The Black Crowes

Formed by Marietta, Georgia-raised brothers Chris and Rich Robinson in the mid-’80s, The Black Crowes have made a career out of being ahead of their time. The group’s surprise stardom in 1990 challenged pop metal’s commercial supremacy a full year before grunge broke. Fueled by a swaggering rendition of Otis Redding’s “Hard to Handle,” Shake Your Money Maker was a runaway success that inspired more than a few rock acts to ditch hairspray and Spandex for vintage Rolling Stones and Faces albums. On subsequent outings like 1992’s double-platinum The Southern Harmony and Musical Companion and 1999’s By Your Side, The Black Crowes serve up an earthy throwback sound that preceded the retro blues rock boom of the late 2000s. Even when the brothers started devoting more time to their solo careers, the rock veterans once again proved prescient when 2009’s jammy Before the Frost… Until the Freeze helped pave the way for a 21st-century resurgence in Grateful Dead-style lysergic Americana. After 15 years between albums, the band recorded 2024’s Happiness Bastards in just two and a half weeks—only to lay down 2026’s A Pound of Feathers with the same producer (Jay Joyce) in 10 days and still capture a flurry of classic influences on the brash-as-can-be album opener “Profane Prophecy.” Talking to Apple Music’s Zane Lowe in 2024, Chris Robinson underscored the importance of getting back to the spontaneity and naivety they felt during their first time in the studio: “I think great rock ’n’ roll can still tap into that.”