Counting Crows Biography, Facts & FAQ

Singer Adam Duritz and guitarist Dave Bryson formed Counting Crows in San Francisco in 1991. 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 was a regular on the Bay Area scene. The same year, the band signed to Geffen Records.

From the beginning, Counting Crows focused on performing live. The band's debut album August and Everything After, produced by T-Bone Burnett, was released in the autumn of 1993. The band toured extensively in 1993 and 1994, both as headliners and in support of artists such as Cracker, the Cranberries, Suede, Bob Dylan, Los Lobos, Jellyfish, and Midnight Oil. The first single, Mr. Jones, describes the desire of working musicians to make it big and the fantasies they entertain about what this might bring. In December 1993, MTV began playing the song's video. It was an unexpected hit, drawing massive radio play and launching the band into stardom. August and Everything After became the fastest-selling album since Nirvana's Nevermind.

Counting Crows, and Adam Duritz in particular, have become renowned for the energetic, passionate nature of their live performances. Duritz frequently extends and rewrites songs live, adding extra verses or alternate middle sections and/or endings. He often uses other artists’ lyrics in these sections as well, ranging from well-known acts like Bruce Springsteen and Van Morrison and George Gershwin to obscure Bay Area bands. Most songs have been altered at some point during the band’s history.

The band has covered artists such as Rod Stewart, Pure Prairie League, Rolling Stones, Jackson Browne, Grateful Dead, Joni Mitchell, Bruce Springsteen, U2 and Oasis. The band has also become known for its acoustic performances, most notably recorded on the VH1 Storytellers disc from Across a Wire: Live in New York City. The band reportedly decided that it would not play any songs at the Storytellers concert for which it did not have substantially different acoustic arrangements. It has since performed variations on these acoustic arrangements at a number of concerts, often opening with a few acoustic numbers before launching into an electric set.

Counting Crows are one of a small number of contemporary popular music acts that actively encourages the recording of its concerts and the distribution of the resulting bootleg recordings. The band hosts a trading network on its website to enable fans to swap concert recordings; no one is allowed to sell recordings for profit on this network, instead fans either trade bootlegs for other bootlegs, or else pay for the blank media, postage and packing.

Counting Crows Awards

Lifetime Awards

2004
Academy Award nomination: Accidentally in Love

Counting Crows Discography

Saturday Nights & Sunday Mornings
Released: 03-25-2008
Discs: 1
Tracks: 14

New Amsterdam: Live at Heineken Music Hall
Released: 06-20-2006
Discs: 1
Tracks: 15

Films About Ghosts: The Best Of...
Released: 11-02-2004
Discs: 1
Tracks: 17

Hard Candy
Released: 07-09-2002
Discs: 1
Tracks: 14

This Desert Life
Released: 11-02-1999
Discs: 1
Tracks: 10

Across A Wire: Live In New York City
Released: 07-14-1998
Discs: 2
Tracks: 22

Recovering the Satellites
Released: 10-15-1996
Discs: 1
Tracks: 14

August and Everything After
Released: 09-14-1993
Discs: 1
Tracks: 11