The Black Crowes’s success can be summed up in a simple
\nsentence: They were in the right place at the right time.<\/p>\n
When their debut album
\nShake Your Moneymaker<\/i> came out in 1990, it provided a slap
\nin the face to the stagnating rock sound. Southern rock was back,
\nit had lost little of the boogie, and it even had gained a new
\nsense of introspection – all while being a touch trippy-hippie and
\nmysterious. It was exactly what the scene needed.<\/p>\n
Brothers Chris and Rich Robinson (on vocals and guitars,
\nrespectively) were a definite yin-yang duo on the lines of Ray and
\nDave Davies of The Kinks: creative as all get-out, but as explosive
\nas nitroglycerine. Drummer Steve Gorman, bassist Johnny Colt and
\nsecond guitarist Jeff Cease rounded out the group – and were just
\nas pivotal in creating the sound that put the Crowes on the
\nmap.<\/p>\n
It takes guts to cover such an r&b classic as Otis Redding’s
\n“Hard To Handle” – and it takes talent to outdo the original. This
\nversion makes me want to get up and dance every time I hear it (but
\nI can’t stand the alternate version I occasionally hear on the
\nradio with the horns added).<\/p>\n
Of course, the other songs that are now well-grounded in radio
\nare still exciting to hear. “Twice As Hard” is a great way to kick
\noff the album, building from the guitar line into a crescendo of
\nthe whole band, topped with Chris Robinson’s
\noccasionally-unrecognizable vocals. Thing is, it works – and it
\nworks well. “Jealous Again” is a rolling number that sucks you into
\nthe beat and doesn’t let go. And “She Talks To Angels” is a
\nsurprisingly powerful ballad that seems to explore a darker picture
\nthan the lyrics originally suggest – the imagery is especially
\npowerful.<\/p>\n
But although 40 percent of
\nShake Your Moneymaker<\/i> has already been played to death on
\nradio, there still are many other good performances that have yet
\nto be truly “discovered” in the same way. “Seeing Things” is an
\nalmost spiritual ballad that always struck me as one of the better
\nsongs on the album, while “Sister Luck” is a track that should have
\nbeen a strong indicator of what we could have expected from the
\nband’s next release. Even the balls-out rocker “Thick N’ Thin” has
\na lot of charm to it.<\/p>\n
Sure, there are a few songs that don’t hold their water as well,
\nlike the album’s closer “Stare It Cold” – but these are few and far
\nbetween.<\/p>\n
The biggest complaint I have with
\nShake Your Moneymaker<\/i> is that it’s very much a mood album –
\nthat is, whether you’re going to like it or not changes daily. Some
\ndays I’ll pick this one up and barely be able to stand it, but most
\ndays I feel as positive as everything I’ve said so far. If you find
\nthat you’re just not getting into the whole vibe, best advice is to
\nput it down for a few days, then try it again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27491,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[5681],"rating":[5613],"class_list":["post-38865","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-the-black-crowes","rating-rating-a-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38865","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38865"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38865\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27491"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38865"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38865"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=38865"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=38865"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}