Black Crowes, The - Shake Your Money Maker

Original Year Of Release & (Current) Label

Cover

Tracks

1990 Def American

T!P

01 02 03

Reviews

The Black Crowes' debut album, Shake Your Money Maker, may borrow heavily from the bluesy hard-rock grooves of the Rolling Stones and Faces (plus a bit of classic soul), but the band gets away with it due to sharp songwriting and an ear for strong riffs and chorus melodies, not to mention the gritty, muscular rhythm guitar of Rich Robinson and brother Chris's appropriate vocal swagger. Unlike their later records, the Crowes don't really stretch out and jam that much on Money Maker, but that helps distill their virtues into a handful of memorable singles ("Jealous Again," "She Talks to Angels," a cover of Otis Redding's "Hard to Handle"), and most of the album tracks maintain an equally high standard. Shake Your Money Maker may not be stunningly original, but it doesn't need to be; it's the most concise demonstration of the fact that the Black Crowes are a great, classic rock & roll band. Steve Huey (All Music Guide)

Now back to the sonic territory of their debut, Atlanta's Black Crowes have spurned gruelling musical adventure. In 1990, Shake Your Money Maker defined "promising", being AC/DC play The Faces (or The Faces play AC/DC), either way a brilliant idea. With aptly Jim Dickinsonish keyboardist Ed Harsch and prodigious lead guitarist Marc Ford on board by 1992, The Southern Harmony & Musical Companion had better groove, singing, touch, empathy  better everything and is only just shaded by Amorica, a funkier, druggier, lyrically superior, and more authentically evil kettle of gumbo with an opium poppy on the CD label. Never has an LP been worse served by its cover (ie the "pubes one"), the widespread presumption being that anything so contentiously attention-grabbing had to be hiding some inadequacy. Their masterpiece misunderstood, The Black Crowes did the same record again only with the tunes rejected from the first: voila Three Snakes & One Charm. Lifestyle rumours started embracing harder drugs (what a surprise) and Ford, then Colt departed. Then they started all over again. Danny Eccleston (Q Magazine, October 2000)
           

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