by Whitney Youngs
In 1984, two teenage brothers from Marietta, Georgia, formed the rock band, Mr. Crowe’s Garden, and by 1990, these two brothers, Chris and Rich Robinson, had changed the band’s name to The Black Crowes and recorded “Shake Your Money Maker,” the group’s debut studio album that went on to sell three million copies on account of the hit singles, “Twice As Hard,” “Jealous Again,” “She Talks to Angels” and the 1968 Otis Redding cover, “Hard to Handle.”
The Black Crowes released eight studio albums and toured the world amid changes in personnel and two hiatuses before its official break up in 2015. In this period, the Robinson brothers embarked on solo careers. Chris, in 2011, assembled the Chris Robinson Brotherhood (CRB); Rich founded the now-defunct groups, Hookah Brown and Circle Sound.
So, one may naturally wonder: will The Black Crowes ever reunite?
“Never,” says Chris Robinson.
But all is not lost for fans of this notable rock band, as each brother recently formed groups that pay tribute to The Black Crowes songbook: Rich’s The Magpie Salute and Chris’s As The Crow Flies.
“Those songs are an important part of my life and a lot of people enjoy that music,” explains Chris Robinson on what prompted him to start As The Crow Flies. “I felt that I had made some inroads and headway with CRB, so I just thought it was time. All my friends had time to do it, so something that was dormant then became living.”
Robinson recruited former members of The Black Crowes: guitarist Audley Freed, keyboardist Adam MacDougall and bassist Andy Hess, along with Chris Robinson Brotherhood drummer Tony Leone. The jazz-trained Leone is also in the New York City-based American roots folk group, Ollabelle, which he co-founded with Amy Helm, daughter of The Band drummer, Levon Helm.
In the 2000s, Levon Helm hosted the Midnight Ramble at The Barn, his home and studio in Woodstock, New York. The rambles, open to the public, featured various singers and musicians. Profits from the shows paid for Helm’s medical bills from treatment for throat cancer, which nearly ended his singing career and eventually ended his life. (The last Midnight Ramble took place on March 31, 2012, and Helm died just weeks later on April 19.)
“I met Tony at the first ramble,” recalls Robinson. “Levon got up and said, ‘Tony Leone is going to sit down.’ And I remember thinking, ‘I want to see this guy play drums, the guy that sits down after the master.’ And that’s how our friendship started. Music is language and the people who have the most eloquent language and the most expressive things to add, that’s who I want to know.”
As The Crow Flies will revive the beloved songs of The Black Crowes with a performance at the BeachLife Festival. The songs will remain true to their original arrangements.
“I have all of these other projects to be self-indulgent, to experiment, to do whatever I want, and unashamedly so, but if I am going to sing [The Black Crowes] songs, then I think they should stay close to the spirit of what it’s been and what it could be and that means playing those songs that people know,” Robinson said.
As to whether As The Crow Flies will become a bona fide band with an official tour and studio albums, Robinson doubts it.
“We are just having fun,” he says. “I am super busy with my band and everyone is super busy with their careers and projects, so I just think it’s something, when the opportunity arises, and we can celebrate that music and make a big racket, then we’ll do it.”
With a career spanning more than 30 years, being a musician is all Robinson, 52, knows, even in an music industry markedly different from that of 1990s when people browsed record shops, bought albums and read over liner notes.
“People who are putting together algorithm playlists are getting paid more than the people who made the music,” says Robinson. “But again, I don’t really care, I am not a politician, I am not a business person, I am an artist and I will either succeed or fail by my creative endeavor and how clever I can be in maneuvering through the system. If these streaming companies paid an artist the way we use to get paid then people would be making a living and there would be more musicians, and maybe there would be more positive realities in the world, but streaming is for free and no one is getting paid and no one is getting treated fairly.”
On the other hand, Robinson knows the exploitation of the artist is nothing new, particularly in a capitalist society that places high demands on entertainment.
“Music is cheap as it comes; you’re a musician, they will steal from you, they will rob from you, take from you, it’s always been this way, so why would it be any different today,” adds Robinson. “Those of us who are obsessed enough to continue doing it without being too jaded, that’s the nature of things, someone is always taking advantage of poets and dreamers. They like you on stage, but they don’t really want you in their house, you know what I mean?”
As the Crow Flies play BeachLife Festival May 3.
