The Black Crowes, the highly influential, critically and commercially successful band has disbanded, per an announcement today from founding member Rich Robinson. Robinson, the group’s guitarist and songwriter, founded the band with his brother Chris in their hometown of Marietta, GA. The 2013 line-up for The Black Crowes included Steve Gorman, Sven Pipien, Adam MacDougall, Chris Robinson, Rich Robinson and Jackie Greene.
Rich Robinson released a statement concerning the band’s conclusion in which he states, “It is with great disappointment and regret that after having the privilege of writing and performing the music of The Black Crowes over the last 24 years, I find myself in the position of saying that the band has broken up.”
“I hold my time with the Black Crowes with the utmost respect and sincerest appreciation,” he continued. “It is a huge swath of my life’s body of work. I couldn’t be more proud of what we accomplished and deeply moved by the relationships people created and maintained with my music. That alone is the greatest honor of being a musician. I love my brother and respect his talent but his present demand that I must give up my equal share of the band and that our drummer for 28 years and original partner, Steve Gorman, relinquish 100% of his share, reducing him to a salaried employee, is not something I could agree to.
“There are so many people who have helped and supported us along the way,” Robinson concluded. “I want to give a heartfelt thank you to all of our fans, our friends behind the scenes, and to everyone who was a part of The Black Crowes.”
In March 2014, when asked about the future of the band, Chris Robinson, who had just released the Chris Robinson Brotherhood album Phosphorescent Harvest, seemed to imply the end was near for the Crowes. “It felt like, in my mind, that my Black Crowes tour of duty ended on December 14, 2013 and I probably won’t deal with it for awhile,” he told Ultimate Classic Rock. “We wanted to see if it would work, we took a hiatus three years ago. Again, the CRB didn’t start out as a side-project, but we started it in a very specific way, to stay in the state of California, to play a lot of very small shows and do our California residency and get the music out there. You throw your line out there and you wait to see if your bobber starts making waves, you know? We sunk everything into the CRB. We found ourselves a van, and in that van we did 15,300 miles in the state of California. Just us in a van with our gear and tour manager. When everybody is there you start off at a snail’s pace and you finish that first part of nine weeks in a rocketship, that’ll really turn your head around. And your soul, as well.
“I feel like the Black Crowes, we really had a great time,” he added. “But I can’t think about it because I’m really so focused and we’re so excited to get back on the road and we’re really excited about Phosphorescent Harvest. You search for something, like what are we going to say with this album, this collection of songs, how do they fit into our repertoire, where do we take them, how do we expand conceptually and musically, you know? My heart and soul is full, it’s a full tank on CRB. I don’t really know anything about the Crowes right now.”
The Black Crowes released its first studio album, Shake Your Money Maker, in 1990. Supported by singles “Hard to Handle”, “She Talks to Angels”, “Jealous Again”, “Twice As Hard”, “Sister Luck”, and “Seeing Things”, their debut album received multi-platinum certification and eventually sold over three million copies.Their cover of Otis Redding’s “Hard to Handle” and their acoustic ballad “She Talks to Angels” both achieved top 30 positions on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1991. The band opened for ZZ Top on a tour sponsored by Miller Beer, from which they were fired in March 1991 after Chris Robinson’s verbal tirade aimed at Miller. The band launched its own tour that May and later took part in a Monsters of Rock tour in the Soviet Union, where they opened for Mötley Crüe and Queensrÿche, among others.
After replacing guitarist Jeff Cease with Marc Ford from blues-rock power trio Burning Tree, the band released its second album The Southern Harmony and Musical Companion in 1992. The album debuted at number 1 on the Billboard 200. The effort spawned the singles “Remedy”, “Sting Me”, “Thorn in My Pride” and “Hotel Illness”, all of which topped the Billboard Album Rock Tracks chart. “Remedy” and “Thorn in My Pride” also charted on the Hot 100 in 1992. Because of the prevalence of studio musician, and former Allman brother, Chuck Leavell’s piano and organ parts on the first release, the band hired a keyboardist of its own, Eddie Harsch. He became a permanent member of the group beginning on the “High As the Moon” tour.
In 1994 the now six-piece released Amorica after scrapping the unreleased album Tall the previous year. The album eventually reached gold status, selling over 500,000 copies. The album cover featured a photo showing a woman’s pubic hair. As some stores would not carry the album due to the cover, an alternate version was released simultaneously with a solid black background. While on tour to support Amorica, the band opened for the Grateful Dead in Tampa on April 7, 1995, the only time the bands performed together.
Former members of The Black Crowes include Johnny Colt, Eddie Harsch, Audley Freed, Greg Rzab, Andy Hess, Bill Dobrow, Paul Stacey, Rob Clores and Luther Dickinson.
