Lainey Wilson has recorded a new song with the Black Crowes that’s set to appear on Happiness Bastards, the rock group’s first album in 15 years. Wilson harmonizes with vocalist Chris Robinson on “Wilted Rose,” a gospel-tinged number.
According to Rich Robinson, the group’s guitarist, the seed for Wilson’s guest appearance was planted backstage at last year’s CMT Awards in Austin, where Wilson told the Robinson brothers that she was a longtime fan. The Crowes appeared on the CMTs to perform their hit 1990 ballad “She Talks to Angels” with their Nineties rock peer Darius Rucker.
“I’m so excited to be apart of the new the Black Crowes record,” Wilson tells Rolling Stone. “I’m a huge fan of their music and their legacy has truly withstood the test of time. I can’t wait for people to hear our song, ‘Wilted Rose.’ It’s a little country, a little rock & roll, and a whole lot of soul.”
Wilson’s rock & roll bona fides run deep. She regularly covers Rick Derringer’s “Rock and Roll, Hoochie Koo” and Queen’s “Fat Bottomed Girls” in concert, and recorded a version of 4 Non Blondes’ 1992 radio hit “What’s Up?” for her latest album Bell Bottom Country. “What’s Up?”, released the same year as the Crowes’ The Southern Harmony and Musical Companion, has been a secret weapon of Wilson’s set since her bar days.
“I’ve been covering that song for a really long time, even when I was playing with a band called the Cadillac Kings, back in Louisiana, when I was 17, 18, 19 years old,” she told Rolling Stone last year. “There were times when the show was kind of dragging ‘cause we’d been playing for four hours, but anytime we started playing ‘What’s Up?’ everybody’s hands and beers went up in the air. It was a time that everybody just kind of cut loose.”
Despite the Crowes’ appearance on a country awards show and a stream of rock artists, from Nickelback to Kid Rock, that have made inroads in Nashville, Rich told Rolling Stone that he and his brother don’t intend to wade further into country music. “We’ve always been an island unto ourselves,” he said. The Black Crowes’ Happiness Bastards will be released March 15.
[Additional reporting by Brian Hiatt]