Hear Blackberry Smoke, Robert Randolph’s Fierce Collab ‘I’ll Keep Ramblin”

Blackberry Smoke’s new LP, Find a Light, comes with a host of guest appearances, including Amanda Shires and the Wood Brothers. But only one cameo also collaborated on a co-write: Robert Randolph. The steel-guitar magician shows up on “I’ll Keep Ramblin’.”

Randolph’s presence on the song is a bit like throwing Duane Allman into the “Layla” sessions, as he his screeching pedal-steel work zigzag all over the barn-burning boogie. The frantic tempo comes crashing down not once but twice, at which point the rocking jam turns into a praise-and-worship sing-along with Randolph and Blackberry Smoke frontman Charlie Starr trading stringed testimonials. The track is the most fierce to be released from the new record so far.

Coming a couple weeks after “Let Me Down Easy,” which features Shires, “I’ll Keep Ramblin'” is the fourth song to be premiered from Find a Light. The album, the Atlanta quintet’s sixth, is due out on April 6th. They play the first of back-to-back sold-out performances at Georgia Theatre in Athens, Georgia, on Friday night.

In May, Starr and Randolph performed together onstage in Nashville during a “Guitar Greats”-themed installment of the online series Skyville Live.