After the release of The Black Crowes’ debut album Shake Your Money Maker on the second Tuesday of February 1990, Chris and Rich Robinson found themselves embraced by the vanguard of rock ‘n’ roll. During a hinge-period in pop music between Guns ‘N’ Roses and grunge, the brothers became conduits for what the press saw as revivalism but was in effect contemporary rock informed by the essence of musical forbears.
Shake Your Money Maker, which The Black Crowes play in its entirety on their current tour that stops for two evenings in Las Vegas, put them on the radar of the likes of Mott the Hoople’s Ian Hunter, Joe Cocker, Izzy Stradlin and Ronnie Lane. All of them wanted to meet the band that seemed to be carrying the torch for guitar-drums-bass traditions, but it was perhaps an encounter with wheelchair-bound Lane that was most poignant.
The Black Crowes were often compared to the Rolling Stones and the Rod Stewart-fronted Faces. Lane played in that band as well as its precursor The Small Faces, featuring the late Steve Marriott on vocals. Chris Robinson’s range, tone and phrasing were reminiscent of Marriot’s powerful pipes, but sounded entirely original when applied to the debut LP’s rocking “Jealous Again,” Otis Redding cover “Hard to Handle” or heart-rending ballad “She Talks to Angels.”
Those songs are featured on the setlists of the current tour, which follows the reissue of an expanded version of Shake Your Money Maker that the Robinsons worked on with producer George Drakoulias. Last year, they released 1972, an album of covers of Stones, Stewart and T. Rex classics the current incarnation of The Black Crowes (with bassist Sven Pipien, a former roommate of Chris Robinson and founding Crowes drummer Steve Gorman) can draw on for encores.
Pearl at Palms, 8:30 p.m. Feb. 10-11, starting at $69.95. ticketmaster.com
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