, here’s a guitar thing from me or Rob, and then all these cool melodies that Brent would just come up with, seemingly out of thin air. I mean, we wrote 30 songs or more, so that was a totally different experience, and I think that’s the overlying theme of this record. It’s just us being songwriters. That’s how this one is so much different.”
“I mean, we wrote 30 songs or more, so that was a totally different experience, and I think that’s the overlying theme of this record. It’s just us being songwriters.”—Trey Hensley
Maher has worked with all the major players—his biggest songwriting success was “Why Not Me” by the Judds, but he’s engineered and produced sessions with Willie Nelson, Kenny Rogers, Nickel Creek, Shelby Lynne and plenty more. “We had written with Brent a little bit before,” Ickes notes, referring to 2019’s World Full of Blues (which also features guest shots from Vince Gill and Taj Mahal), “but with this record, we definitely made a conscious decision to write most of it. Then when the pandemic came along, it was like okay, we’ve got a little bit more time now. And I wouldn’t say he taught us, but just by working with somebody like that, you learn a lot. I know Trey and I both gained a lot of confidence from the experience, because you just start with nothing, and then after a couple of hours, you’ve got something.”
Rob Ickes' Gear
Ickes has two resonator signature models: one from the Wechter Scheerhorn 6500 series and the other by Byrl Guitars.
Photo by Jim Summaria
Guitars
- Byrl Guitars Rob Ickes Signature Series resonator
- Byrl Guitars flamed-maple shallow-body resonator
- ’40s Oahu Tonemaster lap steel
- 1932 Rickenbacker Frying Pan
- Fishman Nashville Series Resonator Guitar pickups
Amps
- ’65 Fender Deluxe black-panel
Effects
- Fishman Spectrum DI box
Strings & Picks
- D’Addario Medium Bronze (.016–.056)
- BlueChip Reso thumb pick
- Cobalt BP gold-plated finger picks
The album jumps off with the title cut—a slow-building ode that quickly grows inspirational, channeling tastes of Kris Kristofferson and Beggars Banquet-era Rolling Stones. Playing Maher’s full-sounding ’80s Gibson J-200 acoustic (his main guitar throughout most of the album), Hensley captures the feeling of solitude from the first line: “Well, I’ve been on this highway for about eight hours now….” with Ickes following on one of several resonators made by Indiana-based luthier Byrl Murdock (who designed and debuted a signature model with Ickes just last year). When the rest of the band kicks in—Pete Wasner on keyboards, Mike Bub on bass, and John Alvey on drums—and Ickes proceeds to rip a lap-steel solo on a vintage Oahu Tonemaster running through Maher’s ’65 black-panel Fender Deluxe, it all becomes clear what they’re going for: a rich, tone-heavy experience, tracked mostly live in the studio with few overdubs, and harking back to a time when capturing the pure essence of the song was the only goal.
“It wasn’t like they got the tape measure out to see how close the microphone was to my guitar, you know?” Hensley jokes. “But there’s a lot of attention to detail. We even toyed around with the idea of cutting analog, but tape just breaks the budget before you even get started. In the end, it didn’t matter. With Brent and his engineer Charles [Yingling], it just seems like they get great sounds in that room without really thinking about it too much.”
And when they plugged in, the same principles applied. You can hear a taste of the Allman Brothers in the barrelhouse anthem “Moonshine Run,” where Hensley grabs a ’52 Telecaster copy, built by Bristol, Tennessee’s own Chuck Tipton. “I talked Chuck into building me a Tele because he had just taken all these blueprints of a real ’52, or maybe even a ’51 Broadcaster—one of these really killer guitars,” he explains. “It’s been my main electric up until recently, and the Fender Deluxe just crushes the damn thing. I hooked up my wah on the third verse for five seconds just to please myself [laughs]! That amp makes anything sound good.”
“We even toyed around with the idea of cutting analog, but tape just breaks the budget before you even get started. In the end, it didn’t matter.”—Trey Hensley
And once again, it’s this commitment to capturing a sound, always in service to the song, that makes Living In A Song such a compelling document. Whether it’s in the poignant Glenn Campbell-isms of “Backstreets Off Broadway” (with Ickes blending seamlessly on background vocals), or the rapidfire energy that propels their version of the Doc Watson classic “Way Downtown” (a Martin D-28 vehicle for Hensley, with bluegrass ace Stuart Duncan burning up his fiddle in tribute), or the spontaneous mischief that sparked “Louisiana Woman” (a jam inspired from-the-hip by Buck Owens’ famed “Diggy Liggy Lo,” and rounded out by Tim Lauer on accordion), Ickes and Hensley are so sympatico with where they’re headed, at this point it just seems to come naturally.
“Most of our favorite records are very live-in-the-studio,” Ickes observes, “so that’s typically the way we operate. And it goes really quick. I don’t think we’ve taken more than two days to make a record yet.”
Trey Hensley's Gear
Hensley made his debut at the Grand Ole Opry, playing with Earl Scruggs, when he was just 11 years old.
Photo by Jim Summaria
Guitars
- ’80s Gibson J-200
- 1954 Martin D-28
- 2021 Martin D-41 standard (on tour)
- 1965 Harmony Sovereign Deluxe H1265
- Preston Thompson acoustic with Gene Parsons B-bender
- Chuck Tipton T-style
- L.R. Baggs Anthem SL pickup
Amps
- ’65 Fender Deluxe black-panel
- Fender Tone Master Deluxe (live)
Effects
- L.R. Baggs Voiceprint DI box
- Boss CE-2W Waza Craft Chorus
- Boss HM-2W Waza Craft Heavy Metal Distortion
- DigiTech Whammy Ricochet
- Electro-Harmonix Micro Q-Tron
- Grace Design ALiX preamp
- Keeley Reverb
Strings & Picks
- D'Addario Nickel Bronze (.013–.056)
- BlueChip TAD60 picks
For his part, Ickes also finds it easier to tap into a deeper level of expression, and some of that has to do with his main instrument. “I was playing Scheerhorns forever, but Byrl’s guitars have just a little more crispness,” he says. “What I like in a really good dobro—and I think a lot of this actually has to do with the way they do the bridge, but there’s a response time. I mean, this guitar is in your face frickin’ immediately. It just seems like it gets to my ear quicker than any other guitar I’ve played. And that’s exciting, you know? It’s like a force or something.”
The excitement becomes visceral on songs like A.P. Carter’s “I’m Working On A Building” and the haunting ballad “I Thought I Saw A Carpenter,” which Ickes wrote for his dying father. His flawless instincts on lap steel are beginning to reach that rarified zone where the chord choices that would ordinarily originate with a pedal-steel guitar have crept into his playing—sometimes unexpectedly, but always with a relaxed sense of intention that still keeps him grounded.
“Most of our favorite records are very live-in-the-studio, so that’s typically the way we operate. I don’t think we’ve taken more than two days to make a record yet.”—Rob Ickes
There’s one player he cites as a key influence. “Jerry Byrd, man,” he says without hesitation. “He had this way of playing that was like a voice, you know? Obviously on a slide instrument, the pitch is very critical, and very difficult, and he just never missed it. It came from his soul, and at the same time he was just a great technician. You never heard the bar; you never heard the pick. All you heard was the music.”
For Living In A Song, as the title suggests, Rob and Trey explored their songwriting abilities more earnestly than on previous records.
Photo by Jeff Fasano
“Technically on the dobro, we don’t usually give a lot of vibrato,” he continues, “but he did, and it didn’t sound nervous. To me, that opened up a whole new way of playing using my left hand that I had never considered, because I didn’t want that nervous sound. And I honestly don’t know how he does it, but it’s kind of rubbed off on me. Somehow I’m able to do it, and it just sounds more in tune.”
Of course, the act of songwriting itself describes an ongoing journey toward self-discovery—the “long and winding road” that can lead to enlightenment, or wisdom, or redemption, or any exalted state you can imagine when you’re tapping into what Harlan Howard called “three chords and the truth.” As if to accentuate the point, Hensley takes the album’s concluding song, “Thanks,” as an example of the serendipity that can unfold so suddenly when you attune yourself to what’s right in front of you.
“I mean, this guitar is in your face frickin’ immediately. It just seems like it gets to my ear quicker than any other guitar I’ve played.”—Rob Ickes
“A friend of mine, Lyle Brewer, had written the melody,” he recalls, “and he asked me if I might want to write something to it. And honestly, it just sat there for a bit, because I didn’t listen to it with enough intention to really focus on it, but the title of the song as he had written it was ‘Thanks.’ And of course I’m a big Tom T. Hall fan, and as soon as I heard it, it sounded like something he would have written. It just came to me and it was done. It was done before it ever began, really. I feel like that song always existed, and I just stumbled on it, you know?”
When the duo convened with Maher at the studio to record it, lightning struck again. “It was just us, me and Rob and Brent, sitting in the studio with a few mics up, with no real intention other than we’re gonna get this down as a demo. And I remember Brent—you can hear it. He picks up a guitar about a verse in, and starts hitting the back of it, as a percussion thing, you know? We got to listening to it, and Brent told us, ‘What do you think if we just use this version? It has a vibe to it, and it’s silly to try it again if we’ve already got it.’ And I love it, because that’s the version that made the record. Every time I hear Brent pick up that guitar, it just makes me smile.”
YouTube It
Ickes and Hensley perform the title track from Living In A Song, with Trey leading with his rich vocal and acoustic textures before Rob enters with his signature resonator twang and harmonies.