Songoftheday 11/29/17 - Baby here I am I'm the man on the scene, I can give you what you want but you gotta' come home with me...

"Hard To Handle" - The Black Crowes
from the album Shake Your Money Maker (1990)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #45 (1990), #26 (one week, 1991 - reissue)
Weeks in the Top-40: 6

Today's song of the day comes from the southern roots rock band the Black Crowes, whose stellar debut album Shake Your Money Maker had finally landed them a top-40 pop hit in the spring of 1991 with the ballad "She Talks To Angels". On the success of that ballad, they remixed and re-released their earlier single "Hard To Handle". A cover of a classic jam from the late great Otis Redding which reached the R&B top-40 in 1968 (and got to #51 on the pop Hot 100), the funky rapid-fire blues-rock hybrid was written by Redding with Allen Jones and record executive Al Bell, and was on his post-mortem album The Immortal Otis Redding...

The Black Crowes managed to up the tempo and extend the time by a minute, yet transform the song into one of the freshest rock singles of that year...

The Crowes version of "Hard To Handle", which originally peaked at #45 on the pop chart in 1990, returned to the Hot 100 and reaching the top 40 in August of 1991. Back in its original release, the song topped Billboard's Mainstream Rock radio chart for two weeks in November of 1990. Internationally, the single hit #39 in the UK, and #56 in the Netherlands. A final release from Shake Your Money Maker, the tender ballad "Seeing Things", climbed to #2 on the Mainstream Rock chart, and #72 in the UK.

The following year, the band lost their lead guitarist Jeff Cease, who more recently played with Eric Church's band, and was replaced by Marc Ford for their sophomore album The Southern Harmony and Musical Companion. It was a big success in their genre, landing them their first and only #1 album, but while four consecutive songs from the record topped Billboard's Mainstream Rock radio chart ("Remedy" for 11 weeks, followed by "Sting Me" for 2, then later in the year "Thorn In My Pride" for four more weeks then finally "Hotel Illness" for six), none of those song reached the pop top-40 at all. Mainstream Radio by then had passed on classic and roots rock in favor of alternative and grunge after the success of Nirvana and Pearl Jam, so while they dominated rock radio, even "Remedy" stopped short at #48, though it was their highest-charting single in the UK at #24.

With keyboardist Eddie Harsch becoming an official member, the group's third effort Amorica arrived in 1994. Three tracks from the record made the top ten on the Mainstream Rock chart - "A Conspiracy" (#5), "High Head Blues" (#8), and "Wiser Time" (#7) - none even reached the pop Hot 100 chart, and the album, whose scandalous cover featured a close-up of hairy womans crotch in a flag-themed bikini bottom, may have turned off some fans, and peaked right under the top ten at #11. ("Conspiracy" and "High Head Blues" were on a double-A single in the UK which gave them a third top-40 hit there at #25.) After another two-year break, they returned in 1996 with Three Snakes and One Charm, which found the Robinson brothers who led the band at their most volatile. Two tracks from the record reached the Mainstream Rock top ten, with "Good Friday" peaking at #3 for four weeks. However, Ford was sacked and original bass player Johnny Colt bolted as well, leaving drummer Steve Gorman and Chris and Rich Robinson the remaining original members.

Recruiting German-born bass player Sven Pipien (the latter who remained till the end), the Crowes recorded the back-to-basics set By Your Side in 1998, so far their lowest-charting studio album at #26, even though single "Kicking My Heart Around" spent ten weeks at #3 on the Mainstream Rock radio chart and "bubbled under" Billboard's Hot 100 at #118. Right after that, they added Cry Of Love guitarist Audley Freed, not a stranger to #1 on the rock chart with his former band with "Peace Pipe" in 1993. After a live album with guitar god Jimmy Page, and temporarily without Pipien, the band would put out their sixth studio album Lions, with the trippy lead single "Lickin'" reaching #9 on the Mainstream Rock list. Gorman left and the band split up for a number of years.

In 2005 the Robinsons reunited with Gorman, Harsch, Pipien, and Ford for a successful tour, but by the time they got to recording a new album, Ford and Harsch quit. But adding new members, the resulting record, 2008's Warpaint, brought them back into the top ten on the Albums Chart for the first time since 1992, and scored a minor rock radio hit with "Goodbye Daughters Of The Revolution" (#33). A year later came Before The Frost...Until The Freeze, so far the Black Crowes' last studio album. After a few stop-start live get-togthers, the band broke up in 2015. At that time, the members including the brothers had split, with lead singer Chris Robinson forming the most successful post-Crowes act the Chris Robinson Brotherhood, while Rich recorded solo as well as with Ford and Pepien in the BC-hat-tipping Magpie Salute.

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Besides Redding and the Crowes, pop-soul singer Patti Drew had the most successful cover of the song, reaching #40 on the R&B chart and #93 on the pop Hot 100 in 1968...