Crow By Crow
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Album Summary
Crow was a Minneapolis-based rock band with a sound that ran hot with hard rock, soul, and blues running through its veins like a current, and 'Crow By Crow' came out in 1970 on Amaret Records — the same independent label that had given this band their shot at the national stage. Recorded as the group was riding the wave of their regional momentum, the album found Crow digging deeper into a blues-drenched, harder-edged sound, with the sessions aimed at capturing that raw, combustible energy the band brought every night on the live circuit. It was the kind of record that wore its influences proudly and swung hard, a studio document of a band that knew exactly who they were and wasn't shy about letting the world hear it.
Reception
- 'Crow By Crow' did not produce a breakout single on the scale of the band's most recognized work, which limited its reach on the national charts and kept it largely within the orbit of their dedicated Midwestern following.
- Fans of Crow's hard rock and soul-rock style received the album as a solid, satisfying effort, though it did not attract widespread mainstream critical attention beyond the regional press.
- In the decades since its release, 'Crow By Crow' has earned greater appreciation among collectors and enthusiasts of early 1970s American hard rock than it ever received upon its initial arrival in record shops.
Significance
- The album stands as a powerful artifact of the Minneapolis rock scene in the early 1970s, a city whose deep roots in blues-influenced hard rock long preceded its later fame, and Crow was one of the bands proving that truth night after night.
- Crow's weaving together of soul, funk, and hard rock on this record places it squarely within a vital American tradition that was bridging the psychedelic age and the heavier, darker sounds that were rising at the dawn of the new decade.
- As a release on Amaret Records, 'Crow By Crow' represents the bold ambition of independent regional labels that were fighting to carve out space in the national rock market during one of the most competitive and creatively explosive periods in the music's history.
Tracklist
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A1 I Stand To Blame —
2:56
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A2 Colors —
3:35
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A3 Smokey Joe —
5:05
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B1 Slow Down —
3:30
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B2 Heading North —
4:50
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B3 Cottage Cheese —
3:20
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B4 Gone, Gone, Gone —
7:55
Artist Details
Crow was a rock band that came together in Minneapolis, Minnesota in the late 1960s, blending hard rock, soul, and blues into a gritty, driving sound that hit hard and cut deep. Their 1969 smash "Evil Woman (Don't Play Your Games with Me)" climbed the national charts and proved that the Midwest had some serious fire in its belly, earning them a place in the conversation alongside the heaviest rock acts of the era. Though they never quite broke through to superstardom, Crow represented that raw, unpolished American rock spirit that kept the music honest and real during a time when the industry was pulling in a thousand different directions.
