Black Crowes have been my one of my favourite rock bands for over thirty years, and of the American bands, the only Southern Rock band that I am an ardent fan of.
However, the reason this post comes about is due to a PodCast that I stumbled upon, which talk about the Black Crowes song 'Remedy', while also focusing on their other songs.
See Here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_Gl9WXf_Z0&list=PLFCSXNEPM7tft2CQcLB0bwcWhxXGfljZd
Given that I have been a fan of their music for ages, I will not dwell on the superiority of their song ( or their music), as the PodCast dwell on (especially on the latter half.)
I was more interested in the cultural signifiers that Diallo Riddle in particular highlight here. He says, with Back Crowes, he "almost made my peace with Southern-Rock", because when Lynard Skynard visited Atlanta, with the Confederate Flag in their concerts etc., he found it unsettling. Both Diallo and Luxxury then go on to describe the 'authentic' black singers as used by the Black Crowes for the video etc., plus the various influences ascribed to the Black Crowes.
On top of this, I was listening to the song 'cypress hill' from their Lions album, and I felt that it could be a reference to lynching. I felt that too could possibly compliment the arguments by Diallo about how the Black Crowes were the response within a music sub-genre, which has traditionally discouraged a segment of the population from embracing.
All in all, inclusivity and a sense of belonging in a broad sense is everything, and I felt Diallo was almost eager to embrace the Black Crowes, for he loved some of the Southern Rock, and the band gave him an opportunity to embrace the music, as they rejected the cultural signifiers which would've otherwise discouraged that genre of music for a man Diallo's origin. Rock music at least from the 90s onward have been rebelling against racial prejudice ( my favourite example - Pearl Jam's WMA -"Police stopped my brother again", but they are a Grunge band), and this recognition of such equality in a Southern Rock band is significant. It is also a welcoming trait that one party is all eager to embrace the other, only if the other party makes an effort. This is clearly noticeable to the extent that Diallo goes to embrace The Black Crowes (although I don't know if he has enough grounds to talk down The Black Keys, which can sound 'racist' if pronounced in a certain manner - maybe he was stretching it there - but he could be better informed.)
Maybe 35 years ago people didn't speak of these sensitive topics as today, or simply today obviously there are more ways to be heard. In a time when U.S. politics has made a revolutionary choice, I couldn't help noticing these tendencies of cultural signifiers, and the will to look out for them - either to embrace or reject - as the PodCast clearly signify. Was glad to see that the Robinson Brothers and co. have come out winners on that count.
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