The Black Crowes Shake Your Money Maker

“That's our earliest work,” Chris Robinson says of The Black Crowes' blockbuster 1990 debut. “We're in the studio for the first time. What do we know about microphones? A song like 'She Talks to Angels,' we just wanted to record it. We wanted the acoustic guitar to sound like 'Wild Horses.'” With Chris' younger brother Rich playing guitar, the band wore their retro-rock influences on the sleeves of their leather jackets on the singles “Jealous Again,” “Hard to Handle,” and the indeed Stones-indebted “She Talks to Angels,” even if their influences were more varied than that. “We always liked roots music,” Chris says. “My dad was a folk singer. Bob Dylan was always in our lives. But we are kids of that Urgh! A Music War movie—we loved The Cramps and Dead Kennedys and Black Flag. We stayed away from things that seemed like corporate rock.”
While the band may have cycled through styles and personnel in the decades since, the brothers relished the chance to revisit their formative days for this deluxe edition, which unearths 10 demos, covers, and alternate versions alongside a 14-song live set. “Chris and I got away from Shake Your Money Maker for decades. I hadn't listened to that record since the '90s probably,” says Rich. “It was cool to bring out these different versions of songs and things that we hadn't heard in 30 years, literally.”