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Impertinent Thoughts On a Very Pertinent Band-The Black Crowes (1984-2001)Jan 09 '02 Write an essay on this topic.
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The Bottom Line May the Black Crowes R.I.P.
1984-2001
Note: Earlier this week, it was announced that drummer Steve Gorman had left the Black Crowes. This led to an announcement that lead singer Chris Robinson was going to do a solo project and that the band was going on hiatus. Many die-hard fans are skeptical however, as am I. At last report, guitarist Rich Robinson was working with Royston Langdon of Spacehog. This article is meant to show how important the Crowes were not only to their fans but to rock and roll itself. They are not the Crowes without Steve. This is all from the heart and from the mind. Oh yeah, this is long, so consider yourself warned. The Black Crowes formed in 1984 just outside Atlanta, Georgia. Originally, the band consisted of the dueling Robinson brothers, singer Chris and guitarist Rich, along with their longtime friend Steve Gorman on drums. They started out as Mr. Crowe's Garden. They signed to Rick Rubin's Def Jam American label in the late 80s, where Rubin, jackass he is, wanted to call them the Kobb Kounty Krowes and dress them up in KKK outfits. The band refused, and soon they decided on The Black Crowes as their moniker. From 1990 until 2001, the band would release 8 albums, including a greatest hits compilation and a live album with Jimmy Page in 2000. They toured incessantly, and gained a reputation as a "can't miss" live act. And the feuding Brothers Robinson gave fans more juicy gossip than an afternoon soap opera on CBS. With the release of their debut album in 1990, entitled Shake Your Money Maker, the band immediately set out to bring bluesy southern rock and roll to the masses, and succeeded, thanks to their cover of Otis Redding's Hard to Handle. Far from a one hit wonder cover band, the band produced no more than three more hits from that album alone. The gorgeous ballad She Talks to Angels, despite being overplayed, was one of the most heartfelt ballads this reviewer has ever heard. The rollicking Jealous Again and Twice as Hard were just as fun as well. They toured with ZZ Top, only to be kicked off since Chris repeatedly said on stage that the show was being "brought to you by the Black Crowes and not Miller Beer." They knew corporate sponsorship sucked then, and stuck to that principle right through to the end. When they released the follow up, The Southern Harmony and Musical Companion, in 1992, pressure mounted. Considered by many fans to be their best overall effort, TSHAMC is a work that is best digested over a period of time. The bridge on My Morning Song is the best bridge ever period, and songs like Thorn in My Pride and Hotel Illness showed for the first time how much the band liked to jam. It wouldn't be long before the Crowes were bestowed with the nickname of "The Most Rock and Roll Rock and Roll Band in the World." On the "High as the Moon" tour to support Southern Harmony, the band began to get very much into drugs, and not just pot. As Robinson himself has put it, the difference between the High as the Moon tour and the other tours is the "high." The band's live shows weren't really suffering, but their relationships were. Chris and Rich were barely speaking as they headed into the studio to record their third album. On the bright side, the band had enough money at this point to hire the one they call "Crazy Old Ed," Eddie Harsch, as the full time keyboard/piano player. While Amorica was released late in 1994, the band wasted over a million dollars recording Tall, which was scrapped nearly in its entirety. Amorica is a fabulous album, but one that wasn't nearly commercial enough. The drug influence is very much present, but it almost seems the band's musical creativity was enhanced by the drugs. The band also decided at this point to let fans tape their shows to trade with other fans. The setlists got more and more creative, the jams became more and more frequent. Chris Robinson himself sent out soundboard copies of some shows to fan club members, telling them to spread the recordings as far as possible. To this day, the Crowes have a fanatical recording and trading fanbase that devours live recordings the way fans of the Grateful Dead used to. Despite going gold and eventually platinum, it was considered a gigantic commercial disappointment when compared to the band's previous large sales successes. The tour in support of it did not help matters, as Chris and Rich played what they thought would be their final show at the Beacon Theatre in New York City in 1995. They were convinced to finish the tour, and at the end of it, Chris and Rich went their separate ways. After a while apart, it became obvious that the brothers were going to have to reunite. They did it almost as a big middle finger to their doubters. They regrouped with the rest of the band and recorded Three Snakes and One Charm in 1996, and released it late in 1996. By far the most uneven record of the band's career, they started to mix up their live shows even more than they had previously. But at this point, the rampant drug use was taking it's toll on the band, and this is where the rotating member syndrome would take place. Bassist Johnny Colt and guitarist Marc Ford left the band sometime in 1998, just as the band was preparing to record it's fifth album, By Your Side. By Your Side is a glitzy, poppy record that was undoubtedly meant to recapture lost fans. Chris, Rich, Steve and Ed are the only musicians on the record (save for guest horn players and backup singers), and in a way, it shows. The band greatly missed Ford especially. They had a hard time replacing Colt as well, going through 2 more bass players before settling on Sven Pippien as a touring bassist. Guitarist Audley Freed was added on as well. The Robinson brothers don't like the By Your Side album very much, and only about half of it was being played on their most recent tour. The other half probably was never going to be heard again anyways. Drummer Gorman said about By Your Side, "that's 4 guys just trying to survive." While the tour to support By Your Side was a success, at least as far as tickets selling goes, fans found the stagnant setlist boring. Undoubtedly, the new members needing to feel comfortable with the songs was part of this. In the fall of 1999, it was announced that the Crowes would be teaming up with Jimmy Page to play a total of 5 shows: 2 in New York, 2 in Los Angeles, and in a coup that they will never repeat, one in Worcester Massachusetts. (Welcome to Wista, dollah twenty five please) Together, they recorded a live album culled from the LA shows at the legendary Greek Theatre. Inspired, the pairing decided to go out again in the summer of 2000 on a full tour. The first leg went great, as the band rocked hard and put on an amazing show. The second leg of the tour though did not go so great, as many shows were canceled due to Page's own back problems. Rumors swirled that the two entities were going to record an album together, but those rumors never came to fruition. In the meantime, the Crowes released a greatest hits package titled Tribute to a Work in Progress 1990-2000 which featured 14 previously released tracks from the 5 albums. The band signed with V2 records and were immediately pumped up about their next release. In 2001, the Crowes released their sixth, and what could be their final, album of all new material, entitled Lions. Fans called it a throwback to old school Crowes, while others just called it "usual Crowes style rock and roll." Regardless, those who heard it usually liked an awful lot of it. That was ultimately the problem. Not many people heard it. Sure, it has nearly gone gold here in the US, but it was a gigantic sales disappointment for the band and their label. However, no one at MTV or radio wanted to get behind the best single of the year, Soul Singin, which may have been the band's ultimate death knell. Undaunted, the band launched the Brotherly Love Tour with Oasis and Spacehog in the summer of 2001. The tour was a modest success, but in no way did it restore the Crowes or Oasis to blockbuster American success the way I believed it was supposed to. In late August of 2001, the band set out on their last major tour of the US, the Listen Massive Tour. While the band had stellar showings in their strongest markets such as New York and Florida, they drew barely 200 people in markets such as Phoenix. They played their last two shows in Boston on October 30 and 31, 2001, shows I attended (see reviews). If nothing else, the second Boston show was the best show I have ever seen a band put on. This comes from someone who has seen the Who, Pearl Jam, and Page and Plant multiple times. Rumors began to fly around about Steve in late December, and finally, reports began showing up earlier this week. Within hours, the band had posted a small message on their website confirming Steve's departure and the status of "hiatus." In the last few days, I have been personally devastated by this news. It was only back in 1999 that I began a new love affair with the Black Crowes, and I must say they had become one of my all time favorite bands. They had swagger, but they had enough soul to counteract it. They had cheesy outfits, but their songs were so balls to the wall southern rock that in the end, you just didn't give a sh*t. And let's face it, they were the American version of the Gallagher brothers from Oasis, but they never became the biggest band in America the way Oasis did in England, so no one cared about their exploits. A lot was said about the Crowes upon their breakthrough success here in the early 90s. They were "retro." They were "throwbacks." They were "southern rock and soul" when that was the last thing you could be. All of this was true, and that's why the Black Crowes were a great band. They were retro and rock and soul at a time when Warrant and Poison dominated MTV. They brought rock back to being important, a full year before the whole Nirvana explosion. The whole "grunge revolution" thing was cr*p, just like the whole "grunge" term is cr*p. You want to know who started the whole death of the hair bands? It was the Black Crowes. You want to know who had more soul and conviction than any of these "neo-soul" singers that the 1990s gave us? (Mary J excepted.) The Black Crowes. You want to know who brought back some good kick a*s rock and roll when it most needed to be brought back? The Black Crowes. And lastly, you want to know who the Most Rock and Roll Rock and Roll Band in the World is? Look no further than the Black Crowes. The idiotic record buying public can have their Godsmacks and their Linkin Parks. Me? I'll slap a Crowes bootleg into my player and let the band decide where they're gonna take me. "Have mercy baby...I'm descending again..."  |
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