Charlie Starr has a 1955 Gibson J-45 acoustic guitar he’s pulled many a song from.

“I can sometimes hear a song from a recording of ours,” says Starr, singer/guitarist with elite Southern rock band Blackberry Smoke, “and if I think hard enough, I can be like, ‘Oh yeah, I remember that that song started on this guitar in my living room.’”

Starr is bringing his J-45, as he always does, on his latest run of solo shows. Setlist for these shows include acoustic versions of Blackberry Smoke gems like “Hammer and the Nail,” “One Horse Town” and “Azalea,” and divergent covers of artists ranging from Neil Young to Robert Johnson to Van Halen.

“All the pomp and circumstance are stripped away,” Starr says. “That’s the way these songs get written, so it’s taking it back to that type of instrumentation. I’m also telling stories and telling some lies and a little bit of the truth, and it’s just it’s just like we’re in a big living room.”

Starr’s current solo run also features guitarist Benji Shanks, who joined the Blackberry Smoke fold around 2018. On a recent afternoon, Starr called in from his Atlanta home for a phone interview. Edited excerpts below

Charlie, at a November show with Blackberry Smoke you got to play late Lynyrd Skynyrd legend Gary Rossington’s Gibson SG electric guitar. Southern rock fans have seen that guitar and heard it for a long time. What’s it like to actually hold and play that guitar?

Charlie Starr: I was absolutely blown away to have the opportunity to do that. I mean, honored is not the word. Honored, that word is not quite special enough sometimes, but it was really great. There’s actually two of them. They brought two of them, and I chose the one of the two. He had several [Gibson SGs] and those two are the ones we’ve all seen the most in video footage and photographs.

Anyway, he only really ever played [Skynyrd anthem] “Free Bird” on that guitar. So I thought, ‘Wow, this guitar was used as a specific tool for a specific song,’ and I broke rank and played “Tuesday’s Gone” [another Skynyrd classic] on it.

Dale Rossington [Gary’s widow] was there with their daughters, and it was just really emotional. I’m sure other people might think that’s silly, but it was hard to not get emotional holding that guitar. Same with holding Duane Allman’s guitar, but it’s different. I never met Duane, and I knew Gary, and I hold them in the same regard. They’re giants when it comes to guitar and songwriting in the music that I love. They’re probably the two biggest giants. It’s not lost on me.

Could you feel the presence of Gary or Duane when you played their guitars?

I think so. Gary’s, as soon as I played a note on it, it was like, wow, man. I had a similar experience a couple month of months ago, we were in Paris on our most recent European tour, and a friend there that has a owns a guitar shop. He had Steve Jones’ Les Paul from the Sex Pistols, and same thing. I plugged it in and played one note and was like, oh my god. A lot of these instruments just inherently sound like the tracks that we’re used to hearing them all. Obviously, Gary played a lot lots of different guitars, but you just hear certain things that ears have become accustomed to hearing, and it’s like, oh yeah, that’s it.

You mentioned touring Europe with Blackberry Smoke. I think back to Skynyrd at Knebworth in 1976 and ‘90s Black Crowes bootlegs from places like Italy and Germany. Why do you think Southern rock connects so well in Europe?

I don’t know why it does, other than the fact that maybe it’s working-class music. And it’s not particularly angry music, you know – it feels good. But it really connects with European audiences. And I wish I knew why, but it’s amazing to watch. Specifically the U.K., but also Germany and France, Switzerland, Sweden — they just eat it up. It’s great for us and the way we make a living, and those people are just so happy when we get there, so it’s really a win-win for everybody involved.

Speaking of the Black Crowes, a band you have a long history with [Crowes singer Chris Robinson came up with Blackberry Smoke’s band name]: You filled in on lead guitar with the Crowes for a few shows a couple years ago, and it sounded great. Can you take us inside that experience?

Oh, thank you. Their guitar player at the time, Isaiah Mitchell, he had to leave for a month, and I think they didn’t have shows initially in that window of time, but then they got some booked and a television appearance.

And so Rich [Robinson, Crowes guitarist] called first and said, “Hey, man, do you think you might be free in May?” I think it was May. And I said, “As a matter of fact, I am. Because we had a guy [in our band] having a baby or something, I forget. “How come? What’s up?” And he’s like, “Well, we need you, and would you be interested in filling in on guitar,” and I said “Absolutely.” And then Chris called.

I mean, twist my arm, you know. I love that music more than most. It’s part of the soundtrack of my life, and not to mention they’re my friends as well. But I would hasten to say that I’ve been waiting to play those songs my entire adult life. [Laughs] And I was just so honored they would ask.

I think the first show was Stagecoach [Festival] in front of 30,000 people. And here’s a little funny insight for anybody who might care. I did go out and kind of run through the songs a bit with Rich and a few of the guys and Chris was like, “I’m not coming. You know how to play this shit.” [Laughs]

So the first time I played those songs with Chris was on stage with no sound check with no sound check. I think what he was saying was, “I expect you to do your job. I don’t need to babysit you through this.”

This is a funny thing, too, a good guitar player from Nashville who’s a great friend of Blackberry Smoke, there was some video footage of one of the shows that I got to play with them [The Black Crowes], and he goes, “Man, it’s so crazy. It’s like the time that the Flintstones were on ‘The Jetsons.’”

But anyway, long story short, I was absolutely honored to get to play that their music with them, and standing back and watching the two of them, Rich and Chris Robinson, work on stage together is just phenomenal. It was a great experience and will cherish it forever.

Blackberry Smoke drummer Brit Turner passed in 2023. That’s obviously incredibly hard, losing not just a bandmate and drummer but a friend and musical brother. Can you talk a bit about carrying on since Brit passed?

It’s hard. It continues to be. I mean, we all have moments where we’re just blubbering messes, and I have loss in my life like we all do, but this is just different. He was my best friend, too. He wouldn’t accept it if we wanted to stop. He would probably haunt me and reach through the cosmos and make me do it. [Laughs]

So we all knew that we would continue, because he was so dedicated to the way that we do it. Hell, as far as the business of Blackberry Smoke goes, he created it. And while the rest of us years ago were just happy to play songs and party and be irresponsible, he was the one that was like, “No, no, this is a business, and this is how we do it.”

As far as the music, it’s just like losing anybody who was such an integral part of a band. His drumming was his fingerprint, and nobody else has got it. Like, I can play a Led Zeppelin song [on guitar], but I couldn’t replace Jimmy Page in Led Zeppelin. And Kent [Aberle] is doing a great job playing drums. We’ll continue to move forward, and I’ll miss him [Brit] forever.

Charlie Starr featuring Benji Shanks will perform Jan. 25 at Princess Theatre in Decatur, Alabama. Brett McDaniel opens the 7 p.m. show. Tickets are $40 – $150 including fees via ovationtix.com.