The Black Crowes Southern

The Black Crowes were an American rock band formed in 1989. Their discography includes eight studio albums, four live albums and several charting singles. The band was signed to Def American Recordings in 1989 by producer George Drakoulias and released its debut album, Shake Your Money Maker, the following year…

More memento than major statement, 2009's WarPaint Live – available as a DVD and a two-CD set – finds the Black Crowes running through their 2008 comeback Warpaint in its entirety during a gig in Los Angeles, adding a five-song coda of covers and Crowes classics. Warpaint was a reunion and revitalization for the Black Crowes, their best album in a long time, and much of that renewed energy can be heard in this performance, which manages to be loose and tight, the work of a band comfortable in its own skin and strength…

This double-disc is essentially the audio component to the DVD of the same name released in March 2006. There are several live documents of the Black Crowes before their breakup especially, but this one shows them at their rawest, with a complete horn section and backing vocalists tearing it up at the Fillmore…

The title is simple, and it describes exactly what you'll get – two discs and 19 tracks of the Black Crowes in concert, tearing through fan favorites and chart hits. The album is culled from a series of concerts the group did on their farewell 2001 tour, with Rich Robinson sequencing the entire thing to flow close to an actual concert, right down to his brother Chris' winding, sometimes embarrassing stage patter…

To celebrate their 20th anniversary, the Black Crowes decided to revisit several of their staples from the past two decades, giving them acoustic rearrangements. While some of the songs are revised heavily, some are merely given strength by the new setting, not so much because the songs sound better stripped down to bare bones, but because the Crowes are still riding the wave that started with their 2008 comeback Warpaint, retaining the rustic, ragged live vibe of Before the Frost/Until the Freeze…

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' 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.

The Black Crowes are leaving the bullshit in the past. 15 years after their last album of original music, the Robinson Brothers present Happiness Bastards - their 10th studio album. Some may say the project has been several tumultuous years in the making, but we argue it's arriving at just the right time. Call it brotherly love or music destiny that brought them back together, the highly anticipated record consecrating the reunion of this legendary band just may be the thing that saves rock & roll. In a time where the art form is buried beneath the corporate sheen of its successors, The Black Crowes are biting back with the angst of words left unsaid penned on paper and electrifed by guitar strings, revealing stripped, bare-boned rock & roll. No gloss, no glitter, just rhythm and blues at it's very best - gritty, loud, and in your face.