254) Black Crowes - Shake Your Money Maker

I am the musical expert in the family, I am the one who knows all the trivial nonsense and all the records. Now to be clear this is because I grew up just with my mother and sister who were not the slightest bit interested in all these wonderful facts; I could tell them.

In the car my mother had Russ Abbot’s seminal album I Love a Party (who can forget his top ten hit Atmosphere, Joy Division released a song with the same name and didn’t make the top ten, just saying) and my sister basically didn’t need to buy records because she could nick mine.

My sister had already had the audacity to buy Jellyfish without me having any knowledge of them and did she not have the nerve to do the same here with The Black Crowes debut.

As I walked past her room there was music playing that didn’t belong to me, it wouldn’t be the radio, she wasn’t a radio girl, she saved that for the car once the excitement of Russ had ended. This wouldn’t do, I went in her room quickly scanning about, lying on top of her CD player was a CD cover saying The Black Crowes and I pretended I knew who they were. Remember we have covered I was an arse back then; we do not need to go there again.

If you like The Faces and The Stones around Exile on Main Street, then I would suggest you get yourself a copy of this record. There is a swagger to the band and Chris Robinson has the vocals to pull it off and wee brother, Rich, knows his way around a guitar. This is superior bar room songs, with riffs, solid drumming and the odd organ thrown in for good measure.

As was the way back then five singles were released from an eleven-track album, but all are belters. Twice As Hard opens the record all riffs and then a deep dirty pot stirred by the rest of the band as Chris launches himself in. Jealous Again adds piano, you could see Rod belting this out as Ronnie Wood puffed on a fag in the background but don’t think The Black Crowes are copyists, you are not listening to a lesser version of The Faces or The Rolling Stones here. Seeing Things and She Talks to Angels are the big ballads with a choir expertly deployed on Seeing Things and their cover of Otis Redding’s Hard to Handle a joy from start to finish.

Of the non singles I love Sister Luck but if you want a record that looks back to the past and stands on its own then this could be just the record for you.

 7/10

GIVE IT A STREAM: Hard to Handle