‘Shake Your Money Maker’ was the debut studio album by the American rock and roll band The Black Crowes, released in February 1990 on Def American Recordings it’s an incredible 30 years old next year. It was an album that changed my musical world.
Named after the classic blues song by Elmore James it set the green light to a legion of bands that soulful, bluesy rock and roll was not an anachronism but something that could be fresh and exciting. The Crowes landed just as the late eighties Rock scene was entering crisis after years of ever more generic Hair Metal bands had squandered their chance to keep Rock and Roll fun and taken something truly great and made it derivative. Don’t get me wrong there were plenty of great bands playing 80’s style Hard Rock but The Crowes offered something different, and man did they do it well.
I had to go see if they could cut it ‘live’ when they announced their U shows later that year and I remember heading down to London in June 1990 to check the out at their first UK date at the Marquee with a few mates. I disliked London as a teenager (and avoided it as much as possible as an adult) but sometimes us ‘Northerners’ had to bite the bullet and visit the metropolis, and I must admit for me it was only ever to see a band.
Sadly working the day after it was a sleepless night and a long drive home but the band were that good I decided to make my one and only visit ever to Walsall a couple of days later, this time flying solo as no one wanted to visit Walsall for some reason. The venue Junction 10 which was actually close to junction 10 of the M6 was pretty decent I remember. I must admit the only thing I knew about Walsall prior to that was that the novelist Jerome K Jerome had been born there and that’s all I know to this day. But I digress. And to digress again, I think the venue closed a couple of years later.
After that I missed Birmingham show on 10th to see I think it was Death Angel who a mate already had tickets for before getting a freebie for the Newcastle show at the Riverside. Now in those early days the Crowes played largely the same setlist and I remember a few songs that I never heard again until much later – one called You’re Such A Pity’ and the other Kick the Devil Outta Me’ as well as of course their cover of Lennon’s ‘Jealous Guy’
Newcastle as always was a blast and I like to think that Chris might have picked up his Newcastle Brown habit at that show? I’m not sure that ‘Gibraltar’ was in place in those days though?
Then it was onto the support slots where The Black Crowes supported another of my favourite bands of the time – The Dogs D’Amour. The first date in Glasgow was too far and I think maybe even sold out but the second date was my hometown gig at Nottingham Rock City, and that was the first of only two occasions I saw The Dogs outplayed as the crowd got really into it(the only other time was the day after).
I made Manchester the next night but the final date at The Astoria in London was too much – I couldn’t possibly visit London twice in a month or, as I told myself at the time I’d be talking funny the next day.
It was a great tour and ‘Moneymaker’ is still my favourite Crowes album there was just something about the simplicity and immediacy of those songs that resonated with the teenage me, and continue to give me shivers today.
Along the way I managed to wait around long enough I think it was at Newcastle to grab a few signatures and guitar pics. In those days it was all in black marker pen, well before the days of metallic sharpies and taking a camera to a gig unless you were paid to do so was the realm of the seriously uncool or the bootlegger. Johnny was friendly and signed everything, as did Steve and Jeff, and thinking back I think it was only Rich who seemed a little shy. I didn’t manage to grab Chris signature until Nottingham when I finally completed the set on the ‘Jealous Again’ 12” single and a Kerrang poster I found the other day!
There was nothing like that tour. The next time I saw the Crowes was at Ronnie Scott’s in June the next year a few weeks before the Monsters of Rock Festival at Donington and then a few weeks later in Manchester on September 26th before Oxford, Newcastle, Liverpool and then the last show Jeff Cease played at the Hammersmith Odeon in 1991. By the time of those later dates the band were injecting more covers into the set that hinted at what might be coming (and also where they came from) – including Bukka White’s ‘Shake ‘Em On Down’; Ry Cooder’s ‘Boomer’s Story’, Dylan’s Rainy Day Women #12 & 35’ and The Allman’s ‘Dreams’ to go with their sublime Otis Redding cover ‘Hard To Handle.’
My mate who went to the first night at Hammy O, also got to hear ‘Thorn in My Pride’ a taste of ‘Southern Harmony’ and ‘Miserable’ too – a song they only played 22 times live. They also played ‘My Morning Song’ at one of those dates but I forget which.
After that things conspired against me – I moved to Australia in 1992 and despite trying to get to see the band over the years illness, missed flights and rescheduled dates kept us apart. The Crowes never came Downunder until 16 years later. On March 26th 2008 they played my new hometown of Perth Australia (they played one solitary song from ’Moneymaker’).
I of course followed the tour (though doing that in Australia isn’t as simple or cheap as doing it in the UK had been all those years before) first to Adelaide, then Melbourne where I met Adam at the venue in the bar and had a chat, he looked after me with great tickets to Sydney and Wollongong and was a genuinely nice guy (I was just amazed we were chatting away in the middle of the bar and no one but I knew who he was) I also took in Canberra and only a lack of funds and holiday leave stopped me getting to the final date in Cairns. But I got my autographs, my guitar pics, a huge billboard sized poster of the tour and a bottle of Newcastle Brown ale.
The odd thing about that tour was looking back and revisiting the ‘Moneymaker’ album that had started it all for me. In Perth we only heard ‘Jealous Again’ but the next date in Adelaide we got a veritable embarrassment of riches – with ‘Hard To Handle’; ‘She Talks To Angels’; ‘Waitin’ Guilty’ and ‘Jealous Again’ all getting an airing. In Melbourne there was only ‘Twice As Hard’; but we got ‘Hard To Handle’; ‘Jealous Again’ and ‘She Talks To Angels’ in Sydney. ‘Jealous Again’ and ‘Twice As Hard’ were rolled out in Wollongong at the Entertainment Centre where I again caught up with Adam, and ‘Hard To Handle’ was the solitary ‘Moneymaker’ track in Canberra.
It was Cairns, the show I didn’t make, that got one of the songs I’d been waiting for in ‘Sister Luck’ and nowhere got the wonderful ‘Seeing Things’ and in that one little snippet you have it all – two of the songs that changed my musical life that I never got to hear again.
The Black Crowes are touring next year, at least Rich and Chris are under that name. I don’t hold huge hopes they will be back Downunder anytime soon on that tour but when they do I know I’ll be there…
