Hard to Handle: The Life and Death of the Black Crowes--A Memoir

I will never forget seeing them live on the SYMM tour as the "Most rock n roll rock n roll band"! I seen them a few times and have to say Steve's tale has me thinking about those shows in a different light. Regardless, the music they gave us fans is great rock n roll. No computers or samples, just a bunch of guys making music. Great book

Without going into a long, drawn out thang....just an awesome book. If you're a fan of the Black Crowes, read it. Steve was the perfect person to put it all into perspective. An honest perspective. Just the other day my ex told me that the Crowes were playing in a couple of months near by. I told her though I have seen a multitude of shows... I would never go. It's just Chris and Rich now. It's a money grab... For the people that didn't know the Crowes beyond Shake Your Money Maker...just read the book. It's awesome

Wow!I have read a pretty fair amount of biographies in my time, but this just may be my favorite. Steve seems like a great guy, he is a hell of a drummer, and he can tell a spellbinding story. I was hooked from page one. I love the music of The Black Crowes. I have listened to them since I first seen the videos on MTV in 1990 as a kid. There were a lot of info about what happened during every album and I really loved that. There were things cleared up for me that I always wondered about as well. Like why did so and so leave, etc. I highly recommend this book!

Detailed history of The Black Crowes from someone who was there from the beginning, original drummer Steve Gorman. Details the Brothers Robinson songwriting methods and madness and evolution of each Crowes record. When I say "madness", the brothers' infighting was the stuff of legend and never really stopped over the course of 25 years. I must say that I came away with a lowered opinion of Chris Robinson but I also don't quite know that Gorman needed to bash him quite as much as he did. When you go as far as to call someone an addict and a narcissist that pretty much guarantees that the two will never speak again. That said, it can't be denied that Chris was at the very creative core of the Crowes' impressive 25 year body of work. And of course brother and guitarist Rich Robinson was just as heavily involved in the songwriting. Goes into detail about Jimmy Page's short tour with the Crowes which unfortunately was aborted due to Page's back problems. Page had ultimate respect for the band or he would not have been there and I don't know what better review you can get than that.

Steve Gorman’s memoir is an inside look at the good and bad of one of America’s greatest bands: The Black Crowes. A definite must read for all Black Crowes fans.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I first saw TBC on JAN 23rd 1991. The second time I saw them, was JAN 24th 1991, in Portland, ME opening for ZZ Top. Me and a buddy were really into them, right off. But, honestly we went to the first show, with no plans to go to the 2nd one, to see ZZ Top! The Crowes opened, on just a sliver of stage, as that's all ZZ Top would give them. The Crowes blew the roof off, and while we enjoyed the highly produced ZZ Top show, the whole time we're both thinking about The Crowes, and how intimate and electric that show was. We bought tickets to the 2nd show the next day. And, it was a repeat of the same amazing vibe, and maybe they rocked even harder the 2nd night. We were hooked.So, it took some patience to wait to see the High as the Moon, Southern Harmony & Musical Companion show. But, what a great album we had to listen to while we waited. We knew the whole thing had undergone a rapid growth period. With Marc Ford and Ed Harsch onboard, the depth and richness, the elevation they brought with them, OMG! Now, we had a fully formed powerhouse, instead of this raw live wire thing. I finally saw them again on APR10th 1993. It was magical. By far one of the best live shows, I've ever seen! It was, perfect. It had it all, everything you could possibly want and a ton more, you didn't know you wanted. For me, that was their peak in my eyes. I went to handful of shows afterwards. They were getting further and further away from the good times. They were floundering. It's all in the book!Chris is exactly who I'd always imagined he was. No surprises at all. Rich, OTOH, I had him all wrong. And I never would have known, had this book never existed. It's a page turner and I was just a bit bummed, that there wasn't another books worth of stuff to go. I'd read it all! Thank you, Steve Gorman, what a great trip down memory lane.

As a massive, obsessive fan of The Black Crowes, I can do nothing but recommend this book as a great read.However, if you want to keep your rose-tinted idealism intact, you might want to avoid this one.Gorman certainly tells a great tale, I couldn't put it down as the cliche goes, and read it over two days. I sat up one night until 3am - I couldn't stop reading.Five stars because I loved it. but this doesn't mean i can't be critical. if this was a novel, you'd know immediately that you're dealing with an unreliable narrator. Steve says himself that his time in the Crowes was filled with booze & drugs, and he is quite open about his unstable emotional states at times. So the book presents the story from the perspective of someone riding not just the roller-coaster of the Crowes' career, but his own psychological condition. His anger towards Chris and Rich is very evident, and at many times seems to be the fuel driving this whole book. He has some scores to settle and here they are in print. Chris comes out of it sounding like an utterly selfish lunatic - and maybe he is, but I wouldn't know except for one angry man's opinion. Similarly Rich is portrayed as a manipulative loner who doesn't quite throw himself into the whole rock star scene.The book skirts around a lot of things. Gorman is married, so there's not a single account of groupies or that aspect of touring. I understand the desire to protect himself from his past, but come on Steve, this was meant to be a full expose-type thing, no punches pulled.Marc Ford is given a rather unsympathetic treatment. Gorman acknowledges his great talent and the effect this had on the band's music, but as a man Marc comes off as a bit of a fool here. I've met the man, and from my brief experience I have to say he handled himself a lot better than you'd expect reading this book.There are too many occasions when Gorman's machismo is still reveling in the opportunities he has for meeting out violence to someone, and it never seems to occur to him that a 6-4 man might actually be acting like a bully throwing his weight around like that.The book certainly gives us a whole new understanding of what it was like being in the hurricane that was the Black Crowes, and already i have the impulse to start listening to the Lost Crowes again. But no matter how much pleasure I took from this read, I was utterly disheartened to discover how driven by money Rich and Chris have always been. I was naive enough to buy into the whole hippy vibe and discovering so many of their choices were driven by dollar signs was disappointing.But the real problem I had with the book was Gorman's perspective on By Your Side. When it came out, i remember the reaction of fans, "This is a book for beer drinkers, not smokers!" We Steve was always a drinker who just wanted to rock. The value he places on that album compared with three Snakes, which is an utter classic, is misplaced to say the least. But it reveals something deeper. A big part of the Crowes was that they were something set apart from all the other nonsense that the record industry was producing. Gorman wanted to be a big part of that scene, he wasn't sharing in the real creative dynamic that produced the songs. I'm not downplaying his contribution to the sound, he was essential, but he freely admits that once his drum prarts were recorded he was on the bus home.So... great read, if you love the Crowes you won't need a review on Amazon to convince you to buy it,

If you're a Black Crowes fan you have, like me, probably waited a long time for this sort of book. A first hand account from someone who was there from start to finish that is authentic and not cobbled together from interviews and heresay. That Gorman has written it is all the better. He's a great story teller, hugely likeable and has done a nice job of positioning his opinion, his view point and facts. First and foremost it is simply a very good read and you could take the Black Crowes fan out of me and I'd still enjoy the book. As a band memoir it is exactly what you want it to be - honest, funny, engrossing, has a well thought out timeline and is worth the time and effort to read. As a Black Crowes fan it has merely added to this for me.One thing you should be prepared for though is that you are likely to come out of it questioning your like and dislike of people. As with any band bust up under these circumstance, there are main players and I have long thought Chris's continual dodging of questions about Gorman and Rich's account of his attempts to take full control spoke volumes. That Chris was an absolute nightmare was no real surprise but Rich Robinson doesn't come out of this well either. Maybe the man has changed but it has made me question whether or not I am prepared to hand over any more of my money for his music now. I guess if you are a fan it is a pitfall of reading these sorts of books and whilst there are always two sides to a story, I saw play out as an informed, record buying fan, much of what Gorman wrote about and the detail backs up what I witnessed (and heard) seeing them live as often as I could. Making me have no doubts about the account in his book. Also the man knew his place in the band so the book isn't coming from some warped sense of entitlement either.But that is what these sorts of books are for and this is a well written one and written by someone who earned the right to do so (despite Chris Robinson questioning Gorman's integrity since). It is that which is the most compelling point for me - Gorman earned the right to this book and his honesty about his own role in everything gives it an authenticity and weight. Worth a read.

This is an absolutely superb book, definitely one of the greatest rock books ever written. Un-put-downable, it is an exhilarating read rendered with such passion and compassion.I've been a big Black Crowes fan for decades and saw them live several times, including the classic Ford/Colt line-up which was one of the greatest concerts I ever attended. I knew of the Robinson brothers' sibling rivalry but the insider stories here are shocking on how destructive it has been, repeatedly snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. How Gorman and the other band members kept their sanity is a testament to their resilience, tolerance and fortitude.The Black Crowes could have a legacy and canon that correlated with their talents, like The Beatles and Led Zeppelin have, had they focused their energies on the positive, so it's heart-breaking that so much negative energy and attitude dominated their career. Conversely, Jimmy Page's involvement with the group is overwhelmingly heart-warming until the jaw-dropping denouement.A must read. Brilliant.

This book arrived yesterday and I finished it this evening. I hadn't read any rock nroll memoirs for a good while as I'd gotten a bit sick of them to be honest but a book about the Crowes? I was 19 when the Crowes arrived and have been a fan all my life.. a band that were in many ways the Stones or Zep or whoever for a generation of people who missed out on the classic rock era (whatever that is) but they weretotally themselves and the music from start to finish was so so good..so varied..was lucky to see them twice here in the UK 97 on the 3 Snakes Tour and 2011..both times in Manchester..you never knew what you were exactly going to get and that's one thing that set them apart from everything else. For me this book was areal eye opener..Steve seems totally honest in showing the good and bad in everyone, the massive mistakes/decisions that were made (especially one regarding Jimmy Page) and all the frustrations..there's no punches pulled here but there's plenty of credit given. One thing is crystal clear though and that is that Gorman utterly loved the music he was a part of making and knew that a lot of the craziness seemed somehow to produce an amazing sound that still endures today on record and bootlegs. He was proud to play his part and on reflection wanted the story to be told ...if you are a fan of the Black Crowes you have to read this basically..just tells it like it is and his writing style is straightforward and honest.

This is an account of a band that exemplifies every almost cliché in rock: warring Brothers (check), out of control egos (check), mountains of drugs and booze killing creativity (check), each successive album selling less than the previous one (check), the hypocritical firing of band members for becoming addicts, by other senior, addicted band members (check), and becoming their own tribute band by playing their early hits to keep the money rolling in (check).Yet, because Steve Gorman, the ex-drummer, tells a good tale, and is able to put his own emotions at the heart of it, this is nonetheless a very 'hard to put down' book. I'm not really surprised that the Robinson Brothers won't let him tour with them any more, as Gorman certainly doesn't pull any punches! It's just a shame that it rather rushes through the final years of his time in the band, as if he felt he'd written enough and wanted to stop.Although Gorman readily admits that he was no angel in terms of 'bad boy' behaviour, there's a sneaking suspicion that he was a bit more than just a bystander, and that he was a Robinson in all but name. Yes, he'd managed to detach himself by the end of his tenure, and become a decent human being, but I think he must share a lot of the blame for what happened. And he does show far too much reverence for some of Rock's so called 'legends', such as Jimmy Page.The person that comes out best from the band, for me, is Rich Robinson (and not the drummer). Through it all, he managed to stay more or less sober and avoid the worst of the escapades. And so what, if he needed his own tour bus to manage it, had control 'issues', and declined Jimmy Page's 2000 input? Hats off to him for holding the band together. It's just a shame that he had to get back with Chris Robinson this year to make some money - The Magpie Salute, the Black Crowes offshoot that he formed with a different singer a few years ago, were a really promising band, and I'd like to seen where he could have taken them.