Black Crowes

(Translated from my original Italian text by ChatGPT and Piero Scaruffi)

The Black Crowes, formed in Atlanta in the late 1980s by a group of late hippies enamored with R.E.M., were the protagonists of a brief revival of 1970s blues-rock. Just as Aerosmith had copied the Rolling Stones, Free, and Faces, the Black Crowes copied Aerosmith. Their revival of blues-rock was the very essence of the reaction against hardcore.

The album Shake Your Money Maker (Def American, 1990) caused a sensation and put Atlanta on the map: the Black Crowes. Their sound was the classic British-influenced soul-rock of the 1970s — the hoarse, intense singing of Chris Robinson, who studied the phrasing of Rod Stewart, Joe Cocker, Steven Tyler, and Mick Jagger, yet directly imitated none of them; the rough, ornamented guitars of Rich Robinson and Jeff Cease, who had memorized Keith Richards and Duane Allman; the drums of Steve Gorman and the bass of Johnny Colt, robust and loud as befits a Southern band, often reinforced by Chuck Leavell’s organ (Allman Brothers). Born as Mr. Crowe’s Garden when the Robinson brothers were still minors, they paid all their dues along the way.
Their songs, lacking memorable melodies, rely entirely on arrangements — which are themselves avalanches of quotations. From the soulful chorus of Twice As Hard to the barrelhouse piano of Jealous Again (whose score hides the rhythm of Honky Tonk Women and the riff of Street Fighting Man), it’s a parade of well-crafted banalities. From the raucous, noisy “jump blues” of Thick N’ Thin to the rowdy boogie of Could I’ve Been So Blind, they often sink into their beloved gospel (the moving She Talks To Angels, Sister Luck with organ ā la The Band, or Seeing Things with female choruses ā la Leon Russell), and close with the hysterical square dance of Stare It Cold. The most overused model is that of the Rolling Stones, whose career seems to be retraced from Buttons to Exile.
In its first year alone, the album sold three million copies — unaffected by the band’s colorful misadventures (kicked off a tour and arrested in a store) — and launched on a large scale the 1970s revival that bands like Raging Slab had quietly initiated.

If the British rhythm and blues of the 1960s was the inspiration for their first album, the Southern boogie of the 1970s is the reference point for their second, The Southern Harmony And Musical Companion (Def American, 1992). The sound is grittier, thanks in part to a tighter lineup that replaced Cease with the more experienced Marc Ford (formerly of Burning Tree) and Leavell with a permanent organist, Eddie Hawrysch (“Harsch”). Like its predecessor, the album offers not a second of originality, yet it is even more effective — thanks to more polished arrangements, songs that stand on their own merit rather than on instrumental clamor, and the singer’s spiritual tone. With their usual cynicism and necrophilia, the Robinsons dig through the ruins of rugged blues-rock with Remedy (featuring a solemn female chorus) and Sting Me, skirting the grotesque in more emotional songs such as Sometime Salvation. As before, the album draws its strength mainly from the charm of nostalgia, summoning the ghosts of Rod Stewart (My Morning Song), the Rolling Stones (Hotel Illness), and Jeff Beck (No Speak No Slave). The sound undeniably reaches a striking degree of atmospheric detail (Black Moon Creeping, Thorn In My Pride).
Jealous guardians of a musical ghetto rather than a genre, the Black Crowes are nothing more (and do not wish to be anything more) than clones of Free and Faces — though often superior to the originals (which says much about the latter’s worth).

Amorica (American, 1994) was meant to be their experimental album. The songs are indeed somewhat more elaborate, but the result only undermines the sextet’s one true strength: their solid, no-nonsense focus on a linear theme. Tempo changes, subtle keyboard touches, and exotic evocations drown the power ballads Cursed Diamond and Non Fiction in ambitions perhaps beyond the band’s reach. If this approach manages to enrich the rough boogie of Gone, color the intricate Latin rhythm of High Head Blues, and refresh the roots music injected in large doses into P. 25 London and Downtown Money Waster, the group’s true vocation remains that of A Conspiracy (romantic refrain and syncopated Faces-style cadence) and She Gave Good Sunflower (airy melody over a raw saloon-style country-rock). It is in this unadorned format that the lazy duels between Rich Robinson and Ford, as well as Gorman’s loose drumming, truly shine. With this album, the band partially emancipates itself from the “riff,” the cornerstone of their sound (which inevitably recalled the Rolling Stones), in favor of song dynamics — thus drawing closer to the soul of Memphis.