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The Black Crowes’ guitarist Rich Robinson has announced that the band has broken up. Two years after ending their last hiatus and a year after playing their final show, the southern rockers split is apparently due to an untenable ultimatum set down by frontman Chris Robinson, Rich’s brother.

“I love my brother and respect his talent,” Rich said in a statement, “but his present demand that I must give up my equal share of the band and that our drummer for 28 years and original partner, Steve Gorman, relinquish 100 percent of his share, reducing him to a salaried employee, is not something I could agree to.”

“I hold my time with the Black Crowes with the utmost respect and sincerest appreciation,” the guitarist wrote. “It is a huge swath of my life’s body of work. I couldn’t be more proud of what we accomplished and deeply moved by the relationships people created and maintained with my music. That alone is the greatest honor of being a musician.”

The band formed in the late ’80s and in 1990 released their first album, Shake Your Money Maker, featuring the hits “Hard to Handle” and “She Talks to Angels”. They released eight other records over the course of their career; their last album of new material was 2009’s Before the Frost…Until the Freeze, with the following year seeing the release of Croweology, an album of acoustic reworkings from their back-catalog. A live album, Wiser for the Time, came out in 2013, and the band had since undertaken a live archive series. There’s no word on if the series will continue after the split.

Fans of the Crowes likely knew this day was coming. Infighting has been a fixture of the band since its inception, and they have two lengthy hiatuses in their history. Gorman told Rolling Stone in 2014 that “The likelihood of us doing anything again is as low as it’s ever been. We could obviously all see things differently in a year, but I’ll be surprised if the Black Crowes do something again. Ever.”

“There are so many people who have helped and supported us along the way,” Robinson concluded in his statement. “I want to give a heartfelt thank you to all of our fans, our friends behind the scenes, and to everyone who was a part of the Black Crowes.”

Chris Robinson has yet to comment on the band’s apparent demise.
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Bad news.

The Black

Living with a shrinking bank account is hard to handle.
They'll be back.

Josh-da-man

Too bad. I really thought Chris had grown out of his "difficult" phase, though I wouldn't be surprised if there was something else going on behind the scenes that I have no proof of, only a suspicion.

I saw the Black Crowes in 2008 at a packed venue with a capacity of 2000. Four years later I went to see the Chris Robinson Brotherhood at the same place and there were only about sixty people there. I know because I actually did a head count.

Wouldn't be surprised to see this eventually get resolved, unless Chris is one of those guys who would rather own all of a tiny pie than a piece of a bigger pie.

Guru Askew

They called the last breakup a hiatus but this is really their second one. When the only constant members of a band are brothers its hard to believe that they'll never team up again. On the other hand, I'm surprised Oasis is still broken up.

Chrisedge

I blame Kate Hudson! Band-Wrecker

hdnmickey

I thought the split a long time ago. Might as well have.

I guess Steve Gorman will have even more time to devote to SPORTS! now.

TheMadMonk

Sounds like Chris Robinson follows the Roger Waters model of how to treat your bandmates.

collven

Our long national nightmare is finally over!

EctoCooler

Honestly who in the hell knew they were even still together?

TerryW

It's been downhill since the first album anyway.

Jason

Well... bye.

E Unit

This was about as big as when Genesis announced they broke up. And like the Genesis announcement, I think everyone assumed they already had broken up.

slop101

I like his solo albums, but I fell asleep the last time I saw Rich live. Chris doesn’t want to stop his solo project, "Chris Robinson Brotherhood" (which seems to improve with each album) and in order for him to do so, the Crowes would have to re-structure the pay scale. People go to see Chris, not Rich or Steve. It’s Chris' band and he has to power to do what he wants, but it was very weak for Rich to come out crying publicly. He’s had 28 years to make some money off his solo projects. Every time Rich gets divorced, 3 times now (!), he runs crying to Chris for money or a Crowes re-union. Enough was enough. Check out CBR (and also Richs' solo albums, each of them better than the last, but still not as good as CBR).

DVD Josh

Considering their second album Southern Companion is one of the best pieces of work of that era, I'd say you really don't know what you are talking about.

JANK

Darn!

hdnmickey

I didn't think it started going down hill until after 3 Snakes...

auto

For me:

Amorica
Southern Harmony
Lions
Shake
Before the Freeze
By Your Side
3 Snakes
Warpaint

TerryW

It's really rather simple if you understand English.

I LIKE THE FIRST ALBUM BEST.