You might hear Chris Robinson sing about the cryptic ramblings of a Tarot character or a “sweet sister” who “rolls her own.”
But you probably won’t witness Robinson, who rose to fame fronting the Black Crowes, spewing political commentary. At least not on stage.
“I keep being positive, I keep thinking there’s a sour-faced, hate-filled, old, white man running this country and something will change,” says the Chris Robinson Brotherhood bandleader. “But until that fair day, I think about putting out the reverberations of positivity and of love and of strength and of compassion, and if you can do that in a little country rock song and keep a smile on your face and keep someone dancing, that’s the best.”
Robinson, speaking to The Post from a tour stop in St. Louis, will bring the CRB to Brooklyn Steel on Sunday, Nov. 4. It will be the group’s first show at the Williamsburg venue.
The Georgia native started the CRB in 2011 while the Black Crowes were in the midst of a reunion that fell apart in 2015. The prolific CRB, which has released five studio albums and has completed a sixth, “Servants of the Sun,” is his main gig now. With a looser, more psychedelic sound than the Southern-flavored guitar rock of the Crowes, the CRB takes cues from the ’60s San Francisco scene that spawned the Grateful Dead and like-minded musical and social experimentalists.
The CRB’s latest live album, “Betty’s Midwestern Blends,” out Nov. 16 on Robinson’s own Silver Arrow records, is the fourth in a series curated by Betty Cantor-Jackson, herself a part of Deadhead lore for her coveted concert recordings known as “Betty boards.”
Robinson, who jokes that Cantor-Jackson is “like having your amazing LSD mom on the tour bus,” met her a few years ago at hippie hero Wavy Gravy’s birthday party. The new “Betty’s Blends,” recorded in October 2016 at shows in Chicago, Milwaukee and Madison, Wisconsin, features sprawling CRB tunes like “Narcissus Soaking Wet” alongside a spirited cover of Steppenwolf’s “Magic Carpet Ride” and a funky overhaul of the Bob Dylan classic “It’s All Over Now Baby Blue.”
Robinson said he’ll bring Cantor-Jackson to shows in the Pacific Northwest to capture what will be Vol. 5.
2018 is the fourth straight year the CRB — Robinson (vocals and guitar), Neal Casal (guitar), Tony Leone (drums), Adam MacDougall (keyboards) and Jeff Hill (bass) — will play more than 200 shows.
Robinson’s estranged brother and fellow Black Crowes founder, Rich Robinson, in 2016 launched The Magpie Salute, a band that features some fellow former Crowes. Chris, for his part, played Crowes songs with a new band, As The Crow Flies, this year. The siblings no longer speak, with Rich recently saying in a radio interview, “I don’t have a brother anymore.”
While Robinson is an unabashed Deadhead, he’s not a fan of Dead and Company, the stadium-filling outfit featuring core Dead members Bob Weir, Bill Kreutzmann and Mickey Hart as well as pop superstar John Mayer.
“No, no, I don’t go to, like, corporate shows,” he says. “Everyone says it’s great, everyone has fun, that’s all that matters.”