Black Crows

Throughout Three Snakes and One Charm, their most powerful work yet, The Black Crowes create a sound and sensibility that could only come from them -- a mix of tradition and decadence, a place where blues, country, soul, bluegrass, gospel and psychedelia are boldly sculpted by the band into something that is urgent and modern in both musical presentation and attitude. The diverse yet seamless 12-song album -- built on the solid songwriting partnership of CHRIS and RICH ROBINSON -- crystallizes elements of the band's three previous records, while creating a new sound that is fresh and adventurous. The rock that rolls The Black Crowes is timeless, timely and infused with an unshakable spirit and imbued with individuality and experimentation. As Rolling Stone noted of their previous album, Amorica: "Their swagger intact and their musical inventiveness progressing, The Black Crowes are evolving like the great bands they respect."

>"Amorica was definitely an intense record," relates singer/lyricist CHRIS ROBINSON of his group's million-selling and critically acclaimed 1994 American Recordings release. "Three Snakes and One Charm isn't complacent, just more warm, focused and positive. Probably for the first time since Shake Your Money Maker (1990), the band really came together. I think when it got to a point when we really thought about life and being in the band and making a commitment, we decided the band is just bigger than us as individuals."

Digging deeper, CHRIS reveals: "We were going to break the band up. Last year we did six weeks on tour in Europe and then three months in the States before we went back to Europe and did H.O.R.D.E. (For) that three months in the States, RICH got his own bus...Me and RICH -- we've always loved each other, we just didn't like each other for a while. "It was just sort of like, 'OK, somebody better just inventory all our gear and sell it all, because we're fuckin' outta here.' I think it took that to get to this. You're learning, as the Louvin Brothers said."

A renewed sense of community and family was enhanced by the recording process, which took place with Jack Joseph Puig, at the Chateau de la Crowe in Atlanta, a rented home-turned-studio. "It's a totally different vibe doing it in a house, much more conducive to being creative," says guitarist RICH ROBINSON, who stretches out vocally on Three Snakes and One Charm, singing lead for the first time on parts of "How Much For Your Wings" and harmonizing on choruses to nine of the dozen tunes on which CHRIS sings lead. Along the way, they achieve that special yin/yang harmony only siblings can intuitively reach.

The results are undeniable, thanks to The Black Crowes' "positive head space," as drummer STEVE GORMAN puts it, "a renewal of vows." This emerged, in part, because of the band's triumphant headlining spot on the H.O.R.D.E. tour (which was the most successful H.O.R.D.E. trek in its four-year existence and one that outsold Lollapalooza in many cities). You can hear the resultant freshness in songs like the album's kick-off, "Under A Mountain," a striking tune replete with RICH ROBINSON's rich, open-tuned chords, and it's clear he's continuing to creatively evolve as a songwriter. The track "(Only) Halfway to Everywhere" reflects CHRIS ROBINSON's fondness for Sly & The Family Stone-style and features vocalist Gary "Mudbone" Cooper and Gary Shider of the P-Funk All Stars "We put the song together," says CHRIS, "in that sorta Temptations-style, the three different voices, a totally Sly thing." Other guests on the album include the Dirty Dozen (formerly the Dirty Dozen Brass Band), singer Erica Stewart of Ziggy Marley And The Melody Makers, singer Barbara Mitchell, who guested on the band's second album, The Southern Harmony And Musical Companion, ex-American Music Club's Bruce Kaphan on pedal steel and banjo player Rick Taylor.

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