{"id":731955,"date":"2026-08-08T23:28:19","date_gmt":"2026-08-08T23:28:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/731955\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T23:28:19","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T23:28:19","slug":"the-black-crowes-shake-your-money-maker-the-story-behind-the-album","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/731955\/","title":{"rendered":"The Black Crowes\u2019 Shake Your Money Maker: the story behind the album"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cWe still laugh about it now,\u201d says The Black Crowes<\/a> frontman Chris Robinson,. \u201cWe were one of those local bands that really wasn\u2019t very popular. If we wrote a riff at sound-check then we played it that night, we\u2019d play the song on the spot, just throw it in there. People weren\u2019t so keen on that sort of thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even their A&R man stumbled upon them by accident. George Drakoulias was in Atlanta scouting other bands for Rick Rubin\u2019s American Recordings label. He happened to be nursing a drink in a bar when he asked the stranger next to him if there were any rock bands in town worth hearing.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd someone mentioned Mr Crowe\u2019s Garden, as we were back then,\u201d Chris recalls. \u201cTypically, we had no shows booked while he was in town, but we had a gig booked in New York coming up, third on the bill of five bands at Drums. George came down and he said we were all right. And I guess we were. He kept coming down to Atlanta after that and we kept working on demos.<\/p>\n

Latest Videos From Louder<\/p>\n

\u201cAll these bands in Atlanta were working hard on their repertoires and their stage shows, and we were the worst \u2013 no work ethic, non-career minded, no local following. But for some reason we always had people flying in from LA or New York to see what we were doing. We just thought they\u2019ll take us to dinner. We\u2019d order eight pitchers of margaritas and by the time the gig started we were pissed out of our heads and barely able to finish the show. They\u2019d fly back home and we thought we\u2019d got one over on them.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

\"The\n<\/p>\n

The Black Crowes in 1990: (l-r) Rich Robinson, Jeff Cease, Chris Robinson, Steve Gorman, Johnny Colt (Image credit: Rob Verhorst\/Redferns)<\/p>\n

Dining on someone else\u2019s dime and playing live intermittently enabled the band to focus on making what would become their debut album for the American label. Yet while they were recording Shake Your Money Maker, they hadn\u2019t even signed the deal. And George Drakoulias hadn\u2019t produced a full album before, so he was also feeling his way. They hunkered down in a studio and wrote and rehearsed for days at a time.<\/p>\n

You may like<\/p>\n

\u201cThat really was when we built up our relationship with George,\u201d says Chris. \u201cWe were kids, we had a few guitars, a couple of amps\u2026 We didn\u2019t have a budget for food, we kind of ate whatever George didn\u2019t finish. It was fantastic, though, a real adventure for us. We were thinking, we\u2019re making a record, then we\u2019ll get a deal and we\u2019ll try to get us much out of this experience as possible and then figure out what we\u2019re going to do with our lives. It seemed to us that you had to be an asshole to get on MTV or in showbiz. We weren\u2019t interested in that so much.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was just like that,\u201d agrees the other Robinson brother, guitarist Rich. \u201cThe studio was a place where Brendan O\u2019Brien had worked. He was just our engineer then, which is very strange when you think about it now. I moved into my 20s in the middle of recording our first album \u2013 as good a way to start a new decade as any.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sign up below to get the latest from Classic Rock, plus exclusive special offers, direct to your inbox!<\/p>\n

The Black Crowes – Jealous Again – YouTube
\n\"The<\/p>\n

Watch On <\/a><\/p>\n

Two years later, Rich had come up with a song that would make the final cut of the album, the elegiac She Talks To Angels.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe Talks To Angels has always held up for us,\u201d says Rich, \u201cThat was the first song I wrote. And when George heard it he really liked it. Chris wasn\u2019t sure, but George insisted, said we needed it on the record. Chris likes to move on, he doesn\u2019t tend to dwell on the past, and I think that song had been around a while by the time we got to making the album and he just wanted to hear new stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a George record,\u201d Chris says, but not unkindly. \u201cWe were so excited and eager, and George was very methodical \u2013 thank God. He made a very radio-friendly record. It took a long time because we weren\u2019t used to the studio, we weren\u2019t used to things being perfect. But we were thinking, this is how it\u2019s done so this is how we\u2019ll do it. Though when we bought our freedom with that record selling millions of copies in the States, we never made a perfect record again.\u201d<\/p>\n

What to read next<\/p>\n

Both Robinsons agree that the album still stands up 20 years later, even if they can hear the band\u2019s naivety between the grooves.<\/p>\n

\n

\"The\n<\/p>\n

(Image credit: Michel Linssen\/Redferns)<\/p>\n

\u201cWe still play pretty much everything from that record,\u201d says Chris. \u201cThe only song that\u2019s been lost is Struttin\u2019 Blues. Seein\u2019 Things is still a band favourite and a song that we probably play twice a week if we\u2019re on the road. I hear songs on the radio like Jealous Again and I like it. It\u2019s still a big part of our show. It\u2019s an iconic song for us, as is Twice As Hard. I still love to sing Sister Luck when we do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThough it was Sister Luck that was really hard to capture in the studio,\u201d Rich remembers. \u201cAs a band we hadn\u2019t played much together, and trying to find that dynamic was really hard for us on some songs. We recorded Sister Luck several times just trying to get it really right. But it holds up as an album, I think. I always view our records as what they meant at the time. I think when you\u2019re that young and things happen that fast, you really wear your influences on your sleeve. And the only frame of reference you have is wanting to make music that moves people as much as the music that I loved moved me. That was always the goal. So to me it was the best possible record we could\u2019ve made then. I still think the songs are pretty great.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Black Crowes – She Talks To Angels (Official Video) – YouTube
\n\"The<\/p>\n

Watch On <\/a><\/p>\n

So did the record-buying public. Shake Your Money Maker sold more than seven million copies, and on the back of it the band went off on a world tour that would take them away from Atlanta for almost two years, playing more than 350 shows.<\/p>\n

\u201cI remember us coming over to London to play the Marquee club, and thinking the queue outside was for someone else,\u201d Rich laughs. \u201cThe audiences over there were unbelievable compared to America. We played the Marquee, and then went out opening for the Dogs D\u2019Amour. Then months later, at the end of the Shake Your Money Maker tour, we came back to London and did Hammersmith Odeon. That sort of wrapped up it all up. We came full circle, and then we got on the plane and finally went home.\u201d<\/p>\n

Originally published in Classic Rock issue 150 (September 2010)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cWe still laugh about it now,\u201d says The Black Crowes frontman Chris Robinson,. \u201cWe were one of those…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":731956,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[96,128,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-731955","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-entertainment","tag-music","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/731955","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=731955"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/731955\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/731956"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=731955"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=731955"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=731955"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}