This year’s Big Orange Music Fest will feature Blackberry Smoke, the Allman Betts Band, Joanne Shaw Taylor, J Edwards, JD Simo and Champ Jaxon.
Set for Saturday, Oct. 26, the festival takes place in Laishley Park in downtown Punta Gorda.
Pigeon holing Blackberry Smoke has never been easy. Since emerging from Atlanta in the early 2000s, the quintet—vocalist/lead guitarist Charlie Starr, guitarist/vocalist Paul Jackson, bassist/vocalist Richard Turner, drummer Brit Turner and keyboardist Brandon Still—has become known for a singular sound indebted to classic rock, blues, country and folk.
This fluidity has paid off handsomely, in the form of two Billboard chart-topping country albums, 2015’s Holding All The Roses and 2016’s Like An Arrow. (For good measure, the latter also topped Billboard’s Americana/Folk album chart.)
Find A Light, Blackberry Smoke’s sixth studio album, doubles down on diversity. Songs hew toward easygoing roots-rock (“Run Away From It All”) and Southern rock stomps (“The Crooked Kind”), as well as stripped-down acoustic numbers (“I’ve Got This Song”) and bruising alt-country (“Nobody Gives A Damn”). Rich instrumental flourishes—keening fiddle, solemn organ and bar-band piano boogie—add further depth and resonance.
General admission is $45. The VIP tickets are sold out. Doors open at noon.
For tickets and more info, go online to www.bigorangemusicfestival.com
