“I find truth in a fable, faith in a rhyme”
REISSUES | COMPS | BOXSETS | LOST RECORDINGS
THE BLACK CROWES
The Southern Harmony & Musical Companion: Super Deluxe Limited Edition UME
ON “Remedy”, the biggest single off The Black Crowes’ second album, Chris Robinson slithers along to the band’s fidgety Stones groove and sings, “If I had a remedy, I’d take enough to please me”. In the best way possible, it sounds like a confession he couldn’t possibly have written. It sounds more like a line in any number of blues songs written and sung and recorded and forgotten about long before this Atlanta band played their first note together. That word “remedy” carries a lot of meaning in the American South, where it’s associated with medicine shows and snake oil, with Tom Sawyer and stump-water (that’s rainwater steeped in an old tree trunk, said to be good for whatever ails you).
A remedy might be drugs to make a hard time bearable, or it might be whatever makes those drugs bearable. It might be sex, or it might be whatever makes you forget you’re not getting any. It might be a hoodoo or a mojo. A remedy is, essentially, the opposite of the blues. On , which is arguably their best album, The Black Crowes write and perform with the knowledge that they’re participating in something larger than themselves. They’re digging deeper into Southern lore and Southern music. This new reissue, celebrating the album’s 30th anniversary, reveals
