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Artist: Black Crowes
Title: The Broadcast Collection ’90 – ’93 (Sound Stage SS5CDBOX52)
Venue: (disc 1) Trump Plaza Hotel, Atlantic City, NJ August 24, 1990 plus 3 tracks from The Cabaret, San Jose, CA November 3, 1990 (disc 2) Greek Theater, Los Angeles, CA June 15, 1991 (disc 3) World Broadcast Special, July 5, 1992. Although not listed, recorded at Southern Track Studios in Atlanta, GA. Radio program to promote The Southern Harmony and Musical Companion release (disc 4 & 5) Sam Houston Coliseum, Houston, TX Feb. 6, 1993
Tracklist: (disc 1) Twice As Hard/ Kick The Devil Out of Me/ Sister Luck/ Jealous Guy/ Hard To Handle/ Could I’ve Been So Blind/ You’re Such A Pity/ Stare It Cold/ Jealous Again/ Encore break/ Struttin’ Blues/ Honky Tonk Woman/ Thick and Thin/ You’re Wrong/ She Talks To Angels (disc 2) Thick and Thin/ You’re Wrong/ Stare It Cold/ Seeing Things (w/ Jellyfish)/ Sister Luck/ Hard To Handle/ Could I’ve Been So Blind/ Shake It Down> Get Back> Walk With Jesus/ radio announcer encore break/ She Talks To Angels/ Dreams/ Jealous Again (disc 3) Intro & Chris interview/ Black Moon Creeping/ Twice As Hard/ Hotel Illness/ Chris Interview/ Seeing Things/ No Speak No Slave/ Chris interview and outro (disc 4) No Speak No Slave/ Sting Me/ Hard To Handle/ My Morning Song> jam/ Thorn In My Pride/ Bad Luck Blue Eyes Goodbye/ Twice As Hard (disc 5) Black Moon Creeping/ Thick And Thin/ Hotel Illness/ Stare It Cold/ Three Little Birds/ Sometimes Salvation/ Jealous Again/ Remedy
Sound Quality: excellent (9-10), most likely sourced from off-air master cassettes and transcription CDs. Disc 1 claims to be from an NPR broadcast, but it is actually from WMMR, Philadelphia’s long standing rock powerhouse, as indicated by the DJ comments, quite possibly with a live feed to other affiliated stations around the U.S.
Cover: Well designed glossy clamshell box with equally well-designed individual sleeves inside with an 8-page booklet containing decent (and original) liner notes. An unfortunate oversight being that, besides on the disc one cover, long time bass player Jonny Colt is not listed among the musician credits.
Comments: We’ve got a winner! As far as I can ascertain, nothing here has been pulled from any official source, a problem that seems increasingly prevalent among the latest incarnation of live release specialists taking advantage of European loopholes. Sound Stage may not have located the rarest of material, but they surely have found some excellent sources.
Disc one starts off with a bang, finding the Crowes riding high on the phenomenal chart success of their debut album and a couple of hit singles (so far). Def American Recordings would continue to mine the album for more singles and radio play throughout 1990 and 1991, 4 in all. “Jealous Again,” their first, would reach Number 5 on the Billboard charts, “Hard To Handle,” the follow-up would reach number 1 in 1990. “Twice As Hard” peaked at number 11 and “She Talks to Angels” would become their second number 1. Quite an accomplishment for a debut LP. The band worked the road hard. With only one album to draw on, they extended their sets with unrealized originals and covers, of which the Atlantic City show features plenty (“Kick The Devil Out of Me,” “”Jealous Guy,” “You’re Such A Pity,” “Struttin’ Blues,” and a rousing rendition of “Honky Tonk Woman” to close out the show. The 3 cuts from San Jose include “You’re Wrong,” the seed for what would become “Sting Me” on their next album.
The following year, at the Greek Theater, they would stick to album tracks before establishing a foot in the jam band genre with a medley of “Shake It Down> Get Back> Walk With Jesus” and the Allman Brother’s “Dreams” as one of 3 encore tunes.
Anticipation was high for a new album, but with a heavy tour schedule, it would still be another year before their second LP, The Southern Harmony and Musical Companion – an album recorded in 8 days and released with great fanfare across the world with a broadcast originating from an Atlanta, Georgia studio. This broadcast is featured on disc 3 with the studio album tracks faded out into snipits. (No way those could be included, even under lax European law.) The disc consists of interviews with Chris Robinson sandwiched around a short 5-song live set (included) The interviews are revelatory, Robinson mapping out the bands attitudes and career path for the next 2 ½ decades with what turned out to be a high degree of accuracy. As for the live set, “Twice As Hard,” from the first album has grown into a significantly longer opus, complete with extended guitar and organ breaks. Marc Ford had replaced Jeff Cease as second guitarist and keyboardist Eddie Harsch was now a fully integrated into the band. Don’t pass this disc over to avoid the interview segments. It’s all great.
Southern Harmony picked up where Shake Your Money Maker left off with 4 singles, all reaching number one on the Top 40 charts. The band soldiered on with the roadwork, now with two albums of material and twice as many hits that crowds demanded. The jams became longer, but the cover tunes became scarcer. “Amorica,” the bands third LP (1994) would cure that problem. Although 3 singles were released, none of them topped the U.S. charts and the album was hampered from the beginning with production disagreements (it was salvaged from a different rejected release called Tall). To further complicate matters, the band chose to use a photo of a young lady’s mid-section clad only in a micro bikini made from stars & stripes fabric, complete with visible pubic hairs. The mainstream retailers howled and refused to stock it. A concession was made by blacking out the entire cover – all except the bikini. Album sales dropped. Drastically. True to the words Chris Robinson spoke on that disc 3 interview, making money for big corporations was never intended to be the band’s career path. Partying onstage with a bunch of like-minded fans was. And if sibling rivalries interrupted the process now and then (also mentioned in the interview) so be it. And, damn if that isn’t the way it worked out. [Bill Glahn]
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