At the dawn of the ’90s, rock and roll was not in a good place. MTV had spurred a craze of dance videos and arena-rock acts, while shredders and hair-metalists dominated guitar magazines. Out of nowhere, a five-piece band from Georgia emerged, pumping out three-chord stompers like “Jealous Again,” “Twice as Hard,” and a take on Otis Redding’s “Hard to Handle.”
With Shake Your Money Maker, the Black Crowes deftly resuscitated the airwaves, drawing comparisons to the Stones, Humble Pie, and the Faces. In short order, the five brash young musicians paved a way for rawer guitar sounds throughout the decade.
In a Philadelphia hotel suite during their fall 1990 tour (opening for Heart), guitarists Rich Robinson and Jeff Cease spoke about how the Crowes connected to their vintage roots.
“When I was learning to play, I was into whatever was un-hip at the time,” said the 21-year-old Robinson. “I love Sly and the Family Stone, which was in my dad’s record collection. My brother, Chris (Black Crowes’ vocalist), and I grew up in a musical house where there was everything from Robert Johnson and Son House to Buffalo Springfield and the Who.”
Sitting next to Robinson on the sofa, Cease zeroed-in on one of his favorite blues-rock masters.
“You have new guys who do fast solos on a record, but there’s no song and nothing to remember the music by,” he said. “I can’t play fast, but I like the slow stuff; I use my pinky a bit, but mostly it’s my ring finger. I call it the ‘Kossoff finger’ because that’s the one Paul Kossoff used for his great vibrato on Free albums.
“So many players think their solos are the main point of the song,” he added. “To me, it’s always been the song first, and that’s why I’ve always dug players like Kossoff and Mick Taylor – guitarists who contribute to the song.”
Of the Money Maker recording sessions, produced by George Drakoulias (Tom Petty, Susan Tedeschi, The Dirty Knobs) and recorded at studios in Atlanta and Los Angeles, Robinson recalled, “The drums and guitar were mostly cut live, and then we overdubbed guitar solos and vocals. We had a huge room and mics all over the amps, which we had cranked. I don’t have a specific setting; I just diddle with the amps ’til I get the right sound. It’s hard to explain what my tone is; it’s not metal and it’s not clean – it’s just my tone.”
Cease – who was fired from the Crowes in ’91 and is now a member of country singer Eric Church’s band – added, “When I started playing with Rich, it was immediately clear that we were playing for a common purpose. The music is the important thing, and guitar is only the tool. I played most of the solos on Shake Your Money Maker, and my leads were cut as spontaneously as possible. The wah at the end of ‘Struttin’ Blues’ took a while because at first I did a fast thing, but didn’t like it. Then our engineer whipped out a wah, which I had never used before, and the whole lead fell into place. Live, we trade a bit because you get tired of playing the same part every night for seven months.”
“I don’t really know how to play in standard tuning anymore; I use open E or G with a capo,” Robinson said, analyzing his own style. “Jeff does ‘She Talks to Angels’ in open E for slide, but basically I’m in open tunings and he’s not. I can’t solo, either; I make up my guitar parts according to what’s pleasing to my ear. We try to play different parts on rhythm to make things more colorful. You could play the exact same thing, like the Young brothers in AC/DC, but that’s not what we do. The Stones’ two different guitarists have always meshed to make different notes for bigger chords. We’ve always tried to do this.”
For Money Maker, Robinson used a ’68 Telecaster, ’68 Les Paul goldtop with a Bigsby vibrato, a Gretsch Roc Jet, and the engineer’s single-cut Schecter, of which he said. “I didn’t like it, but it stayed in tune better than my guitars.” Cease used the same goldtop for much of the album, while deploying a black Les Paul Standard for live work. Session amps included two Marshall 100-watt heads, a Bedrock head, two Marshall cabs, and various Fender Twins and Showmans. On the tour, they used a few Marshall stacks apiece, with no pedals.
Within that hotel suite 33 years ago and still trying to process the Black Crowes’ sudden fame, a young Rich Robinson found irony in how the press portrayed them. “When we first came out, the rock press called us a ‘Southern-rock band’ like Skynyrd or the Georgia Satellites, which is ridiculous. I understand people need to find common ground with a new band. Other people said we’re like the Stones because we’re a five-piece, but so are Aerosmith and Guns ’N Roses. And we use open-G tuning like Keith Richards, but Keith didn’t invent it. I’m not saying we’re doing it all by ourselves, but to me, acts like the Black Crowes, London Quireboys, and Lenny Kravitz are opening up a new kind of rock and roll.”
Fast-forward to 2023; after years of feuding, Rich and Chris Robinson reassembled the Crowes with a fresh lineup, cutting the EP 1972 and recently releasing an in-concert album, Shake Your Money Maker Live. Cease, meanwhile, is still busy touring and recording with Eric Church.
This article originally appeared in VG’s December 2023 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.
