Three Snakes and One Charm is the fourth studio album by American rock band the Black Crowes. It was released on July 23, 1996, and is their final release on American Recordings.
Background
During the "Amorica or Bust" tour of 1995, many of the relationships within the Black Crowes had soured, including that of brothers Chris and Rich Robinson. "We just fucking hated each other," Rich noted in the September 1996 issue of Acoustic Guitar magazine. "It's just a normal phase bands go through. There was a lot of emotional baggage, and everyone got on each other's nerves. We almost broke up a few times, but finally we all let go and moved on."
Chris echoed his brother's sentiment in the March 1996 issue of Guitar World magazine. "Everyone goes through changes," he stated. "The trick is trying to remember that and keep it together, and having respect for everyone and not judging people because you're all goin' through changes. Perseverance is the thing. You have to get your ego in place."
With this new attitude in place, the band began planning what would be their fourth studio album. Their previous album, 1994's Amorica, was very much a studio recording, with a great deal of overdubs and other musical flourishes. This was a distinct change from the band's sophomore effort, 1992's The Southern Harmony and Musical Companion, which was recorded in eight days with little to no overdubs. A great deal of this was attributed to producer Jack Joseph Puig, who manned the board for Amorica. "The eight day album was coming off of 15 months of touring and we were still just flying," then-bassist Johnny Colt told RockNet in 1995. "This time we took some time off beforehand and tried to slow down...We consciously tried to take more time. I'm not even saying we really needed it, but we wanted to try it. We have worked ourselves into a position to afford to spend a little bit more time and try to make a different step."
Chris Robinson recalled the Amorica process: "It was hard to make because we were depressed and in an angry, confused place. Most of it was personal shit."
Rather than make another studio record like Amorica, the band opted for a different approach in the latter months of 1995. "Chris suggested that rather than book a hotel for six months, it'd be cooler if we rented a house for everyone to stay in," Rich Robinson noted in 1996. "So Chris moved into the house, and I brought my little board over to work on the demos. It sounded so cool that I brought my big board over, and the rest of my shit, and we rented a Neve sidecar for 10 extra channels. And we just did it." There proved to be a great deal more to do, with the band spending several weeks refining their original demos. Plus, a few other songs were written on the spot, including "Under a Mountain" and "Better When You're Not Alone."
Guitarist Marc Ford concurred with Colt's sentiment, adding that the atmosphere created by recording in a house fostered his musical relationship with Rich Robinson. "It just keeps flowering," he noted in 1996. "Rich used to insist he was a rhythm player, and I told him to stick his toe as a lead player in the water a little bit, and now we're playing with each other, listening to each other. You can do all that sound-weaving." The album would see its official release on July 23, 1996, several weeks into a world tour that would go straight through the end of the year and into the next, expanding their in-concert repertoire to more than 90 songs. The Black Crowes' installment was the fifth in the series, which saw 87 episodes over its original run.
Three Snakes garnered generally positive reviews upon its release. Stephen Thomas Erlewine gave album three stars on AllMusic, stating the album was "a winning album, mainly because the Black Crowes' musicianship continues to deepen -- the musical fusions and eclecticism are seamless." Rolling Stone magazine also gave the album three stars, noting that it "works best when it forsakes album-oriented pretension for singular clarity, from the oblique Beatles references on 'Nebakanezer' and 'Bring On, Bring On' to the Sly Stone-cum-Al Green funk of '(Only) Halfway to Everywhere' and the warm acoustic resignation of 'Better When You're Not Alone.'"
The album's cover logo resembles a 45 rpm record insert. A limited box set edition of the album was also made available, comprising seven 7-inch vinyl EPs, a 45 rpm custom adapter in shape of the album's cover logo, and a one-sided poster of the band.
Track listing
All songs written by Chris Robinson and Rich Robinson, except where noted.
- "Under a Mountain" – 4:10
- "Good Friday" – 3:51
- "Nebakanezer" – 4:07
- "One Mirror Too Many" – 3:34
- "Blackberry" – 3:25
- "Girl from a Pawnshop" – 6:17
- "(Only) Halfway to Everywhere" – 3:59
- "Bring On, Bring On" – 3:56
- "How Much for Your Wings?" – 3:27
- "Let Me Share the Ride" – 3:18
- "Better When You're Not Alone" – 4:10
- "Evil Eye" – 4:10
1998 reissue bonus tracks
- <li value="13">"Just Say You're Sorry" – 3:30
- "Mellow Down Easy" (Willie Dixon) – 3:43
Personnel
The Black Crowes
- Chris Robinson – vocals, blues harp
- Rich Robinson – guitar, backing vocals, autoharp on "Good Friday"
- Marc Ford – guitar
- Johnny Colt – bass guitar
- Steve Gorman – drums
- Eddie Harsch – keyboards
Additional personnel
- Dirty Dozen Brass Band: Gregory Davis, Roger Lewis, Effrem Towns, Revert Andrews, Kevin Harris – horns/arrangements
- Bruce Kaphan – pedal steel
- Rik Taylor – banjo
- Gary "Mudbone" Cooper – backing vocals
- Garry Shider – backing vocals
- Barbara Mitchell – backing vocals
- Erica Stewart – backing vocals
Charts
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!scope="row"|Finnish Albums (Suomen virallinen lista)
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