Few musical artists have symbolized the south in popular culture as directly and indelibly as Charlie Daniels. During a fifty-year career, Daniels has scored hits on the Rock, Country, Pop and Christian charts, and counts awards from the Country Music Association (CMA), Academy of Country Music (ACM), TNN/Music City News Awards, and the Gospel Music Association (GMA) among his accolades. His signature song, “The Devil Went Down To Georgia”, topped both country and pop charts, bringing him international acclaim.

Atlanta based Blackberry Smoke continues to grow into the premiere Southern Rock band of America. Over the last 12 months they have shared the stage with ZZ Top, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Shooter Jennings, Cross Canadian Ragweed and countless others. The band has recently finished recording their sophomore effort “Little Piece Of Dixie” with legendary producer Dann Huff (Keith Urban, Rascal Flatts) and engineer Justin Niebank, to be released summer of 2009.

At a certain point, Southern Rock as it was perceived in the ’70s was alternately tarted up in slutty make-up by Rock or blow-dried and sanitized by Country, neither of which did much to effectively or appropriately expand the genre’s range. Blackberry Smoke may be too young to remember firsthand the visceral bite of early Lynyrd Skynyrd, the moody excellence of the Marshall Tucker Band and the gritty Blues of the first three ZZ Top albums, but they do a pretty decent job of channeling the era without slipping into faceless arena Country Pop that shares little with Southern Rock outside of a decibel level.

Born and raised in Orlando, Florida, April Phillips has been singing and entertaining audiences since a young age. Her dreams of becoming a country music artist have always resonated from her heart and now through a lot of hard work, April is making this dream into reality.

Country music has always been a huge part of April’s life. She finds her musical inspiration from Jennifer Nettles (Sugarland) and Miranda Lambert but draws her greatest inspiration from Reba McEntire, the singer she has admired the most throughout her career. April Phillips music consists of bold, edgy country! She has no problem rockin’ your world with her in your face modern tunes or bringing you to your knees with her emotional real life ballads. With talent that is definitely super star material, fans remember her show long after the music has stopped. She doesn’t demand your attention, she commands it… and you won’t mind giving it. If you’re not a fan of country music, you will be after April grabs a hold of you!