Amorica: Vinyl LP

Formed in 1989 in Marietta, GA, by brothers Chris and Rich Robinson while still in high school, and originally named Mr. Crowe’s Garden after a children’s book, The Black Crowes recorded a total of eight studio albums, starting with 1990’s Shake Your Money Maker, which was released by Rick Rubin’s Def American label. That debut, named after a classic Elmore James blues song, peaked at #4 on the Billboard 200, selling more than 5 million copies worldwide (and 3 million in the U.S.), with two singles, “Hard to Handle” and the acoustic ballad “She Talks to Angels,” going Top 30 on the Billboard 100 and #1 on the Mainstream Rock Tracks chart, with three more, “Jealous Again,” “Twice as Hard” and “Seeing Things,” also charting. The group went on to sell 30 million albums internationally, being named Best New American Band by Rolling Stone readers in 1990.

Shake Your Money Maker will now be released by American Recordings/Universal Music Enterprises (UMe) December 4 as a one-album set, along with the band’s following three releases as double-LP sets – 1992’s The Southern Harmony and Musical Companion, 1994’s Amorica and 1996’s Three Snakes and One Charm – all on high-grade 180-gram vinyl, with lacquers cut directly from the master tapes. The first two originally came out on Def American, the latter two after Rubin changed the name of the label to American Recordings.

Amorica: The first Black Crowes album to come out on Rubin’s newly renamed American Recordings label, the two-disc 180-gram vinyl reissue has been out of print in LP form since its initial 1994 release as a single album. The band, now a six-piece, had previously ditched the unreleased Tall, and its subsequent release caused plenty of controversy in the marketplace, with several retailers refusing to carry the album, whose original cover (later airbrushed) depicted female pubic hair visible under an American flag bikini. The original release eventually earned RIAA-certified gold for selling more than 500,000, peaking at #11 on the Billboard 200, spurred by three more Top 10 Mainstream Rock Tracks in “A Conspiracy” (#5, #23 Modern Rock Tracks ), “High Head Blues” (#8) and “Wiser Time” (#7)

Tracklisting
1. Gone
2. A Conspiracy
3. High Head Blues
4. Cursed Diamond
5. Nonfiction
6. She Gave Good Sunflower
7. P.25 London
8. Ballad in Urgency
9. Wiser Time
10. Downtown Money Waster
11. Descending