![Rig Rundown: Blackberry Smoke's Charlie Starr & Paul Jackson [2023]](https://www.premierguitar.com/media-library/rig-rundown-blackberry-smoke-s-charlie-starr-and-paul-jackson-2023.jpg?id=33228971&width=1245&height=700&quality=85&coordinates=0%2C0%2C0%2C0)
Right now, they’re in Europe, but Atlanta-based rockers with a distinctly Southern musical accent, Blackberry Smoke, smoked Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium for two nights in February before jumping the pond.
Their latest album, You Hear Georgia, was produced by Dave Cobb in Nashville, and hit the top of the Billboard Americana/Folk chart when it was released in mid-2021. PG’s John Bohlinger caught up with guitarists Charlie Starr and Paul Jackson before their sold-out show at the Ryman to run down their ever-expanding universe of gear.
Brought to you by D’Addario XS Strings.
Battered, Not Fried
This 1956 Gibson Les Paul Junior was professionally refinished in the ’70s, but Charlie Starr has put some serious miles on this one-pickup wonder. The battered badass with a dog ear P-90 and all his electrics are strung with D’Addario XL Nickel Wound strings, .010–.046. He uses InTuneGP Heavy picks and a ceramic Charlie Starr Signature Osanippa Creek Slide.
Like Ernest Tubb and other guitarists from the classic annals of entertainment, Starr has a greeting on the back of his ’56 Junior for the fans.
Barnburner
For some semi-hollow tone and feel, Starr goes with his stock 1964 Gibson ES-335 in Cherry Red with a Bigsby. The guitar belonged to a friend’s grandfather, and when Starr acquired it, he says, “It had gouges at the C, G, and D,” positioning his hand over the open chord shapes. He had it re-fretted by Stan Williams in Georgia, who told Starr, “This guitar looks like it's been sitting outside in a barn since 1964. And I don't know how the dude was able to get a bird to shit inside that f-hole.”
Physical Advantage
Starr maintains that this 1965 Fender Esquire in factory black, like his other single pickup guitars, sounds larger than most as there are less magnets interfering with the string vibration. He adds, “I’m told that it’s a physics thing. And I’m a physicist, so I subscribe to that theory.”
The Rest of the Best
Here are the Starr's other main stage rides (clockwise from the top left): a 1956 Gibson Les Paul Jr., a 1963 Fender Esquire, a Fender American Nashville B-Bender Telecaster, and a 1964 Gibson SG Jr..
Tone Trifecta
“This is on all the time,” Starr says of his Echopark Vibramatic 23, which he pairs with a tall cab. “It's basically a tweed Deluxe, and it adds that 6V6 creamy sweetness all the time.” The maker of Blackberry Smoke’s 50-watt Germino heads, Greg Germino, personally recommended this Germino Lead 55LV (left) to Starr, and is paired with a 4x12 cab. And the other Germino is a Master Model 50.
Charlie Starr's Pedalboard
Starr’s pedalboard features a Cry Baby Wah, a PCE-FX Aluminum Falcon Klon clone, an Analog Man Sun Face, Chase Tone Secret Preamp—“a preamp that accidentally made everyone’s signal a little sweeter,”—Wampler Faux Tape Echo, Fulltone Supa-Trem, DryBell Vibe Machine, Analog Man-modded MXR Phase 45, and a Polytune 3. XTS XAct Tone Solutions supplies the juice. Starr tapes a few of the pedals’ knobs to make sure his settings don’t go missing in action.
Paul Jackson's Ol’ Reliable
Paul Jackson’s number one is his 1979 Les Paul, which has been modded with a Seymour Duncan ’59 neck pickup and a Pearly Gates bridge pickup. He says he got it at a Guitar Center in Atlanta about 18 years ago—it also sports Dickey Betts’ autograph. Jackson strings this and all his electrics with D’Addario .010-.046s.
Black Magic
This black Gibson SG Standard—one of Jackson’s pair of SGs—was a gift from Frank Hannon of the band Tesla, who signed the back of it.
Gibsons Galore
The other three touring staples for Jackson include a 1978 ES-335, a 40th Anniversary Les Paul Ebony 1991, and a 1998 Gibson SG Les Paul Custom Shop Historic.
De-Modded For Classic Tones
One of the two amps Jackson tours with is a pre-’85 Marshall JCM800 50-watt with a stock 4x12 cab. You’ll see it has a sticker that says “Paul Jackson Mod”—he had it modded at one point, but later took it to Andrews Amp Lab in Atlanta to have them “turn it back into a Marshall.” Along with the Marshall, Jackson’s Vox AC30 is on “all the time.”
Paul Jackson's Pedalboard
Jackson and Starr’s pedalboards have more than a few things in common—Jackson’s also equips his with a Cry Baby Wah, Wampler Faux Tape Echo, and a PCE-FX Aluminum Falcon Klon clone—although Jackson’s is an Aluminum Falcon III. Other pedals on his board include a Radial Twin-City ABY Amp Switcher, JHS 3 Series Reverb, MXR EVH Phase 90, Way Huge Overrated Special Overdrive, and an Ibanez Mini Tube Screamer. Power comes from a Truetone power supply. Of the EVH Phaser, Jackson says, “If you don’t know what you’re doing, hit the phase pedal. nobody will ever know.”
On his solo work, Fertita channels the inspiration he gets from his various projects, from Dead Weather and Queens of the Stone Age, of which he’s a member, to projects with artists such as Karen O and Iggy Pop.
In that interim, the guitarist has had a lot to keep him busy. Since the mid ’00s, he’s been a part of a number of ongoing projects: He plays guitar and keys in Queens of the Stone Age, has been a touring member of the Raconteurs—whose lineup includes Fertita’s high school friend, multi-instrumentalist Brendan Benson—and formed the Dead Weather with the Kills’ vocalist Alison Mosshart and Jack White. Between touring, writing, and recording with these groups, Fertita also manages to squeeze in session work with artists such as Karen O and Iggy Pop.
Where There is Water
The trippy Tropical Gothclub was recorded during Fertita’s pandemic-era touring downtime and is made up of songs he’d been collecting for over a decade.
That sheer volume of work is a full-time creative effort. It’s a constant cycle, and for Fertita, the genesis of “what’s next” usually emerges just as another undertaking is winding down. But then came March 2020, and—like everyone else—he found himself in a pandemic break with time to focus on his solo projects again.
“In early 2020, we just finished the Raconteurs run,” Fertita says. “I didn’t know what was going on for the next few months for work, but I knew that in the not-so-distant future, we were planning on getting back together for Queens [of the Stone Age]. Alison Mosshart and I were talking about how we were both home for a while. We both had a few songs, and we started sending demos back and forth to each other. That got the wheels turning for me. A month later, we were locked down. But I was already in this mode of working through songs and arrangements and things that might work if we did a Dead Weather record.”
“The entire record was making sense of 10 years of fragmented ideas.”
“We were operating under the illusion [that the lockdown wouldn’t last very long],” Fertita laughs. “We decided to go through our ideas so we could be sharp and ready to go. I just kept recording my ideas. There was nothing else going on. I also had so many fragments of songs that had been laying around for years. In my mind, I was putting them in these different aisles: ‘This one would go good in Queens, and this one would work over here.…’ I just kept working, and at the end of that process I had a record’s worth of material and nowhere that it was immediately going to go. Jack encouraged me just to release it as it is, even though that was not even something I was considering at the time.”
Intentional or not, that collection of bits and bobs became Tropical Gothclub. In a sense, it sounds like what you’d expect from an artist immersed in the Third Man and Queens of the Stone Age universes—a heaping mass of abrasive, pedal-generated fuzz tones—except that Fertita, with his decades of experience, pushes that to another level entirely. Barnburners like “No Wonder,” with its intricate harmonized leads, and the call-and-response-heavy “Death Rattle” ooze enough of a guitar-orchestra vibe that they could almost be outtakes from Physical Graffiti. Others, like “Needles,” “Wheels Within Wheels,” and “Uniform Looks,” combine strong hooks, propulsive energy, and a seemingly endless variety of tones. The album also features more trippy moments—tempered with the occasional acoustic track—on songs like “Where There Is Water” and “Double Blind.”
Dean Fertita radiates the hazy surrealism of Tropical Gothclub.
Photo by Angelina Castillo
Fertita recorded much of Tropical Gothclub in a small A-frame house he built in his backyard, reassembling sections taken from lengthier jam sessions and working with snippets collected over the years. “The entire record was making sense of 10 years of fragmented ideas,” he says. “Sometimes, it was a 15-minute jam that I did with a drummer that we would arrange and figure out what it was. Some things I revisited and tightened up because they were recorded on GarageBand and then put into a Logic session.”
At some point in the process, Fertita brought Detroit-area engineer Dave Feeny (The White Stripes, Josh Ritter, Mule) on board to help sort through the clutter. “I’ve known Dave for a very long time,” he says. “I did another record in a similar way with him, which means he totally understands the various degrees of ‘done’ of the things that are sent to him. He just knew what I was going for and we could talk quickly. He was able to move it at a quick enough speed that it would be interesting. I’d get it back in a day and think, ‘I can do this now. I can play bass to this song now that we have a drum arrangement figured out’—or whatever it was.”
“This record—Tropical Gothclub—became a culmination of all my split personalities.”
Fertita is a connoisseur of tones, and he’s sensitive to subtle tweaks and changes. Different instruments, situations, and especially pedals affect his playing and approach. “Pedals always instantly change a frame of reference for me,” he says. “Sometimes you’ll hear a sound, and you’ll write to that sound immediately. I am always looking for character, and maybe even the weird thing that you’re not supposed to use—something that’s just going to be interesting sounding and different from the get-go.”
Working with so many different musicians inspires and triggers different chemical impulses as well. He points out that in QOTSA, “there are these two incredible guitar players,” and adds, “In Dead Weather, Jack predominantly plays drums, but we do play a lot of guitar together as well, and the stuff that he plays on those records is insane.”
Dean Fertita’s Gear
Fertita and his matching Gretsch White Falcon.
Photo by Andreas Neumann
Guitars
- Troy Van Leeuwen Fender Jazzmaster
- Goya Rangemaster
- Echopark Esperanto Z (Custom 9-string)
- Gretsch White Falcon
Amps
- No-name “magnetic” amplifier
- Fender Deluxe Reverb
- Supro Reissue Amp
- Silvertone Amp
Strings & Picks
- Ernie Ball .010s
- Fender Mediums
Pedals
- Binson Echorec 2 T7E
- Death By Audio Deep Animation Envelope Filter
- Death By Audio Supersonic Fuzz Gun
- Dunlop Fuzz Face Distortion
- EarthQuaker Devices Park Fuzz Sound
- Eventide H9 Max Harmonizer
- Fulltone Tube Tape Echo
- Gamechanger Audio Third Man Records Plasma Coil Distortion
- Ibanez AW7 Tone-Lok Autowah
- Mu-Tron Bi-Phase
- MXR Poly Blue Octave Pedal
- Old Blood Noise Reflector Chorus
- Third Man Records Bumble Buzz octave fuzz
- UREI Universal Audio Cooper Time Cube
- Way Huge Atreides Analog Weirding Module
Each band and project that Fertita participates in informs what he’s put into his solo music. “There’s no shortage of insane inspiration to try and fit in and complement what’s going on [in the album] already,” he says. “This record—Tropical Gothclub—became a culmination of all my split personalities. One idea I struggled with after making this record was: Shouldn’t I have made a stronger effort to make it totally different from the other things that I do, to show a completely different side? But there are different sides to my personality that get drawn out more, depending on the project that I am in. You probably can hear examples of how I would play if I were playing with Queens on this album.”
Fertita is not only flexible and productive as a guitarist and songwriter, he’s also a keyboardist, and that multi-instrumentalism helped connect some dots in his professional live.
“In Dead Weather, Jack predominantly plays drums, but we do play a lot of guitar together as well, and the stuff that he plays on those records is insane.”
“In 2005,” he explains, “I was on tour with Brendon Benson, and the first thing we did was an acoustic run in the U.K. As we were rehearsing, we thought it might be more interesting to break it up and have some songs on guitar and others on keys. I started to relearn them at that point.”
He had taken piano lessons as a child but put it aside as a teen. “I was stumbling through it but doing that led to the Raconteurs [Editor’s note: He plays both guitar and keys in that band when they’re on the road]. Our front-of-house engineer for that first tour was this guy Hutch, who had been with Queens since the beginning. He introduced me to the Queens guys, and 14 years later I am still doing that, too.”
As a multi-instrumentalist, Dean Fertita is an in-demand touring musician. He plays both guitar and keys for the Raconteurs on the road.
Photo by Andreas Neumann
What was it like to suddenly go pro on a less-familiar instrument? Did he get the jitters, or suffer from impostor syndrome? “I could keep up,” he laughs. “I was still holding my breath a little bit, but I felt like I could do what I had to do in that scenario. I wasn’t pushing boundaries. I was playing at the edge of my abilities most days.”
Fertita mostly reserves his limit-pushing for his work as a guitarist and songwriter. And one thing left to do is to play “Double Blind” for his daughter. “I have not played it for her yet,” he says. “I don’t want to embarrass her. She is aware that it exists, and I think she’ll listen to it alone. Maybe she’ll never tell me she’s heard it.”
The Dead Weather "I Feel Love" - Live on The Late Show
Dean Fertita is in his element, delivering blazing riffs on his Gretsch White Falcon with Alison Mosshart and Jack White as the Dead Weather on The Late Show.
Our last Rundown with J.D. Simo was eight years ago. Since then, the songwriter, guitarist, and producer has worked with Jack White, Tommy Emmanuel, Luther Dickinson, Dave Cobb, Blackberry Smoke, and even been a friend in Grateful Dead founder Phil Lesh’s band Phil and Friends. Currently, Simo is promoting his most unique, original, and raw album yet, called Mind Control, where he explores Afrobeat grooves and Mississippi trance blues. Simo invited John Bohlinger and the PG team to his studio to look at some new and old friends with strings, cones, and attitude.
Brought to you by D’Addario XS Strings.
Hail to the Chief
JD Simo’s No. 1 remains his beloved and battered 1962 Gibson ES-335. It’s had a few changes since his last Rundown. Note JFK on the back of its headstock! Nashville star luthier Joe Glaser modded the neck tone control to knock it out of phase. During quarantine, Simo reinstalled the original Bigsby bridge with nylon saddles. This, and all of Simo’s guitars, use Stringjoy strings (.010 sets, when tuned to standard) and are picked with Jim Dunlop tortoise mediums.
Trifecta of Cool
The backside of the 335's headstock reveals some classic stamps.
Picks of the Litter
Here you see JD's Jim Dunlop tortoise medium pick (for guitar) and a Dave Grisman DAWG pick (for mandolin).
Jazzmaster Just in Name
It began life as a mid-’60s Jazzmaster body. Fellow Nashville-based guitarist George Bradfute added a MusiKraft neck and refinished and rewired this 6-string with a humbucker and S-style pickups from Vintage Inspired Pickups, out of Beverly, Massachusetts. There is a phase switch on the tone control.
Headstock Shock
A close look at this axe’s headstock logo reveals that … well, this offset has a unique make and model name. The Asscaster stays tuned down to B with .014–.064 strings.
From the Deeps
This Echopark Exner Tavares in a seemingly luminescent finish is made from white pine sinker wood. It features a gold-foil neck pickup, a ’70s Fender Wide Range bridge pickup, and a Chris Swope Guitars bridge. The Exner stays tuned down a whole step, with .011–.049 strings.
Down in the Hollows
Here’s an all-stock 1952 Gibson ES-5 in standard tuning and strung with flatwound .012—.056 strings, for vintage tone. This model debuted in 1949 as an electric version of Gibson’s then-popular acoustic L-5.
Lab Rat
This Gibson Custom Shop Murphy Lab ’64 SG Standard features OX4 pickups, hand-wound by Mark Stow in Oxford, England. The finish is the work of Gibson’s famed in-house aging and replication expert, Tom Murphy.
Humble Hotshot
Simo’s going for heavy acoustic vibe with this 1965 Silvertone H165. It stays tuned down to C# and is amplified with a LR Baggs M80 pickup.
Mondo Mando
This 1966 Kay Airline mandolin is hipper than most, with the company’s cool Kelvinator-style logo on its headstock. It’s all original, including the Jimmy Reed-style pickup and two-tone binding.
Mr. Natural
J-50 is the Gibson company’s designation for its natural-finish J-45 workhorses—the guitar that helped define modern folk music. This 1961 J-50 features a 1963 DeArmond RHC-B soundhole pickup and stays strung with nickel bronze .012–.056 strings.
Goodbye Marshalls
Depending on the scenario, Simo currently uses one, or a combination of, these amps: a 1964 Ampeg Gemini I with a Weber ceramic-magnet ferromax speaker, a 1949 Alamo Model 3 (lower right), a 1972 Fender silver-panel Deluxe Reverb converted to black-panel specs (also with a Weber speaker), and a Pre CBS Amps Clifford 18W made by Zack Allen of Nashville’s Carter Guitars. The latter is essentially a 7591-output-tube Princeton Reverb clone and has a Weber speaker. Simo runs with his amps with an AmpRX Brown Box power attenuator.
At the Stomp Post
Simo’s very simple pedalboard includes a 1972 Dallas Arbiter Fuzz Face, a 1973 Vox Cry Baby with a Chase tone pot, a rehoused vintage Kay fuzz, a Strymon El Capistan, and a Fender trem/reverb Switch. XAct Tone Solutions made the board and its battery box. Simo also uses Divine Noise Cables.