The Black Crowes:  History And The Songs of
"Shake Your Money Maker"
 

If rock 'n' roll is down 'n dirty, boozin', bloozin', and floozin';
If rock 'n' roll is letting loose all your emotions;
If rock 'n' roll is reacting to signing a record deal with the word 'Cool';
If rock 'n' roll is crashing~a-car-so~you can put the real thing instead of a sound effect in a song;
Then The Black Crowes is rock 'n' roll.

"We're very passionate about life," says lead singer Chris Robinson. 'We're not content to just go through every day. We feel and think whatever we want to. If we want to sit in a room and listen to a record for two days, that's what we do. We're not about compromise. We know what we need to do and we do it -- when it feels right."

On Shake Your Moneymaker, the Atlanta quintet's debut ablum on Def American ( distributed by Geffen Records), The Black Crowes puts it finger on it and spells it out from boogie stomp to gutter rock, from barroom bravado to soul-shakin' and blues wailin'. Despite its youth and modern rock star looks, this is a band with a classic attitude about rock 'n' roll. It's no wonder then that a ex-Allman Brothers keyboard player and legendary sideman Chuck Leavell agreed to play extensively on the record.

Recalls Chris, "He listened to a few songs and said, 'You're awfully young to be playing rock 'n' roll like this.' I asked him, 'Do you think it's a problem?' He said, 'No, I'm just totally surprised."

' Says guitarist Rich Robinson, Chris' younger brother by three years: "A lot of bands today just do this so they can have a bunch of 14-year-old girls look at them and say 'Oooh!' That's why so much of music today is pre-fabricated: same lyrics, same choruses. They get signed because they look cool, play cool solos. It's like mass production. What happened to songs?"

Shake Your Moneymaker is filled with real songs with real emotion. This band is different from others because of our priorities," says Chris. The songs are first. I won't deny that I appreciate all the things that go along with it, because I choose to live my life a certain way. But we didn't get this band together because we had the right hair, cool clothes and a halfway decent name. I don't have time for any of that. There is no other way we'll be. There is no other way we can be."

Honest? You'd better believe it. Take the name ot the album for example.

On one hand, it's just a vivid sexual thing, but on the other it makes you think too," explains Chris. "It's kind of what we do, isn't it? Whether it's a dancer in a strip club or me wiggling my ass on stage, it's the same thing. We're all shaking our money makers."

Listen closely and you soon discover that the songs on the album may be uptempo but what they're talking about aren't the good times. "We just tell the truth," says Rich, "not whether something is good or bad, right or wrong."

"It's a pretty decadent record," Chris adds. "It cuts like a razorblade. The Iyrics often contradict one another- from verse to verse because that's the way life is and I like to tell everyone's side of the story."

The Black Crowes' story begins with the two brothers. Totally opposite personalities, their yin and yang is extraordinary to watch together. "Rich has always been the coolest guy in school or wherever," says the talkative Chris. As for the quietly thoughtful Rich, he acknowledges that "Chris has been talking for me since he was three years old. But we fit perfectly as a pair."

From day one, the Crowes played only originals as the Robinson brothers concentrated heavily on their songwriting talents. Says Chris, "Our father was a musician, so there was a lot of stuff around the house. We grew up on Joe Cocker and Sly Stone. In seventh grade I got into AC/DC and Aerosmith. When you love it that much, you dig for everything you can get."

In Atlanta, where either Southern rock or alternative rock are the norms, the Crowes' harder attitude was shunned. "We came off as arrogant because we love what we do," admits Chris. "Atlanta's my home and I love it but we weren't going to pigeonhole ourselves to suit a few people."

Begun five years ago as Mr. Crowe's Garden, Chris was 18 and Rich only 15 when they played their first gig in Chattanooga, Tennessee. "The club owner wrote us a check for $50 and it bounced," remembers Rich.

The current line-up started to come together about three years ago when the band was in the studio working on demos and needed a drummer. Steve Gorman, living in the same house with another band, did the session for the Crowes and never left, in many ways becoming the steadying influence in the band. Six bass players later, they also finally settled on the energetic Johnny Colt.

Then, in 1988, the band decided to try a crunchy, two-guitar attack. "But we wanted someone who not only could play but was what we considered a Crowe, who lived like we lived," says Chris. Enter Jeff Cease.

Based in Nashville with another band, Cease had played on the same bill with the Crowes. Afrer one particular gig, a girlfriend of another band threw a party in her luxury apartment.

"He and these girls followed our van to the party -- none of them were invited!" says Chris. "Jeff was sitting on the floor of this beautiful apartment putting out his cigarette on the carpet. I thought, 'That's something one of us would do!'

" When Cease later came to Atlanta to play, Chris asked if he wanted to join the Crowes. 'We just asked, 'Do you know any John Lee Hooker?' 'Yeah.' 'He's in."' A year later, after a name change, they landed at Def American. The Black Crowes were finally album-bound.

"We said, 'Cool, let's make a record.' We wanted all these different guitars and amps for different sounds," Chris says. "But we get to the studio in Atlanta and find we only had three guitars and two amps."

Seat-of-the-pants recording St The Black Crowes' raw style. Which brings us to that car crash. The story goes that Gorman had a '66 Dodge Dart and one night was drinking when he slammed into a trash can. Soon it became a ritual. Whenever they would drive into a parking lot they'd crash into a dumpster.

So when someone had the idea to add a car crash on the track "Thick N' Thin," the band knew exactly what to do. They took a portable recorder and taped Steve ramming his car into the dumpster outside the studio--- seven times.

"Actually, we wanted to Snd more dumpsters so we could get different sounds," says Rich with a smile.

Yep, The Black Crowes have an attitude.

"There's a tension around this band. We hang out together. I never knew bands didn't do that. These are my four best friends whether we played music or worked at the Budweiser factory. We're more like a tribe than a gang. When we come into a bar, it's like, 'The Crowes think they own the place! Who do they think they are?' The next day, everyone's talking."

For The Black Crowes, rock 'n' roll is what you live for. 'We're Black Crowes 24 hours a day ' Chris continues. 'We want to bring back that excitement when a fan would be in the blood of it all, when you knew everything about a song like you knew your girlfriend. When you know that the guy who wrote it really felt that way. That's magic, and in a business that sometimes falls away from the true emotion, there aren't a lot of magical bands anymore. We want to be one of them."

The Black Crowes are redefining rock 'n' roll in the 1990's by bringing it full circle to where it all began. Best of all, they're doing it by following their hearts—it's the only way they know.

Chris Robinson and Rich Robinson of The Black Crowes recently talked about the songs on the band's debut album, Shake Your Moneymaker (Def American, distributed by Geffen Records). Produced by George Drakoulias, the album was recorded in Atlanta, Georgia and Los Angeles, California, from May through July of 1989. All of the songs were written by the Robinsons except for the cover of Otis Redding's "Hard To Handle." The first single is "Jealous Again."

"Twice As Hard": "There was a pain in my heart. Feeling lonely and knowing I was losing touch with someone. Hoping that maybe the next time around it'll be different but it never is. A love song, plain and simple." (Chris)

"Jealous Again": "Narcissistic and arrogant. Sure everyone feels jealous about someone else but maybe this time someone will be jealous over me. In a way, it's a song for the band, when the boys are feeling nervous and cold and desperate." (Chris)

"Sister Luck": "A tired song. Weary, worn-out, down in the dumps. It's about being up for five days and fate is calling someone else's name." (Chris)

"Could I've Been So Blind": "Sometimes when you got it good, you know it. And then you go and wreck it." (Chris)

"Seeing Things": "Musically, this is our Steve Cropper tribute. A soul ballad that could be on an old Stax record. The kind of song you don't hear much these days, a lovesick blues." (Chris)

"Hard To Handle": "We love Otis Redding. He's god. And I'm no Otis. So I was worried about doing this cover. I didn't want to ruin it. It's a great song. Hopefully, I did it some justice." (Chris)

"Thick N' Thin": "A nasty little song that Mom wouldn't like if she knew what I was talking about." (Chris)

"She Talks To Angels": "A story about a very sad person, a sad but beautiful girl. Though it's loosely based on someone I know, it could be about a lot of people are addicted. Everyone's been there or knows someone who's there right now." (Chris) "But there's no message about morals in the song." (Rich) "It's not my job to handle people's morals. Morality's your own business." (Chris)

"Struttin' Blues": "This is my song, my little blues about struttin' around a bit and knowing it's not as easy as it looks." (Chris)

"Stare It Cold": After listening to the rest of the album, this song tells you to get up, stop writing, look life in the face and stare it cold." (Rich)