Three Snakes and One Charm is the fourth studio album by American rock band the Black Crowes. It was released on July 23, 1996, and is their final release on American Recordings.

During the "Amorica or Bust" tour of 1995, many of the relationships within the Black Crowes had soured, including that of brothers Chris and Rich Robinson. "We just fucking hated each other," Rich noted in the September 1996 issue of Acoustic Guitar magazine. "It's just a normal phase bands go through. There was a lot of emotional baggage, and everyone got on each other's nerves. We almost broke up a few times, but finally we all let go and moved on."

Chris echoed his brother's sentiment in the March 1996 issue of Guitar World magazine. "Everyone goes through changes," he stated. "The trick is trying to remember that and keep it together, and having respect for everyone and not judging people because you're all goin' through changes. Perseverance is the thing. You have to get your ego in place."

With this new attitude in place, the band began planning what would be their fourth studio album. Their previous album, 1994's Amorica, was very much a studio recording, with a great deal of overdubs and other musical flourishes. This was a distinct change from the band's sophomore effort, 1992's The Southern Harmony and Musical Companion, which was recorded in eight days with little to no overdubs. A great deal of this was attributed to producer Jack Joseph Puig, who manned the board for Amorica. "The eight day album was coming off of 15 months of touring and we were still just flying," then-bassist Johnny Colt told RockNet in 1995. "This time we took some time off beforehand and tried to slow down...We consciously tried to take more time. I'm not even saying we really needed it, but we wanted to try it. We have worked ourselves into a position to afford to spend a little bit more time and try to make a different step."

Chris Robinson recalled the Amorica process: "It was hard to make because we were depressed and in an angry, confused place. Most of it was personal shit."

Rather than make another studio record like Amorica, the band opted for a different approach in the latter months of 1995. "Chris suggested that rather than book a hotel for six months, it'd be cooler if we rented a house for everyone to stay in," Rich Robinson noted in 1996. "So Chris moved into the house, and I brought my little board over to work on the demos. It sounded so cool that I brought my big board over, and the rest of my shit, and we rented a Neve sidecar for 10 extra channels. And we just did it."

As pre-production for Three Snakes and One Charm began, several songs were written with Chris and Rich Robinson on different sides of the United States. Rich would write and record music in Atlanta, and send his results to Chris in Los Angeles. "The long-distance writing was just something we did to get the process more concrete," Rich told Acoustic Guitar magazine in 1996. "I had a lot of bits and pieces that I'd written on tour and I needed to hear what Chris would do with them."

Once the basic ideas were recorded to tape, the band assembled in the house in Atlanta (dubbed Chateau de la Crowe by the band) to begin the Three Snakes sessions. Keyboardist Eddie Harsch recalls: "When we got to Atlanta, Chris and Rich put us in a room and played us the demos. The record was basically written. Twelve songs with vocals, dogs barking in the background, everything. We just looked at each other, like, 'What do you want us to do? It's all here.'" There proved to be a great deal more to do, with the band spending several weeks refining their original demos. Plus, a few other songs were written on the spot, including "Under a Mountain" and "Better When You're Not Alone." In total, the band recorded 26 songs during the sessions.