So why is The Black Crows’ The Southern Harmony and Musical Companion on this best 1,000 albums ever thing?
TheThe Southern Harmony and Musical Companion is far and away the greatest album that The Black Crowes have produced to date, and it’s not even close.
Tim Sendra at All Music does a great job of describing what the band accomplished on their second full length album:
The Southern Harmony and Musical Companion blows away any complaints that the band is merely copying the past with diminishing returns; instead the album is good enough that it compares favorably to the best albums their heroes cranked out in the late ’60s and early ’70s. The songs are more incisive and heartfelt this time around, the production is more full-bodied, Chris Robinson‘s vocals somehow sound even more confident than before, and the addition of guitarist Marc Ford to the band does wonders. He and Rich Robinson‘s rhythm guitars mesh together like a raunchy, long-haired machine, and his solos veer between rib-crackingly ferocious and almost painfully slinky.
The first three tracks of The Southern Harmony and Musical Companion are perfectly sequenced. “Sting Me” is a bluesy, swinging, and soulful rocker – with Chris Robinson backed up on vocals wonderfully by several gospel singers. “Remedy” follows and picks up the momentum nicely with big, crunchy guitar riffs – and the gospel singers come back again for the chorus on this one. And then we get the delicate “Thorn in My Pride,” perhaps the best ballad the band has ever produced.
And that’s not even getting to what’s by far my favorite Black Crowes song of all time: “My Morning Song.” It’s the band at the very peak of its powers: soulful southern rockers channeling 1970s Led Zeppelin, with an all-timer chorus that I can listen to endlessly.
March me down to the seven seas
Bury me with a ruby ring
Kiss me baby on an Easter Sunday day
Make my haze blow away
“No Speak No Slave” has grown on me much over the years, with its powerhouse hard rock guitar riff and tremendous energy. I can almost imagine Rage Against the Machine doing a crushing cover version of this one.
Personal stuff that has something to do with The Black Crowes’ The Southern Harmony and Musical Companion
I saw The Black Crowes live in Ithica, New York in the fall of 1993 if memory serves. To this day it’s one of the best live concerts I’ve ever seen, and a good reminder too that time and place and luck and circumstance – for both the performers and the audience – all play roles in the live musical experience.
I grew up on Long Island, and was lucky enough to have most of my high school friends somewhat evenly distributed between three colleges in upstate New York – Binghamton, Cornell, and SUNY Buffalo. I was part of the Binghamton cohort and made a number of pilgrimages to the fantastic college town of Ithaca during my years there.
So it was that we made the relatively short road trip from Binghamton to Ithaca to see The Black Crowes on campus at Cornell University. The venue was a great size – we were able to get fairly close to the stage – and looking back I’m convinced it was the ideal time to see The Black Crowes during their lengthy career. The vibes, to quote the amazing basketball player Josh Hart of the New York Knicks, were immaculate.
I saw The Black Crowes live many years later at an outdoor blues festival in southern California and it was a drastically different experience. They were still the same band but I was more in “looking at my watch mode” versus wishing the night would never end.
Which is to say that sometimes we’re lucky enough to experience lightning in a bottle, and when we do it’s pure magic.
Some stats & info about The Black Crowes’ The Southern Harmony and Musical Companion
- What kind of musical stylings does this album represent? Rock Music, Hard Rock
- Rolling Stone’s greatest 500 albums ranking – not ranked!
- All Music’s rating – 4.5 out of 5 stars
- When was The Southern Harmony and Musical Companion released? 1992
- My ranking, the one you’re reading right now – #189 out of 1,000
The Black Crowes’ The Southern Harmony and Musical Companion on Spotify
A lyrical snippet from The Black Crowes’ The Southern Harmony and Musical Companion that’s evocative of the album in some way, maybe
If you feel like a riot, then don’t you deny it – put your good foot forward.
What does the “best 1,000 albums ever” mean and why are you doing this?
Yeah, I know it’s audacious, a little crazy (okay, maybe a lot cray cray), bordering on criminal nerdery.
But here’s what it’s NOT: a definitive list of the Greatest Albums of All-Time. This is 100% my own personal super biased, incredibly subjective review of what my top 1,000 albums are, ranked in painstaking order over the course of doing research for nearly a year, Rob from High Fidelity style. Find out more about why I embarked on a best 1,000 albums ever project.