In 2008, the Black Crowes released their first new studio album in seven years, Warpaint. The group has always been an anomaly in a business that likes to label its products, and though the new album crawled inside Billboard’s Top Ten album charts for a brief run, it didn’t quite catch fire with the record-buying masses. Maybe it has something to do with Goldie Hawn no longer being Chris Robinson’s mother-in-law. Or maybe the band’s tongue-in-cheek, hard rockin’ brand of jam rock has no place on the today’s pop-infested charts. Anyone who cares knows the Black Crowes are a live band, and the stage is where their music bubbles and blossoms. So to extend the studio album’s shelf life and catch the Crowes in the best possible light, a DVD and double CD of Warpaint Live seems like a viable option.
As promised, the band starts off by playing all the songs from Warpaint. “Goodbye Daughters Of The Revolution” kicks things off swimmingly, driven by a swampy, soulful chorus and bottom-dragging hook. Guitarist Rich Robinson hasn’t lost his ability to create well-structured blocks of chords for Brother Chris and the band to crash through and eviscerate. “Walk Believer Walk,” a spiritual raver that would have been right at home on Beggars Banquet, showcases the new kids in the lineup — guitarist Luther Dickinson (who doubles as the leader of North Mississippi Allstars) and keyboardist Adam MacDougall. Throughout, original in-the-pocket drummer Steve Gorman and longtime bassist Sven Pipien are wound so tight, the tempo never wavers, never dips, always punches through the fabric.
“Oh Josephine” is built like a vintage progression; the singer coiling around the melody, cutting through the chorus like a man reborn, before getting downright dirty as the band plays out on an Allman Brothers style vamp. The infectious groove of “Evergreen” gives the Black Crowes the sheen of the Band and Traffic, while “Wee Who See The Deep” is more in the vein of Free or Mountain. Everyone has their own take on who or what the Black Crowes sound like. Their own true identity shows through on sedate bedanglers like “Locust Street,” episodic non-sequiturs like ”Movin’ On Down The Line,” and tuneful hip-shaking rockers and stompers like “Wounded Bird” and the Reverend Charlie Jackson’s “God’s Got It.” It might have been best to leave it that, but the show wouldn’t have been complete without the original album’s most oblique tracks, “There’s Gold In Them Hills” and “Whoa Mule.”
The second disc is more of a trip through the band’s disenfranchised roots, pulling up the stumps on a couple of Delaney & Bonnie/Eric Clapton’s classics, “Poor Elijah/Tribute To Johnson” and “Don’t Know Why,” along with the Rolling Stones’ “Torn And Frayed” and the oft covered “Hey Grandma” (it’s hard to beat Moby Grape’s version). If anything, it just goes to show how deep the Black Crowes dig in to validate their musical sensibility. If the new material moves you, and a few odd covers sweeten the deal, Warpaint Live may be right up your alley.
~ Shawn Perry
