Music
Burnin to the Sky
people. With scorchers like "If It Makes You Happy" and "Every Day is a Winding Road," Crow proved that she was not riding on anyone's coattails. It also put Crow into the ranks of the classic rockers she clearly emulated. She was soon opening for the Rolling Stones, being sent songs by Bob Dylan, jamming with Prince (check out YouTube) and (rumour has it) falling in love with Eric Clapton. At one point Crow was even being touted as replacement for Christine McVie in Fleetwood Mac. Yet Crow also had the ear of a younger, punkier audience, who picked up on the angst and anger in her music. You could not miss the directness of "If it makes you happy, why the hell are you so sad."
Sheryl Crow: Everyday is a Winding Road
By the time Crow released The Globe Sessions, in 1998, she was one of rock’s top acts in popular music. Her third album had monster hits like "Favourite Mistake," and solidified her reputation as the queen of adultoriented rock. She was a headliner at Lilith Fair and toured around the world. Her last really huge album was C'mon C'mon, the album with the unbelievably sunny single "Soak up the Sun" (with alt-rock hero Liz Phair on background vocals).
By Gord Ellis
I
t may seem hard to believe in 2017, but Sheryl Crow started her musical career as a somewhat controversial figure. Her first album, Tuesday Night Music Club, was a collaboration with a group of L.A. musicians that spawned a hit album and the
ubiquitous "All I Wanna Do.” When Crow went on the road to promote the disc and began doing television interviews, her collaborators felt she was not giving them their proper due and a backlash began. That period of time, which Crow admits she
didn't handle well, spawned one of the singer’s very best albums. Her self-titled 1996 followup album Sheryl Crow is dark, serious and a lot heavier than her debut. It was also done with an almost entirely different group of
One of my favourite Sheryl Crow albums is also one of her most overlooked. The first time I played Wildflower, her 2005 offering, I was taken aback at how downbeat it was. Crow was clearly a long way from "Soak up the Sun." The big hit was "Always
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on my Side,” although the single version was re-done as a duet with Sting. Yet "Message to God" and "Good is Good" are both incredibly beautiful and mildly depressing—gorgeous and sad in a delicious mix. I still listen to this album regularly, although it's not everyone's cup of tea. Sadly, the more recent output from Crow has not been so good, the absolute nadir of her career being the 2013 country album Feels Like Home. This album—a transparent attempt to find a "new" audience—was quite dreadful. It's perhaps the only album I've ever listened to by an artist I really admire that I had to force myself not to turn off. There is so much wrong with the album that it deserves a column of its own. But I digress. On her latest album, Be Myself, Crow has reunited with her longtime collaborator Jeff Trott and made a full-tilt rock and roll album. The grooves, feel, and tone of the album are more Sheryl Crow than C'mon C'mon and that's okay. Crow is a middle-aged woman now, with two kids and a few broken relationships in her past. She writes like an adult but can't hide the punk with a tele. She is pushing the album hard on all media platforms, but it's truly worth a listen. Let's hope Ms. Crow decides to follow Bonnie Raitt's example and plays the Auditorium soon. I think she would rock the place.
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