Back when I discovered The Black Crowes, I was twelve or thirteen and therefore not really able to articulate this yet, but subconsciously, they immediately appealed to me because their songwriting was so much better than that of most of their peers. And although the band would later occasionally fail to find a middle ground between guitarist Rich Robinson’s fairly tight songwriting and his singing brother Chris’ hippie-inspired jam-heavy demands, their first two albums in particular are examples of some of the finest rock songwriting of all time. Many rock bands would envy a debut album as good as ‘Shake Your Money Maker’.

The Black Crowes are often clumsily categorized as a southern rock band. That is not entirely inaccurate for some of their later records, on which they sometimes went a bit overboard on the americana influences, but ‘Shake Your Money Maker’ is pretty much early seventies British rock through an American filter. The album is full of Stonesy riffs and grooves, but with a stronger emphasis on the soul influences the Robinsons grew up. In a way, The Black Crowes sounds like a transitional band Ronnie Wood would have been in on his way from Faces to the Rolling Stones.

As a result, even the hardest rocking songs on ‘Shake Your Money Maker’ have a distinct soulful feel to them. How that feel presents itself varies from song to song. ‘Thick ‘n Thin’ is built upon a fast shuffle that makes it swing remarkably well for such an uptempo song, while the much slower opener ‘Twice as Hard’ has a rhythm which drags in the best way possible. ‘Hard to Handle’ is an Otis Redding cover that the band somehow manages to make its own despite remaining fairly faithful to the original, while ‘Could I’ve Been So Blind’ has an almost gospel-like vibe in its chorus.

‘Shake Your Money Maker’ contains three ballads, which I would normally consider a bit much for a total of ten songs. They are all quite distinct, however, and two of them are really good. The exception being ‘Seeing Thing’, which drags on for far too long. ‘Sister Luck’ is probably my favorite of the ballads due to its unconventional structure and its lovely low-key chorus, but the more stripped-down ‘She Talks to Angels’ is excellent as well. ‘Jealous Again’ sort of brings together the extremes on the album by being a catchy, super-melodic song built upon a Stonesy riff that feels a bit lighter than average.

Not many bands in the early nineties managed to sound so incredibly authentic in their love of seventies British and American music without sounding like a watered-down version of their influences as The Black Crowes did. And although all their releases are quality albums, ‘Shake Your Money Maker’ and its follow-up ‘The Southern Harmony and Musical Companion’ have a focus that few of their later albums have. That focus all comes down to the excellent songwriting of the Robinsons being top priority over the performances. In fact, that may be why both albums still sound as fresh today as they did upon release.

Recommended tracks: ‘Tick n’ Thin’, ‘Jealous Again’, ‘Hard to Handle’, ‘Sister Luck’