DAN VICKREY
Name: Counting Crows
Origin: San Francisco, California, United States
Counting Crows is a rock band originating from Berkeley, California. The group
gained popularity in 1994 following the release of its debut album August and
Everything After, which featured the hit single "Mr. Jones." The band's
influences include Van Morrison, R.E.M., Nirvana, Bob Dylan and The Band.
They received a 2004 Academy Award nomination for the song "Accidentally in
Love".
Singer Adam Duritz (former member of the Bay Area band The Himalayans) and
guitarist Dave Bryson formed Counting Crows in San Francisco in 1991. As well as
his experience in The Himalayans, Duritz had contributed to recordings by the
Bay Area group Sordid Humor, though never a member. Counting Crows began as an
acoustic duo, playing gigs in and around Berkeley and San Francisco.
By 1993 the band had grown to a stable lineup of Duritz, Bryson, Matt Malley (bass),
Charlie Gillingham (keys) and Steve Bowman (drums), and it was a regular on the
Bay Area scene. The same year, the band signed to Geffen Records. On January 16,
1993, the band, still relatively unknown, filled in for Van Morrison at the
Rock & Roll Hall of Fame ceremony, and was introduced by an enthusiastic Robbie
Robertson. They remain the only unknowns ever to play the ceremony.
At some point before signing to Geffen, the band recorded demo versions of a
number of songs, known as the 'Flying Demos'. These later surfaced among the
Counting Crows fanbase. Tracks include "Rain King", "Omaha", "Anna Begins", "Einstein
on the Beach (For an Eggman)", "Shallow Days", "Love and Addiction", "Mr. Jones",
"Round Here", "40 Years", "Margery Dreams of Horses", "Bulldog", "Lightning" and
"We're Only Love".
Various songs from this tape would later resurface on the band's debut album
August and Everything After; the songs contained on the tape featured different
music and in some instances different lyrics.
The band took its name from a divination rhyme about the crow, heard by Duritz
in the film Signs of Life. The rhyme is used at the end of the song "A Murder
of One" on the album August and Everything After: "Well I dreamt I saw you
walking up a hillside in the snow / Casting shadows on the winter sky as you
stood there, counting crows / One for sorrow, two for joy / Three for girls and
four for boys / Five for silver, six for gold / Seven for a secret never to be
told." In the poem, the act of counting crows is particularly useless. Duritz
reveals that a name is just a name, and, with that, is useless and can be
anything. The divination also appears in the 1973 novel Secret of the Seven
Crows by Wylly Folk St. John: "One crow means sorrow, two crows mean joy, three
crows a wedding, four crows a boy, five crows mean silver, six crows mean gold,
seven crows a secret that's never been told." In the UK, the rhyme is well known
but uses magpies rather than crows. A popular superstition states that if one
sees a single magpie, one should greet it in the form of good morning/afternoon/evening
Mr Magpie to deflect the "sorrow".
Name: Counting Crows
Origin: San Francisco, California, United States
Counting Crows is a rock band originating from Berkeley, California. The group
gained popularity in 1994 following the release of its debut album August and
Everything After, which featured the hit single "Mr. Jones." The band's
influences include Van Morrison, R.E.M., Nirvana, Bob Dylan and The Band.
They received a 2004 Academy Award nomination for the song "Accidentally in
Love".
Singer Adam Duritz (former member of the Bay Area band The Himalayans) and
guitarist Dave Bryson formed Counting Crows in San Francisco in 1991. As well as
his experience in The Himalayans, Duritz had contributed to recordings by the
Bay Area group Sordid Humor, though never a member. Counting Crows began as an
acoustic duo, playing gigs in and around Berkeley and San Francisco.
By 1993 the band had grown to a stable lineup of Duritz, Bryson, Matt Malley (bass),
Charlie Gillingham (keys) and Steve Bowman (drums), and it was a regular on the
Bay Area scene. The same year, the band signed to Geffen Records. On January 16,
1993, the band, still relatively unknown, filled in for Van Morrison at the
Rock & Roll Hall of Fame ceremony, and was introduced by an enthusiastic Robbie
Robertson. They remain the only unknowns ever to play the ceremony.
At some point before signing to Geffen, the band recorded demo versions of a
number of songs, known as the 'Flying Demos'. These later surfaced among the
Counting Crows fanbase. Tracks include "Rain King", "Omaha", "Anna Begins", "Einstein
on the Beach (For an Eggman)", "Shallow Days", "Love and Addiction", "Mr. Jones",
"Round Here", "40 Years", "Margery Dreams of Horses", "Bulldog", "Lightning" and
"We're Only Love".
Various songs from this tape would later resurface on the band's debut album
August and Everything After; the songs contained on the tape featured different
music and in some instances different lyrics.
The band took its name from a divination rhyme about the crow, heard by Duritz
in the film Signs of Life. The rhyme is used at the end of the song "A Murder
of One" on the album August and Everything After: "Well I dreamt I saw you
walking up a hillside in the snow / Casting shadows on the winter sky as you
stood there, counting crows / One for sorrow, two for joy / Three for girls and
four for boys / Five for silver, six for gold / Seven for a secret never to be
told." In the poem, the act of counting crows is particularly useless. Duritz
reveals that a name is just a name, and, with that, is useless and can be
anything. The divination also appears in the 1973 novel Secret of the Seven
Crows by Wylly Folk St. John: "One crow means sorrow, two crows mean joy, three
crows a wedding, four crows a boy, five crows mean silver, six crows mean gold,
seven crows a secret that's never been told." In the UK, the rhyme is well known
but uses magpies rather than crows. A popular superstition states that if one
sees a single magpie, one should greet it in the form of good morning/afternoon/evening
Mr Magpie to deflect the "sorrow".