The Black Crowes
Shake Your Money Maker

THE REVIEW

The first part of the '70s decade was, for Southern Rock, the most intensely prolific historical period (one that had Lynyrd Skynyrd and The Allman Brothers Band as its real crown jewels...), leaving the bands at the forefront (with 38 Special, Charlie Daniels Band, and Outlaws catering to all tastes) of the second part of the decade, the credit for transforming and personalizing the roots of a sound deliberately indebted to English rock and white blues that found fertile ground in the land of Albion between the mid-'60s and the end of the same decade. The '80s (for many, senseless and devoid of newness for the genre) saw a large number of bands (among which Molly Hatchet gained the most resonance, but also Rossington Collins Band and Stillwater, and if one wants to be broad-minded, why not consider Blackfoot as well) that managed to keep the interest alive in a sound so naturally raw and proudly symbolized by the waving of the Rebel Flag.

However, it may be the last glimpse of the second millennium that simultaneously represents a revival and growth of the southern rock capable of shining once more as it deserved, also through (and as one almost no longer expected) The Black Crowes. The band was led by brothers Chris and Rich Robinson, who grew up with vinyl records of the Rolling Stones and Humble Pie, among others, and with a great love for the seventies, they managed to create a burning sound mixture that finds in the bare and raw riff the winning weapon of a striking ensemble sound.

With the dawn of 1990, the band from Atlanta boldly released "Shake Your Money Maker", their first ambitious recording step. The music that emerges is of great impact, a successful attempt to revive the origins on which rock'n'roll has always thrived. And if "Twice As Hard" also shows some Zeppelin-like aspirations, "Thick n' Thin" seems to be born of repeated listening to "Exile on Main Street", which every good rocker turns to when they feel like getting their blood flowing again. Following the apparent boogie of "Could I've Been so Blind", which succeeds well as a middle track, is the bluesy composure of "Seeing Things", while the fervor and riff of "Struttin' Blues" simultaneously recall the robustness of the Young brothers.

We are absolutely not just talking about simple replicants driven by an irrepressible desire for revival; the class is all there and can be perceived with a naked ear. The love for the idols with which the Robinson brothers grew up has been absorbed and reworked according to a modern taste with the original DNA present in all the tracks. A journey aimed at distinguishing a creative process far from a predictable nostalgia operation, resulting in the biting "Jealous Again" (chosen as the first single, not by chance), but also with the gentle "She Talks to Angels", which can even draw in the most distracted listener into a seductive universe of pleasure, into which one can be carried only through good music, never absent even in the necessary tribute to the late Otis Redding with a successful rendition of "Hard to Handle".

Forty-five minutes of high caloric power that mostly feeds on the musical abc generated during those two magical decades (the '60s and '70s, if anyone still had doubts) that to this day have proven to be the most experimental and creative for all the rock that came after. Five American freaks capable of entering the music world with an honest, perhaps not perfect, release, but one that warmly pays homage to the past, proving to be a product of its time, where the sound allows the heart to take the place of the sheet music.