Event

Charlie Mars

Charlie Mars solo at the historic Aster Cafe in Minneapolis

"I know people think, 'Oh great, another guy with an acoustic guitar,'" says Charlie Mars. "What I really want is to say to them, 'Not so quick. Just one minute. That's not what this is.'"

Charlie Mars has been a journeyman artist with all the ups and downs that entails, from major label releases and high profile gigs opening for the likes of REM, KT Tunstall, Citizen Cope, Steve Earle, among others, from uncertainty to redemption. Now, with the extraordinary new Blackberry Light, the Mississippi-based troubadour builds upon the distinctive musical approach first mined on his 2009 breakthrough Like A Bird, Like A Plane, employing supple grooves and ambient Daniel Lanois-inspired production to enhance the elemental force of his classic songwriting influenced by the likes of Bob Marley, Bill Withers and Dire Straits. From the dreamlike, "Nothing But The Rain," to the shimmering "Picture of an Island," the album sees Mars delving deep within to offer insight and a path to self awareness and ultimately transcendence via a gracefully beatific distillation of folk, rock, and smooth acoustic soul.

"This music takes my mind to a place that allows me to see more clearly where I'm falling short," Mars says. "It takes my mind to a reflective place. It makes me sentimental about my past, my present, my future. It has a way of humanizing me and helping me shed some of the things that get in my way."

Currently residing in Oxford, Mississippi, Mars was at a professional standstill before Like A Bird, Like A Plane. With "no manager, no agent, no band and no money," he doggedly developed a sonic style uniquely his own, a sound informed less by traditional rock than by sinewy and soulful rhythms that seemed to bubble up from within his soul.