Charlie Mars

Trackimage Playbut Trackname Playbut Trackname
Listen to the Darkside 00:00 Tools
How I Roll 00:00 Tools
Gather The Horses 00:00 Tools
I Do I Do 00:00 Tools
The Money 00:00 Tools
Let the Meter Run 00:00 Tools
Nothing But the Rain 00:00 Tools
Meet Me By The Backdoor 00:00 Tools
When the Sun Goes Down 00:00 Tools
Like A Bird, Like A Plane 00:00 Tools
Blackberry Light 00:00 Tools
No Place Like Home 00:00 Tools
Sometimes the Sky 00:00 Tools
Listen To The Dark Side 00:00 Tools
Clocking Out 00:00 Tools
Banging On Your Door 00:00 Tools
The Only One 00:00 Tools
Back of the Room 00:00 Tools
Pacific Oceans 00:00 Tools
Heart Of The Summertime 00:00 Tools
Picture of An Island 00:00 Tools
Tell Me Twice 00:00 Tools
What Are You Looking For? 00:00 Tools
Simple Things 00:00 Tools
Try So Hard 00:00 Tools
Silver Buttons 00:00 Tools
Close to Home 00:00 Tools
Cry Cry Cry 00:00 Tools
Bay Springs Road 00:00 Tools
Great Wall of China 00:00 Tools
How I Roll (Prince Fox Remix) 00:00 Tools
Oh Daddyo 00:00 Tools
Hell Yeah 00:00 Tools
White Out 00:00 Tools
Nobody Cries 00:00 Tools
One Horse Town 00:00 Tools
How Could You 00:00 Tools
Captain, Captain 00:00 Tools
Back of the Room (Acoustic Version) 00:00 Tools
To Love And Be Loved 00:00 Tools
How I Roll (Acoustic Version) 00:00 Tools
Close To Home (Album Version) 00:00 Tools
She Ain't Coming Back 00:00 Tools
Picture of an Island (Acoustic Version) 00:00 Tools
Blackberry Light (Acoustic Version) 00:00 Tools
Let the Meter Run (Acoustic Version) 00:00 Tools
Firing Line 00:00 Tools
Life in the Stars 00:00 Tools
Things You Don't Wanna Know 00:00 Tools
Gather The Horses (Album Version) 00:00 Tools
Nothing but the Rain (Acoustic Version) 00:00 Tools
Broken Arrow 00:00 Tools
Listen to the Darkside (Live) - Courtesy KGSR 00:00 Tools
Nobody Cries (Album Version) 00:00 Tools
Barfly 00:00 Tools
Silver Buttons (Album Version) 00:00 Tools
Oh Girl 00:00 Tools
I Do I Do (Acoustic Version) 00:00 Tools
Pacific Oceans (Acoustic Version) 00:00 Tools
Simple Things (Album Version) 00:00 Tools
Danger Danger 00:00 Tools
Captain, Captain (Album Version) 00:00 Tools
One Horse Town (Album Version) 00:00 Tools
Coping 00:00 Tools
Great Wall of China (Acoustic Version) 00:00 Tools
Know My Name 00:00 Tools
Rainfall 00:00 Tools
Pride Before The Fall 00:00 Tools
White Out (Album Version) 00:00 Tools
When The Sun Goes Down (Album Version) 00:00 Tools
My Friend Ray 00:00 Tools
Captain Captain 00:00 Tools
Try So Hard (Album Version) 00:00 Tools
Maybe His Name Was Jay 00:00 Tools
Bay Springs Road (Album Version) 00:00 Tools
How Could You (Album Version) 00:00 Tools
How I Roll (TYR Remix) 00:00 Tools
Black Dress 00:00 Tools
Work Things Out 00:00 Tools
The Answer to Everything 00:00 Tools
Headlight God 00:00 Tools
7494 00:00 Tools
Time Was 00:00 Tools
Listen to the Darkside (Live) (Courtesy KGSR) 00:00 Tools
Pieces 00:00 Tools
I Do I Do (zaycev.net) 00:00 Tools
Banding on Your Door 00:00 Tools
Whiteout 00:00 Tools
Things Your Don't Wanna Know 00:00 Tools
Beach Town 00:00 Tools
Where We Come From 00:00 Tools
I'm No Angel 00:00 Tools
Nothing But The Rain (Acoustic) 00:00 Tools
How I Roll (Acoustic) 00:00 Tools
Gone 00:00 Tools
Blackberry Light (Acoustic) 00:00 Tools
Listen to the Darkside (single) 00:00 Tools
Mountain Girl 00:00 Tools
I Do I Do (Acoustic) 00:00 Tools
Dream Kitchen 00:00 Tools
You Talk 00:00 Tools
Benji Don't Wanna Stay 00:00 Tools
Let the Meter Run (Acoustic) 00:00 Tools
Picture of an Island (Acoustic) 00:00 Tools
Only in a Country Song 00:00 Tools
Island Time 00:00 Tools
Great Wall of China (Acoustic) 00:00 Tools
Pacific Oceans (Acoustic) 00:00 Tools
Back Of The Room (Acoustic) 00:00 Tools
Firing Lane 00:00 Tools
You and Me 00:00 Tools
How I Roll [Audio Only] 00:00 Tools
Take a Chance on Me 00:00 Tools
Lazy River 00:00 Tools
Listen to the Darkside video, starring Mary Louise Parker 00:00 Tools
Stick To Your Guns 00:00 Tools
To Love and Be Loved (Bonus Track) 00:00 Tools
Firing Line (Bonus Track) 00:00 Tools
Life in the Stars (Bonus Track) 00:00 Tools
Cather the Houses 00:00 Tools
Bad Guy 00:00 Tools
Sometimes 00:00 Tools
I Do, I Do 00:00 Tools
Lucky Boy 00:00 Tools
After You 00:00 Tools
Last Rodeo 00:00 Tools
No Eyes Look Back 00:00 Tools
Looking For A Heart 00:00 Tools
Gather The Horses (Edit) 00:00 Tools
I Can Feel It 00:00 Tools
40 Watts and Serenades 00:00 Tools
Winter Heart 00:00 Tools
Can You Hear Me Now? 00:00 Tools
01 Let The Meter Run 00:00 Tools
North Star 00:00 Tools
aWhite Out 00:00 Tools
How I Roll Audio Only 00:00 Tools
Filipino 00:00 Tools
I Do I Do (OST How I Met Your Mother 8 season \ ОСТ Как Я Встретил Вашу Маму 8 сезон) 00:00 Tools
Walking Years Away 00:00 Tools
Sunday Best 00:00 Tools
Casino Town 00:00 Tools
Bay Spring Road 00:00 Tools
aBay Springs Road 00:00 Tools
Listen to the Darkside (live) 00:00 Tools
Cather the Ho.. 00:00 Tools
Back of the Room (Somewhere in Mississippi) 00:00 Tools
I do I do (with lyrics) 00:00 Tools
I Do I Do ( ost himym s8e3 ) 00:00 Tools
The Money (Radio Mix) 00:00 Tools
How I Roll OST Weeds (s8e3) 00:00 Tools
Tell Me Twice (Demo) 00:00 Tools
Bangin' On Your Door 00:00 Tools
Clockin Out 00:00 Tools
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"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. "We stumbled upon this percussive, atmospheric tone that, as far as I'm concerned, was different from anything else out there," Mars says. "I thought, 'This is my sound. This is what separates me from the things that I'm hearing elsewhere and I want to explore that further.'" Mars kickstarted his second act by spending much of the next two years on the road; growing an increasingly fervent following while slowly compiling a sheaf of new songs. Recording officially got underway in August 2011 at Austin's Texas Treefort Studios, with Mars once again accompanied by many of his cohorts, including producer Billy Harvey (Bob Schneider), keyboardist John Ginty (Santana, Citizen Cope), bassists George Reiff (Ian Moore, Steve Poltz) and Dave Monzie (Fiona Apple), and drummers J.J. Johnson (John Mayer, Tedeschi Trucks Band) and Dony Wynn (Robert Plant, Robert Palmer). That stripped down framework comprises a stark and cinematic sound inspired in part by producer Daniel Lanois' famed collaborations with Bob Dylan, Ron Sexsmith, and Emmylou Harris. With its sparse instrumentation and focus on transcendent grooves and ambient space, the minimalist approach serves to add maximum intensity to Mars' already powerful songwriting. "It's not just less is more," Mars says. "Less can be massive. When you find that special place of less, everything just opens up. Sometimes I'll think we're doing so little, we should do more, but then it's like, let's do less and see what happens." Mars took a similarly modest tack towards the overall recording, looking to capture those perfect uncalculated moments where everything just clicks. "Back of the Room" written initially as part of an Esquire feature asking five songwriters to compose a tune incorporating the words "Somewhere in Mississippi" was literally cut live as the band unwound from a long day's work, while the rollicking, funk-fueled "How I Roll" was truly born of spontaneous energy, its unabashedly wicked opening lines put down by Mars while Johnson was out on a brief appointment. Upon his return to the studio two hours later, the band jammed the track and recorded it straightaway. "That was it," Mars says. "We never did it again." Penned as a "counterbalance to some of the slower, more moodier songs" on the album, "How I Roll" sees Mars acknowledging his myriad demons, even celebrating their essential place in his complete being. "Part of what I've gone through is acknowledging that I have a darker self," he says, "and I have to work diligently to try and improve myself so that I can stay out of that. At some point, I came to the realization that that darker self is going to win sometimes and I'm a little tired of apologizing for it. It's part of the whole, I don't have to carve that part of myself out and deny it." Like any songwriter worth his salt, Mars employs his art as a channel towards personal discovery, candidly exploring all the human limitations from pride and fear to cynicism self-doubt that stand in the way of his attaining true happiness. "The desire for connection and my terror in the face of it," he says. "That's what the album is about." To get there, songs like "Great Wall of China" or the title track take lyrical cues from such literary heroes as Haruki Murakami, Cormac McCarthy, Walker Percy, and Denis Johnson, relying on spare language and abstract imagery to create vivid-to the bone revelations about universal life experience. Upon the sessions' conclusion, Mars began aggressively pursuing one of his dream collaborators, legendary producer/engineer/mixer Tchad Blake. The Grammy Award-winner known for his distinctive work with such artists as Elvis Costello, Richard Thompson, and Sheryl Crow ultimately agreed and helped give Blackberry Light much of its uniquely spacious warmth. "If there is a leap from the last record to this one, Tchad played a huge part in it, Mars says. He's an artist. He takes something and infuses it with his artistry and it becomes something else. He's the real deal." The same can be said of Charlie Mars. Imbued with jazzy warmth, simmering dynamics, and uncommon use of space and intensity, Blackberry Light presents a gifted writer and musician at his confident and creative peak, a milestone work in what has proven to be a most extraordinary artistic evolution. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.