Brit Turner, the drummer and a founding member of the Southern rock & roll band Blackberry Smoke, died Sunday. Turner was diagnosed with glioblastoma — a cancer of the brain — and underwent surgery to remove a brain tumor in November 2022. The band confirmed his death in a post on social media.
“It is with the deepest sorrow that we inform everyone that our brother @britturner13 has moved on from this life. If you had the privilege of knowing Brit on any level, you know he was the most caring, empathetic, driven and endearing person one could ever hope to meet,” the band wrote. “Brit was Blackberry Smoke’s True North, the compass that instituted the ideology that will continue to guide this band.”
Formed in Atlanta in 2000, Blackberry Smoke revitalized Southern rock by pairing a hefty dose of country music with heavy guitar riffs: George Jones sang on their 2009 album Little Piece of Dixie and the group opened for Guns N’ Roses on a 2019 tour. Turner’s thunderous drumming soundtracked all of it.
Turner, a native of Mt. Clemons, Michigan, was the heart and soul of Blackberry Smoke, a gregarious presence with a long beard, wild hair, and boisterous laugh. His comic timing rivaled the beat he kept behind the kit too. When Rolling Stone pointed out that the words “Rock & Roll” were written on Turner’s kick drum in a 2015 interview about the group’s success on the country music charts, Turner shot back, “I have another one that says ‘Country.’”
In a 2012 blog for Modern Drummer, Turner wrote about how he first picked up a set of sticks. “I received a snare drum for Christmas from my parents before the sixth grade. It was a purple sparkle Stewart set,” he said. “My father played in a big band in the early days while becoming an officer in the air force. Granny played piano and my uncle Brit plays guitar. I guess that’s how I got exposed to music.”
But growing up in the 1980s, Turner became enamored of a different genre: listening to — and learning to play — the hard rock and heavy metal of AC/DC, Judas Priest, and Iron Maiden. In 1988, he formed the thrash-metal band Nihilist with his brother Richard Turner on bass. Eventually, the sibling rhythm section returned to the sounds of their native South and founded Blackberry Smoke with singer-guitarist Charlie Starr and guitarist Paul Jackson. Keyboardist Brandon Still joined soon after. “After I got heavy metal out of my system, it was on to straight up rock and roll, Americana, Southern rock, and traditional country,” Turner said.
The band had their first major success in 2009 with “Good One Comin’ On,” a song written by David Lee Murphy, Lee Roy Parnell, and Gary Nicholson that appeared on Blackberry Smoke’s Little Piece of Dixie album. In 2012, they released The Whippoorwill LP on Zac Brown’s Southern Ground Records and cracked the Top 10 on the Billboard Country Albums chart. But the group had its major breakthrough in 2015 when the album Holding All the Roses, featuring songs like “Too High” and “Rock and Roll Again,” debuted at Number One on the country charts.
The follow-up, Like an Arrow, also hit Number One, and, with hard-edged tracks like “Waiting for the Thunder,” established the band not just as torchbearers of Southern rock but as one of the 21st century’s bona fide rock bands. The album’s final track, “Free on the Wing,” featured Gregg Allman in one of the final songs he recorded before his death in 2017.
Along with manning the drums, Turner was instrumental in the look of Blackberry Smoke’s albums and designed the cover for their latest, Be Right Here. Released in February, it reunited the band with Dave Cobb, who produced 2021’s You Hear Georgia.
Turner continued to tour with Blackberry Smoke after recovering from brain surgery in 2022 but was forced to miss some concerts due to his health. In December, the band announced that Turner would be sitting out a string of shows to continue treatment for glioblastoma and that drummer Kent Aberle would be on the stool.
Backstage at Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium in 2015, Turner tried to explain the surprise success of Blackberry Smoke, a rough-looking band that pounded on drums, slashed at guitars, and sang with a twang in the era of highly produced country and pop stars. The drummer chalked it up to building a fan base one show at a time — and never going through the motions. “It’s a good solid climb,” Turner said. “We work hard and we see results.”