| Three Snakes and One Charm | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | ||||
| Studio album by | ||||
| Released | July 23, 1996 | |||
| Recorded | 1995 | |||
| Genre | Blues rock, hard rock | |||
| Length | 48:38 | |||
| Label | American | |||
| Producer | Jack Joseph Puig and The Black Crowes | |||
| The Black Crowes chronology | ||||
| ||||
| Review scores | |
|---|---|
| Source | Rating |
| AllMusic |   [1] |
| CMJ | ? [2] |
| Entertainment Weekly | B− [3] |
| NME | (8/10) [4] |
| Rolling Stone | [5] |
| Wall of Sound | (80/100) [6] |
Three Snakes and One Charm is the fourth studio album by American rock band The Black Crowes. It was released on July 23, 1996.
During the "Amorica or Bust" tour of 1995, many of the relationships within The Black Crowes had soured, including that of brothers Chris and Rich Robinson. "We just fucking hated each other," Rich noted in the September 1996 issue of Acoustic Guitar magazine. "It's just a normal phase bands go through. There was a lot of emotional baggage, and everyone got on each other's nerves. We almost broke up a few times, but finally we all let go and moved on." [7]
Chris echoed his brother's sentiment in the March 1996 issue of Guitar World magazine. "Everyone goes through changes," he stated. "The trick is trying to remember that and keep it together, and having respect for everyone and not judging people because you're all goin' through changes. Perseverance is the thing. You have to get your ego in place." [8]
With this new attitude in place, the band began planning what would be their fourth studio album. Their previous album, 1994's Amorica , was very much a studio recording, with a great deal of overdubs and other musical flourishes. This was a distinct change from the band's sophomore effort, 1992's The Southern Harmony and Musical Companion , which was recorded in eight days with little to no overdubs. A great deal of this was attributed to producer Jack Joseph Puig, who manned the board for Amorica. "The eight day album was coming off of 15 months of touring and we were still just flying," then-bassist Johnny Colt told RockNet in 1995. "This time we took some time off beforehand and tried to slow down...We consciously tried to take more time. I'm not even saying we really needed it, but we wanted to try it. We have worked ourselves into a position to afford to spend a little bit more time and try to make a different step." [9]
Chris Robinson had a slightly different tone to his take on Amorica. "(It) wasn't hard to make because it was our third album," he told MOJO magazine in July 1996. "It was hard to make because we were depressed and in an angry, confused place. Most of it was personal shit." [10]
Rather than make another "studio" record like Amorica, the band opted for a different approach in the latter months of 1995. "Chris suggested that rather than book a hotel for six months, it'd be cooler if we rented a house for everyone to stay in," Rich Robinson noted in 1996. "So Chris moved into the house, and I brought my little board over to work on the demos. It sounded so cool that I brought my big board over, and the rest of my shit, and we rented a Neve sidecar for 10 extra channels. And we just did it." [7]
As pre-production for Three Snakes and One Charm began, several songs were written with Chris and Rich Robinson on different sides of the United States. Rich would write and record music in Atlanta, GA and send his results to Chris in Los Angeles, CA. "The long-distance writing was just something we did to get the process more concrete," Rich told Acoustic Guitar magazine in 1996. "I had a lot of bits and pieces that I'd written on tour and I needed to hear what Chris would do with them."
Once the basic ideas were recorded to tape, the band assembled in the house in Atlanta, GA (dubbed Chateau de la Crowe by the band) to begin the Three Snakes sessions. Then-keyboardist Eddie Harsch recalls: ""When we got to Atlanta, Chris and Rich put us in a room and played us the demos. The record was basically written. Twelve songs with vocals, dogs barking in the background, everything. We just looked at each other, like, 'What do you want us to do? It's all here." [11] There proved to be a great deal more to do, with the band spending several weeks refining their original demos. Plus, a few other songs were written on the spot, including "Under a Mountain" and "Better When You're Not Alone." [7] In total, the band recorded twenty-six songs during the sessions. [7]
It was during the recording of Three Snakes that the band decided to introduce new elements into the music, the most noticeable being a horn section on "(Only) Halfway to Everywhere" and "Let Me Share The Ride." "That was the Dirty Dozen Brass Band," Rich commented in 1996. "They opened for us last year (1995) through the whole American leg of (our) tour. Chris just said, 'Fuck it. We've never had horns that we like. Let's go for it.'" [7]
The band attributed the sonic textures of Three Snakes to the nuances of recording in a house. "It's a totally different vibe doing it in a house, much more conducive to being creative," Rich Robinson commented in 1996. Other members of the band credited the more communal atmosphere of Chateau de la Crowe with making the album a success. "We lived and breathed together all day long," remembers then-bassist Johnny Colt. "It was a caravan of people; people upstairs watching crazy art films, people cutting tracks and eating food. There were dogs running everywhere. And (producer) Jack (Joseph Puig) was pulling his hair out over the whole thing of course." [12]
Then-guitarist Marc Ford concurred with Colt's sentiment, adding that the atmosphere created by recording in a house fostered his musical relationship with Rich Robinson. "It just keeps flowering," he noted in 1996. "Rich used to insist he was a rhythm player, and I told him to stick his toe as a lead player in the water a little bit, and now we're playing with each other, listening to each other. You can do all that sound-weaving." [12]
With the bulk of the recording process done, the band returned to Ocean Way Studios in Los Angeles to put on the finishing touches and begin the mastering process. [7]
The Black Crowes began the supporting tour for Three Snakes and One Charm on July 5, 1996, in Burbank, California, where the album was given its world premiere. [13] The album would see its official release on July 23, 1996, several weeks into a world tour that would go straight through the end of the year and into the next, expanding their in-concert repertoire to more than 90 songs. [11] As a means of promotion, the band performed several radio and television broadcasts to showcase the new album. The most noteworthy of these appearances came when the band appeared on the television program VH1 Storytellers in the Summer of 1996. The show was relatively new at the time, with each episode capturing artists performing in front of a (mostly small and intimate) live audience, telling stories about their music, writing experiences and memories. [14] The Black Crowes' installment was the fifth in the series, which saw 87 episodes over its original run.
Three Snakes garnered generally positive reviews upon its release. Stephen Thomas Erlewine gave album three stars on AllMusic , stating the album was "a winning album, mainly because the Black Crowes' musicianship continues to deepen -- the musical fusions and eclecticism are seamless." [15] Rolling Stone magazine also gave the album three stars, noting that it "works best when it forsakes album-oriented pretension for singular clarity, from the oblique Beatles references on 'Nebakanezer' and 'Bring On, Bring On' to the Sly Stone-cum-Al Green funk of '(Only) Halfway to Everywhere' and the warm acoustic resignation of 'Better When You're Not Alone.'" [16]
The album's cover logo resembles a 45 rpm record insert. A limited box set edition of the album was also made available, comprising seven 7-inch vinyl EPs, a 45rpm custom adapter in shape of the album's cover logo and a one-sided poster of the band. [17]
All songs written by Chris Robinson and Rich Robinson, except where noted.
1998 reissue bonus tracks
The Black Crowes
Additional Personnel
| Chart (1996) | Peak position |
|---|---|
| Australian Albums (ARIA) [18] | 23 |
| Austrian Albums (Ö3 Austria) [19] | 35 |
| Belgian Albums (Ultratop Flanders) [20] | 47 |
| Dutch Albums (Album Top 100) [21] | 39 |
| Finnish Albums (Suomen virallinen lista) [22] | 19 |
| German Albums (Offizielle Top 100) [23] | 38 |
| Scottish Albums (OCC) [24] | 18 |
| Swedish Albums (Sverigetopplistan) [25] | 23 |
| Swiss Albums (Schweizer Hitparade) [26] | 35 |
| UK Albums (OCC) [27] | 17 |
| US Billboard 200 [28] | 15 |
The Black Crowes are an American rock band formed in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1984. Their discography includes eight studio albums, four live albums and several charting singles. The band was signed to Def American Recordings in 1989 by producer George Drakoulias and released their debut album, Shake Your Money Maker, the following year. Their follow-up, The Southern Harmony and Musical Companion, reached the top of the Billboard 200 in 1992. The albums Amorica (1994), Three Snakes and One Charm (1996), By Your Side (1999), and Lions (2001) followed, with each showing moderate popularity but failing to capture the chart successes of the band's first two albums. After a hiatus from 2002 to 2005, the band regrouped and toured for several years before releasing Warpaint in 2008, which reached number 5 on the Billboard chart.
Christopher Mark Robinson is an American musician. He founded the rock band The Black Crowes, then known as Mr. Crowe's Garden, with his brother Rich Robinson in 1984. Chris is the lead singer of The Black Crowes, and he and his brother are the only continuous members of the Crowes. He is the vocalist and rhythm guitarist for the Chris Robinson Brotherhood, which was formed in 2011 while the Black Crowes were on hiatus. Robinson is noted for his high tenor vocal range and bluesy vocal runs.
Amorica is the third studio album by U.S. rock band The Black Crowes. Spawned from the band's unreleased Tall album sessions, Amorica was released Nov. 1, 1994, on American Recordings. Amorica reached gold status in the United States, shipping 500,000 copies.
Shake Your Money Maker is the debut studio album by American rock band the Black Crowes, released on February 13, 1990, on Def American Recordings. It is the only album by the band to feature guitarist Jeff Cease. The album is named after a classic blues song written by Elmore James. The Black Crowes have played the song live many times over the years, but it is not included on this album.
This Desert Life is the third studio album from American rock band Counting Crows. The cover art is by noted comic book artist Dave McKean, best known for his work with Neil Gaiman, and was adapted from the cover art McKean did for Gaiman's picture book The Day I Swapped My Dad for Two Goldfish. The album had sold more than 2 million copies worldwide by February 2002. The song "Hanginaround" was the first of three singles released from the album, and the highest-charting single off the album, reaching number 1 on the US Billboard Adult Alternative Songs chart and number 28 on the Billboard Hot 100, as well as top ten in Canada and top 50 in a number of other countries.
The Southern Harmony and Musical Companion is the second studio album by American rock band the Black Crowes, released on May 12, 1992. It was the first album by the band to feature Marc Ford on lead guitar, replacing Jeff Cease, who was fired the year before, and the first to feature keyboardist Eddie Harsch. The album's name derives from the full name of the Southern Harmony, an influential 1835 hymnal compiled by William Walker.
Hard Candy is the fourth studio album by American rock band Counting Crows, released in the United Kingdom on July 7, 2002, and the following day in the United States.
By Your Side is the fifth studio album by American rock band The Black Crowes. It was released in early 1999 on Columbia Records, following the band's move from American Recordings, after second guitarist Marc Ford and bassist Johnny Colt had left the band in 1997. Audley Freed and Sven Pipien were hired as the new guitarist and bassist, respectively, although Rich Robinson played all the guitar parts on the album. By Your Side was recorded in New York City during the second quarter of 1998 and produced by Kevin Shirley. It comprised songs written in the studio, revised songs from pre-production and re-recorded songs from the abandoned 1997 album Band.
Richard Spencer Robinson is an American musician and founding member of the rock and roll band the Black Crowes. Along with older brother Chris Robinson, Rich formed the band in 1984 while the two were attending Walton High School in Marietta, Georgia. At age 15, Rich wrote the music for "She Talks to Angels", which became one of the band's biggest hits.
Marc Ford is an American blues-rock guitarist. He is a former guitarist of the rock and roll band The Black Crowes, the former lead guitarist of The Magpie Salute and the leader of his own bands: Burning Tree, Marc Ford & The Neptune Blues Club, Jefferson Steelflex, Fuzz Machine and Marc Ford & The Sinners.
Sho' Nuff: The Complete Black Crowes is a five-disc box set from The Black Crowes. It contains their first four studio albums and a bonus live EP. The studio albums were remastered, contain bonus tracks and each include a screen saver and music videos presented in multimedia format. The Sho' Nuff edition of Amorica includes neither 'Tied Up and Swallowed' nor 'Chevrolet'.
The Lost Crowes is a compilation album by American rock band The Black Crowes. The two-disc compilation comprises material composed and recorded during the Tall and Band sessions in 1993 and 1997, respectively. Many of the songs on Tall were early versions of songs that later appeared the 1994 album Amorica, with one appearing on the 1996 album Three Snakes and One Charm.
Warpaint is the seventh studio album by American rock band The Black Crowes. Released on March 3, 2008, it was the band's seventh studio album and first studio album in almost seven years, and its first with new members Luther Dickinson and Adam MacDougall, as well as the first to be released on the band's own Silver Arrow Records label. Despite its predecessor, Lions, selling more copies, Warpaint debuted 15 spots higher in the United States, at number five.
This is a discography of The Black Crowes, an American hard rock/jam band formed in 1984 by Chris and Rich Robinson. Their first studio album, Shake Your Money Maker, was released in 1990. Helped by the singles "Twice As Hard", "Jealous Again", "Hard to Handle", "She Talks to Angels", and "Seeing Things", the album peaked at number four on the Billboard 200 and went five times platinum in the United States. "Hard to Handle" and "She Talks to Angels" both reached number one on the Hot Mainstream Rock Tracks chart.
Before the Frost...Until the Freeze is the eighth studio album by American rock band The Black Crowes. It was recorded before a live audience at Levon Helm's Woodstock, New York, studio, The Barn, in late February and early March, 2009. The album was produced by longtime band collaborator Paul Stacey and released on Silver Arrow Records. The CD itself is designed to have the appearance of a vinyl record. Originally, only the Before the Frost portion of the double album was available on CD, and the CD purchase came with a code allowing download of the Until the Freeze portion from the Black Crowes website. A vinyl version was also released, featuring all the same songs but in a different running order. Before the Frost...Until the Freeze is the band's last album of original material to feature longtime drummer Steve Gorman and keyboardist Adam MacDougall.
Croweology is an acoustic-based album by American rock band The Black Crowes, released on August 3, 2010. The set includes newly recorded versions of nineteen songs from the band's career, covering their albums from Shake Your Money Maker to Lions, plus a cover of the Chris Ethridge and Gram Parsons song "She", in mostly-acoustic arrangements. Critic Stephen Thomas Erlewine stated the Crowes capture "the sound of seasoned veterans still finding new ways to play old favorites" and the double album is "a generous, entertaining gift to the fans who have stayed true throughout the years". This would be the last recorded album to feature lead guitarist, Luther Dickinson. Croweology was the last studio record released by the band before their hiatus lasting from 2013 to 2020.
Chris Robinson Brotherhood was an American blues rock band formed in 2011 by Black Crowes singer Chris Robinson while the Crowes were on hiatus. The original lineup consisted of Robinson, Neal Casal, Mark Dutton, George Sluppick (drums), and Adam MacDougall (keyboards). Since 2015, the band had undergone various personnel changes with Robinson and Casal remaining the only constant members. Following the death of Neal Casal in August 2019, the Chris Robinson Brotherhood announced it would disband.
Flux is the fourth solo album from Black Crowes guitarist Rich Robinson. It is his first for Eagle Rock Entertainment and features guest appearances by Charlie Starr of Blackberry Smoke and former Hookah Brown bandmate John Hogg.
The Magpie Salute was an American rock band formed in 2016 by the Black Crowes guitarist Rich Robinson. The band also includes former Black Crowes members Marc Ford and Sven Pipien and Moke singer/songwriter John Hogg, as well as Rich Robinson band members Matt Slocum and Joe Magistro.
