THE BLACK CROWES

How a group of Paisley Underground wannabes led by two warring brothers found success via approbation from Ronnie Lane and Peter Frampton, 350-date world tours and a gold-standard debut album. Now reunited, Chris and Rich Robinson look back at THE BLACK CROWES and the good times/bad times around Shake Your Money Maker. But can they keep from falling back into old ways (and old wars)? “This is so important to us,” they tell Peter Watts. “We don’t want to fuck it up.”

Photo by NIELS VAN IPEREN

Amoricans abroad: Black Crowes brothers Rich (left) and Chris Robinson, Amsterdam, August 10, 1994

NIELS VAN IPEREN/GETTY IMAGES

The Black Crowesin Chicago, April 1990: Chris and Rich Robinson (seated), (l–r) Johnny Colt, Jeff Cease and Steve Gorman

PAUL NATKIN/GETTY IMAGES; FRANS SCHELLEKENS/REDFERNS

“We were shocked by the success”: Chris and (right) Rich Robinson at the Paradiso in Amsterdam, June 5, 1990

WHEN it came, the end for Mr Crowe’s Garden happened in the back of a van, somewhere on the road to Rome, Georgia. The band had formed five years previously, playing their first gig on July 13, 1985 – the same day as Live Aid. They were just kids then – lead guitarist Rich Robinson 15, singer Chris, his older brother by four years. But for the Robinsons to make the next step, it was necessary for the innocent yearnings of Mr Crowe’s Garden to be set aside in favour of something with more mature prospects. The band had finished recording their debut album, Shake Your Money Maker. All they needed now was a new name, more suited to their elevated aspirations.

“It was an hour-and-a-half drive to Rome, and when we got out the van we said, ‘Now we are The Black Crowes,’” recalls Chris Robinson. “Then we played the show. The opening band was a dad playing with his son and daughter and a cousin on drums, a sweet little family band. We then went on stage trying to be super cool, playing ‘Jealous Again’ and ‘Hard To Handle’ – the whole album we just recorded – and the only people in the crowd except the sound guy was the dad with his son and daughter, sat at a table eating a Subway while we played rock’n’roll. That was the first night of The Black Crowes. What an auspicious start!”

Improvement was fast and life-changing. Released in February 1990, Shake Your Money Maker was revelatory for its sense of purpose. A fresh take on vintage rock influenced by the Faces and classic soul that sounded as if it had been beamed straight in from 1972, their sound offered a third way between clean, bombastic ’80s rock and the psychedelic jangle of college rock. By the end of the summer, The Black Crowes were on their way to selling five million records, playing arenas with Aerosmith and Robert Plant.

“It was the right moment and it was an honest statement,” says producer George Drakoulias ahead of a 30th-anniversary reissue of the album. “Plus the songs were great. They held up to repeated playing and still do. Nobody else was taking these influences and elements of the Faces, the Stones and Otis Redding. Plus they were from the South, so they were close to the music of the South, it was all around them.”

Shake Your Money Maker ushered in the start of three decades of rock’n’roll success for the brothers. This was clearly some kind of victory. But with it came the always-simmering tensions between the Robinson siblings, which reached a brutal climax in 2015, when the band split and the brothers stopped talking to one another. There has been a reunion since, in 2019, and a full tour is now scheduled to take place later this year – presuming, of course, the brothers don’t fall out again. But Shake Your Money Maker marks not only the Robinsons’ defining moment of success – but also a period where these two squabbling siblings worked most harmoniously together.