01. Go Faster
02. Kickin' My Heart Around
03. By Your Side
04. HorseHead
05. Only A Fool
06. Heavy
07. Welcome To The Goodtimes
08. Go Tell The Congregation
09. Diamond Ring
10. Then She Said My Name
11. Virtue And Vice
NOTES
Date: January 12, 1999
Length: 44:50 minutes
Label: SONY MUSIC
Genre: ROCK
Category: Rock/Pop
Amazon.com
All right, we knowthe Crowes are going to sound like the Stones, and by no
means is this an insult. The question is, what era of Stones--the assured bluster
and raunchy groove of Exile on Main Street or, gasp, the going-through-the-motions
of Steel Wheels? Thankfully, their first studio effort in two and a half years
tends mostly toward the former. The Robinson boys have actually managed to magnify
both their gritty Southern soul (with funky keyboards and vibrant background chants)
and their heavy-hitting majesty (with screeching guitar and thumping percussion)
simultaneously--and there's still room for some appealing hooks. That's not to say
that their songwriting has improved or that their musical vision has broadened considerably;
innovation has never been their strong point anyway. At worst, By Your Side
is still a big improvement over 1996's often listless Three Snakes and a Charm;
at best, it's living proof that the classic Stones swagger--refracted through the
Crowes' mounting years of experience--still holds significant sway. Being called
the "Stones of the 1990s" is still a compliment (albeit a left-handed one),
and at this point they do the Stones a damn sight better than the Stones themselves.
--Marc Greilsamer
Entertainment Weekly
This collection still manages to radiate enough wild-eyed, amped-up brio to renew
one's faith in the restorative powers of good ole Southern-fried rock & roll.
People
The Black Crowes ... do more than simply Cuisinart the old tunes for reuse; the Atlanta-based
band seems to recycle classic sounds whole.
USA Today
Singer Chris Robinson's throaty holler suits the sweaty material, and brother Rich
Robinson's slide guitar and Dixie-shaded jams punch up the Southern-rock revelry.
What the Critics Say:
Where to go for a band whose trajectory seems to have followed a southerly curve?
Storming, rootsy debut (Shake Your Money Maker), fine follow-up (The Southern Harmony
& Musical Companion), messy, tired-sounding third effort (Amorica) and rubbish
fourth (Three Snakes & One Charm). Where to go for a band who've seemingly been
through it all? Who've railed against commercial sponsorship (resulting in them being
dumped from an American ZZ Top support slot in 1991), who've done rebellion (six
months probation for singer Chris Robinson after flobbing on a 7-Eleven employee
who dared to never have heard of the band), who've taunted the moral majority with
female pubic hair on Amorica's cover, who've already been through their mildly psychedelic
phase, who've shown the Gallaghers what sibling hatred is all about (the physically
rucking Robinsons, Chris and guitarist Rich), who've lost two members since their
last release (bassist Johnny Colt quit; guitarist Marc Ford was sacked) and who even
managed to make velvet flares look vaguely cool again for a limited period? Where
to go for a band who've been there and done it all, with ever-diminishing returns?
In the case of The Black Crowes, the answer, it seems, is simple enough. Straight
back to 1972, of course. If you were to beam in an individual from some imagined
cultural wasteland, play them By Your Side and OK Computer, and then invite them
to hazard a guess at which band had a hard-earned reputation for combusting large
quantities of dope, they'd probably get it wrong. Despite their love of what they
probably call weed, The Black Crowes have never made traditional stoner music. Steadfastly
rooted in the R&B and boogie traditions of The Faces, early-'70s Stones and Free,
they've never had truck with the notion that rock'n'roll should be progressive, an
attitude which has stamped them with a retro brand that might make even Paul Weller
pity them. But then, arguably, if all rock'n'roll aspired to innovation, what a twiddly,
chin-stroking, crappy old world it would be. At their best, The Black Crowes are
a time-honoured party band; their seeming mission to sandblast away the listener's
troubles with unfussy, old-fashioned bluesy rock, rather than offer reminders of
the technologically-induced claustrophobia of pre-millennial life. Thus, By Your
Side is in essence the Atlantan group's equivalent of Suede's Coming Up: a back-to-basics
collection of easily digestible songs that underline exactly what they were about
in the first place. The fact that it's their first effort under a new contract with
Columbia following seven years with American Recordings shouldn't be dismissed either,
although it's a record clearly designed to mark the end of a difficult commercial
and personal period for the band (the sacking of Ford, occasionally to be found on
stage playing a different song from the rest of the band; the tentative steps towards
something approximating a friendship between the Robinson brothers, even if the early
stages of this recording proved typically fraught). Unsurprisingly then, the working
- and possibly much better - title for By Your Side was Music To Get Your Shit Together
By. In keeping with the wake-up call nature of the project, The Black Crowes made
a decision not to record in either Los Angeles or their Georgian hometown, as they
had done in the past, and decamped to New York. In that sense, perhaps in some way
the unrelenting energy of that particular city helped to fuel By Your Side, likened
by Chris Robinson - who has wisely labelled the music on the previous two Black Crowes
records "selfish" - as the Saturday night before the hangover that was
Three Snakes & One Charm. More significantly, these 11 songs are structured like
a live set (not before song seven, Welcome To The Good Times, does the pace really
drop), always sounding as if they were custom-built for the road and promptly flight-cased
after the mix. As a five-piece unit - new bassist Sven Pipien; Rich Robinson wrestling
with both the lead and rhythm guitar parts (although the line-up has now been augmented
by guitarist Audley Freed) - The Black Crowes appear to have rediscovered their supreme
knack for echoing the simple, weighty intensity of their musical role models. The
opening Go Faster is preceded by Chris Robinson distortedly barking "One time,
two time, three time, four time" like some numerically-adventurous Fugee before
Steve Gorman steams in with a pulse-quickening drum motif, announcing the inevitable
arrival of the crunching, bluesy guitars and a chorus in which the singer throatily
promises, "If you slow down, I will outlast you." On the heels of that,
Kickin' My Heart Around sounds exactly as you might imagine a Black Crowes song called
Kickin' My Heart Around to sound. The title track is the first of two songs built
on The Faces' Cindy Incidentally, all harmonising guitar and female gospel backing;
while its close relative, the Muscle Shoals-flavoured Only A Fool, with horn punctuation
re-created by The Dirty Dozen Brass Band. Throughout this introductory suite, Chris
Robinson's Paul Rodgers-perfect vocals are in typically supple form, even if lyrically
he still tends towards the renegade who's been down (but never on his knees), who's
keeping on movin' and whose redemption will be found in his baby's arms. In the title
track, he offers no greater insight into the twin-edged nature of success than "People
lookin' for fortune and fame/They don't know that it's all the same". In the
filler Heavy he rhymes "clothes" with "toes" and "nose".
Still, By Your Side never forgets that it's party-time rock'n'roll. Sometimes, like
Tutti Frutti or Jumping Jack Flash or Metal Guru, the words are just meant to sound
good or funny or memorable. Amid all this sturdy barroom boogie, two tracks stand
out. Welcome To The Good Times, with its big parade swing, sleigh bells and military
snares, shines with its plaintive verse ("You wish you could leave this life
for just one day") and singalong "Na na na" chorus, perfectly encapsulating
that mid-set moment of arm-waving togetherness. Elsewhere, Diamond Ring finds The
Black Crowes paying homage to Al Green, except that the precise, soulful backing
is nformed by rock'n'roll, lending the choruses of this straightforward love song
an assured, gutsy quality offset by Robinson's swooping falsetto crescendo. Then,
snapping out of soulful reverie, it's back to business with the muscular Go Tell
The Congregation ("When The Devil's got a hold of you..."), as direct an
audience-addressing, tailor-made live number as Oasis's D'You Know What I Mean. True
to their manifesto, The Black Crowes wind up with Virtue & Vice - sing-song verse,
explosive chorus - where Chris Robinson concludes, before the house lights are switched
on: "I feel so alive today/And that's all that I wanted to say/I hope that it
stays this way/If not I will be OK". So, not exactly brain surgery then, but
as they (probably) say in Hollywood, never underestimate the feelgood factor. The
Black Crowes are back on the rails, even if there are many who would rather chew
their own legs off than follow their tracks. But as Keith Richards sagely pointed
out in Q148, "The Rolling Stones are not here to break new ground, they're here
to be The Rolling Stones." In a funny way, The Black Crowes are not here to
break new ground either. They're here to be The Rolling Stones too. -- Tom
Doyle
Jimmy Page, Black Crowes Discuss "The Greek"
Jimmy and the Robinson Bros discuss the live album and more 5.31.2000
Jimmy Page/Black Crowes album takes flight on Internet
JIMMY PAGE & THE BLACK CROWES - Billboard review
Interview with Audley Freed, guitarist with Jimmy Page and the Black Crowes
Disc 1 - Shake Your Money Maker
01. Twice As Hard
02. Jealous Again
03. Sister Luck
04. Could I've Been So
Blind
05. Seeing Things
06. Hard To Handle
07. Think N' Thin
08. She Talks To Angels
09. Struttin' Blues
10. Stare It Cold
11. Don't Wake Me
12. She Talks To Angels (Acoustic)
Disc 2 - The Southern Harmony and Musical Companion
01. Sting Me
02. Remedy
03. Thorn In My Pride
04. Bad Luck Blue Eyes
Goodbye
05. Sometimes Salvation
06. Hotel Illness
07. Black Moon Creeping
08. No Speak No Slave
09. My Morning Song
10. Time Will Tell
11. Sting Me (Slow)
12. 99 Lbs.
Disc 3 - Amorica
01. Gone
02. A Conspiracy
03. High Head Blues
04. Cursed Diamond
05. Nonfiction
06. She Gave Good Sunflower
07. P.25 London
08. Ballad In Urgency
09. Wiser Time
10. Downtown Money Waster
11. Descending
12. Song Of The Flesh
13. Sunday Night Buttermilk Waltz
Disc 4 - Three Snakes and One Charm
01. Under A Mountain
02. Good Friday
03. Nebakanezer
04. One Mirror Too Many
05. Blackberry
06. Girl From A Pawnshop
07. (Only) Halfway To Everywhere
08. Bring On, Bring On
09. How Much For Your Wings?
10. Let Me Share The Ride
11. Better When You're Not Alone
12. Evil Eye
13. Just Say You're Sorry
14. Mellow Down Easy
Disc 5 - Bonus Live EP
(Beacon Theater, NYC 3/18/95 - 3/22/95)
01. No Speak No Slave
02. Sometimes Salvation
03. Cursed Diamond
04. Hard To Handle
05. Remedy
All Bonus material mixed by Kevin "Caveman" Shirley
A Tribute To A Work In Progress...
Greatest Hits 1990-1999
16 classic tracks on their first and only greatest hits collection. Includes
"Jealous Again," "Hard To Handle," "She Talks To Angels,"
"Sting Me," "Remedy," "A Conspiracy," "Blackberry,"
"Kickin' My Heart Around," and more.
Complete Track Listing
1. Jealous Again
2. Twice As Hard
3. Hard To Handle
4. She Talks To Angels
From: Shake Your Money Maker
Produced by George Drakoulias
Released 1990
5. Remedy
6. Sting Me
7. Thorn In My Pride
8. Bad Luck Blue Eyes Goodbye
From: The Southern Harmony and
Musical Companion
Produced by The Black Crowes
and George Drakoulias
Released 1992
9. A Conspiracy
10. Wiser Time
From: amorica.
Produced by Jack Joseph Puig
and The Black Crowes
Released 1994
11. Good Friday
12. Blackberry
From: Three Snakes and One Charm
Produced by Jack Joseph Puig
and The Black Crowes
Released 1996
13. Kickin' My Heart Around
14. Go Faster
15. Only A Fool
16. By Your Side
From: By Your Side
Produced by Kevin Shirley
Released 1999
Disc1
01. Celebration
Day
02. Custard Pie
03. Sick Again
04. What Is And What
Should Never Be
05. Woke Up This Morning
06. Shape Of Things
To Come
07. Sloppy Drunk
08. Ten Years Gone
09. In My Time Of Dying
10. Your Time Is Gonna Come
Disc2
01. Lemon Song
02. Nobody's Fault But
Mine
03. Heartbreaker
04. Hey Hey What Can
I Do
05. Mellow Down Easy
06. Oh Well
07. Shake Your Money
Maker
08. You Shook Me
09. Out On The Tiles
10. Whole Lotta Love
Produced and Mixed by Kevin Shirley
HOME
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