Album of the Week - Vol. 31

THE BLACK CROWES Before the Frost...Until the Freeze (2009)
Week: Mon 8th - Sun 14th June, 2026
Format: vinyl, iPod
Producer: Paul Stacey
Tracklisting:
1. Aimless Peacock
2. Good Morning Captain *
3. Been a Long Time (Waiting on Love) *
4. Greenhorn *
5. Appaloosa *
6. The Shady Grove
7. The Garden Gate *
8. Shine Along
9. Roll Old Jeremiah
10. Houston Don't Dream About Me *
11. I Ain't Hiding
12. Kept My Soul
13. Lady of Ave. A
14. Make Glad
15. And the Band Played On... *
16. What is Home?
17. So Many Times
18. A Train Makes a Lonely Sound *
19. Fork in the River
20. The Last Place That Love Lives
TOTAL RUNNING TIME: 101:00

While I didn't get in on the ground floor, there are a few family and friends who I'm confident can thank me for their love of The Black Crowes. My first real experience with their music, after seeing a couple of clips on Rage, was buying Shake Your Moneymaker and The Southern Harmony & Musical Companion on cassette while on holiday in Bali with with work friends in 1995. I'm pretty sure that their excellent cover of Hard to Handle and their fabulous track Remedy were the impetuses behind those overseas purchases. 

Fast forward to 2009 and recognise the band's eighth studio album, which was actually recorded live. More on that later. I had tracks from this offering dribbled to me via my good buddy Kieran, who is now a much bigger Crowe-votee than me. I have their first six albums on CD, but then I kinda lost touch. In fact, after that sixth album, Lions (2001), the band actually split up. They did reform a few years later and released Warpaint in 2008. 

By the time the band issued this record, their line-up had changed quite a lot. Built around the core of the brothers Robinson - Chris the lead vocalist and Rich the lead guitarist - the group had been a bit of a carousel of musicians from their debut album to the present day. Shake Your Moneymaker featured the aforementioned Robinsons plus Jeff Cease on guitar, Johnny Colt on the bass and drummer Steve Gorman, who would remain behind the kit until this very album. So, The Black Crowes as they stand in 2009 are:

Chris Robinson - lead vocals, harmonica, guitar

Rich Robinson - lead guitar, sitar, vocals

Steve Gorman - drums

Sven Pipien - bass (he joined in 1999 for the By Your Side album, left and came back)

Luther Dickinson - guitar, mandolin (he was recruited in 2008)

Adam MacDougall - keyboards (he replaced Rob Clores, who had joined in 2008)

Okay, so that's who we're working with here. As I mentioned earlier, this album was recorded live, but it's not your usual live record from a rock band. The Crowes used Levon Helm's studio (The Barn, located in Woodstock, New York) and invited an intimate audience of fans, friends and family. They are joined on this recording by percussionist Joe Magistro and multi-instrumentalist Larry Campbell, who was also the musical director behind Helm's now-legendary Midnight Rambles. Contributing fiddle, pedal steel and banjo here, Campbell was also well-known for being a part of Bob Dylan's Never Ending Tour band from 1997 to 2004, which means I just missed out on seeing him live (my first Dylan concert wasn't until 2007, at the old Burswood Dome). 

Levon Helm, multi-instrumentalist, singer and drummer for The Band, was facing bankruptcy in the early 2000s, and started the Midnight Rambles as a way of raising money, while also honouring his memories of old medicine shows that would travel past him during his childhood in Arkansas. Each Ramble session would usually feature Helm on the drums and a different group of musicians, with the occasional 'drop-in'. It wouldn't have been unusual to see Bob Dylan or Elvis Costello or Norah Jones at a Midnight Ramble. Following Helm's passing in 2012, friends and family members pledged to keep the rambles rambling, and they still occur to this day. 

Apparently, it was Chris Robinson's attendance at The Barn's Midnight Rambles that sparked this album. Excited by the atmosphere and inspired by the possibilities, he pitched the idea to the rest of the band, who either agreed or went along for the ride. The fact that these tracks are recorded live astounds me; the performances are so assured, and the arrangements are note perfect. But, that was the end result of five days of solid jamming. Around 200 people witnessed these songs come to life, being subjected to numerous takes, false starts and reworkings. 

What makes this album even more fascinating for me is its release. First it was issued as a CD at the end of August 2009, with the artwork resembling a vinyl record. However, it only came with 11 of the 20 songs listed in the tracklisting at the top of this post. The other 9 were available to download from the group's website using a code that was included within the CD. The collection of songs on the physical disc was titled Before the Frost..., while the downloaded tracks were titled (wait for it) ...Until the Freeze. 

The following September, the band issued the full album on double vinyl, naming it Before the Frost...Until this Freeze. You would assume that the two earlier releases would make up each disc, but no. The vinyl version has a totally different order, blending the two albums together, which is the one at the top of this post. The individual release looked like this:

Before the Frost... (CD)
1. Good Morning Captain

2. Been a Long Time (Waiting on Love)
3. Appaloosa
4. A Train Makes a Lonely Sound
5. I Ain't Hiding
6. Kept My Soul
7. What is Home?
8. Houston Don't Dream About Me
9. Make Glad
10. And the Band Played On

11. The Last Place That Love Lives

...Until the Freeze (download)
1. Aimless Peacock
2. Shady Grove
3. Garden Gate
4. Greenhorn
5. Shine Along
6. Roll on Jeremiah
7. Lady of Ave. A
8. So Many Times
9. Fork in the River

Listening to them as separate albums, in addition to the entire double record, has revealed to me that the vinyl tracklisting is the absolute way to go when enjoying this album. The CD release feels like a sampler, and doesn't tell the whole story. For the most part, it's the rockier stuff that's on the disc. Kicking off with Good Morning Captain is quite the statement: we're here to rock. It's one of the strongest offerings on the album, but not having the wonderfully atmospheric, and mostly instrumental, Aimless Peacock as the opening track denies the listener a softer, mysterious, and more inviting welcome.

The big difference is the downloaded songs are a little mellower, or a little experimental. They stray from the Crowes' usual formula of southern blues-rock with added tinges of Americana. Garden Gate is almost a hoedown, with Campbell's fiddle making it catchy as heck. Greenhorn is born from the same font as Aimless Peacock, and is just as sprawling, but it has lyrics and a story, rather than the chant-like ending of the latter. 

The album's third track (second on the CD), Been a Long Time (Waiting on Love), may just be the highlight of the record, and it showcases what makes the band so great. With a killer riff, the songs is packed with classic Crowes swagger and rock. Just when you think it's over, the band kick it up a gear and launch into a 3min playout with solos aplenty! It all builds to glorious ending with a final bash through the riff. Nearly eight minutes of pure live Crowes brilliance. 

Other highlights for me include I Ain't Hiding, which features an unusual disco beat, the early Led Zeppelin-esque Make Glad, the rollicking third-side-ending And the Band Played On..., and the excellent A Train Makes A Lonely Sound, which makes an appearance a lot later on the vinyl. Not necessarily a bad thing to have such gem at the end of a record. Another nice surprise is What is Home?, which features Rich on lead vocals. Even one of the weaker tracks, Kept My Soul, sounds like the Stones after a heavy night's drinking. So, it's still a fab song, but when something like that is the least appealing offering here, you know you're in for a good listen. I struggled to pick my favourite tracks on the listing at start of this post, because there's no duds here; it's truly all killer, and definitely no filler. 

Another advantage the vinyl has over the CD/downloads, is that you get a little breath between changing sides. After the epic Greenhorn finishes, the track sits inside your brain for a few moments as you flip the disc to Side 2. It's a good reset, because that side kicks off with the wondrous Appaloosa, a solid serving of blues/country Americana. The rest of that side is fairly mellow, by Crowes standards, and feels like it has an arc of its own. 

There is a link between Aimless Peacock and Shady Grove, which both feature the lyric "a song for everyone to sing". Both of these tracks are included in the downloads, and are listed one after the other. I prefer having some space between these two numbers, as it give the album a feeling of cohesion and purpose. As different as some of these songs are, there is a common thread. 

I get the feeling that each side of the vinyl tells its own story, and those four parts come together to present one of the most enjoyable Crowes albums, in my opinion. Song for song, it's just a great listen, deeply rooted in Americana, with numerous references to places throughout the country. Tennessee, Sioux City, New York City, Houston, Albuquerque, and Knoxville all get a shout-out.

The CD and vinyl album both end with the lovely and mournful The Last Place That Love Lives, which is a great way to finish. If you listen to the downloads after the CD, Fork in the River is also a fabulous end track, but TLPTLL feels like the better closer, to me, anyway. There's a real "the party is over" vibe on that one.

If you want to dip your toe into this record, get the CD, or listen to the first eleven songs on the Spottersfy (bizarrely, that uses the CD/download running order). Like me, you'll probably be hungry for more, and you can either listen on the other songs, or seek out the vinyl. I would recommend the latter. Having spent so much time with this album over the last few days, I am leaning towards it becoming my favourite Black Crowes offering. 

Now, I need to find me a copy of Cabin Fever on DVD. It's part concert film, part making-of doco, and features songs from those recording sessions that didn't make the album!