The Black Crowes - Shake Your Money Maker
Hailing from Atlanta Georgia in the US, the brothers Robinson and their band of merry men debuted with their take of the southern blues and hard rock.
The band wore their influences on their sleeves from the riffs of Aerosmith and The Faces to the vocal swagger of Mick Jagger. This was the most definitive album by The Crowes.Latter albums wandered away from good songwriting into blues jams and mainly lost the plot. The pace on this debut was never captured again until 1999's 'By Your Side' collection.
The band released four singles from this album; the opening two rock out tracks 'Twice As Hard' and 'Jealous Again'and the bittersweet ode to an Atlantean friend hooked on heroin 'She Talks To Angels'. The fourth of which was 'Hard To Handle', which was their take on the Otis Redding classic and it was this single that broke them into the mainstream. It is the defining track on the album and a stroke of genius, as I believe that the melody was actually taken from a Buddy Guy song.
Live Version Of Hard To Handle From 1990
The album is also full of other strong tracks and not just the singles, the very stones 'Thick n Thin', the raw 'Struttin' Blues' and the other ballad 'Seeing Things'.
The disc finishes with the song 'Stare it Cold' a look into the future as they ripped this off for the first single of their next album 'Remedy'.
Not an original album by any stretch of the imagination, but one that knows how to party!
Why I ♥ This Album
Many of the tracks conjur up significant memories. During 1990 this album was not left off the turntable at many a party,
including the few we had over at Karen Ruse's parents house, which was located in the base at Middle Wallop.
Karen was a great friend of mine for nearly a decade, always there to pick up the pieces when things had gone wrong and a great listener. Not just for me but many of the others in our circle of friends. She caught a lot of flack for this from jealous girlfriends who didn't really understand the relationship Karen had
with people.
I met Karen not long after my first long relationship finished. I must have been about 18/19 years old and was basically like most lads of that age, just for a good time.
I promised Karen all sorts of things just to make her mine and looking back I realise that I was a bit of a git and quite childish as I still tried to play the field. After coming out of a long term relationship I wasn't in a place where I wanted to settle down into another.
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| Karen & I at the London Astoria |
My behaviour really did hurt Karen and for that I will always be truly sorry, and in Karmic terms it did indeed come back and bite me bad (See the Soul Asylum post).
After that Karen was a strength in my life and didn't hold too much of a grudge against me, most of the time. She was sometimes fiery (must have been the red hair) and would not stand
for any BS from anyone. Sometimes that strong facade would be lowered down and the vunerable side would show.
If I could have had a best woman at my wedding as opposed to a best man then Karen would have got the job. I think it was during the months leading up to my wedding that I begun to lose touch with Karen, as obviously I had a lot going on and she had met a guy called Simon and was building her relationship with him.
We both got back in contact with each other around 2008 via Facebook, and the great news was that she was still with Simon.
Then Clare Swaddling began to arrange a pub reunion for the following Febuary in Andover at The Angel. So that Saturday I arranged to stay at my mum's, I had the dog's bed (another story entirely) and was ready to party!
I was feeling quite nervous about the whole thing as I hadn't seen everyone for about 12 years, how would they react? Did they still remember I was a bit of a git (or as I like to call myself a heartbreaker) back then?
The good news is we all got along and had a good time, Karen and I just picked up from where we left off.
Thank you Karen for being such a good friend x
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| Reunion At The Angel |
Awh!! good post!! :)
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