Category Archives: 2009
Sheryl Crow by Alan Light
I think this is one of the most honest and on target assessment on Sheryl Crow and her music.
SPECTACLE REPORT: ELVIS COSTELLO WITH…
Sheryl Crow on Guitar Pull
by Alan Light
The four artists who join Elvis Costello this week for SPECTACLE’s second annual “guitar pull” are all extraordinary singers and exceptional songwriters. But with all due respect to Neko Case, Ron Sexsmith, and Jesse Winchester, only one of them has been able to strike the balance that Elvis describes as the ability to have “huge commercial successes, but put heart and soul and smarts in them as well.” This master of creative juggling is Sheryl Crow.
It has now been more than fifteen years since the former music teacher from Kennett, Missouri made the leap from background singer (most notably, as part of Michael Jackson’s touring band) to A-List frontperson with 1993’s Tuesday Night Music Club. That album, which was recently reissued in an expanded two-CD edition, sold over seven million copies and won Crow the first three of her long list of Grammy Awards—though, as she tells Elvis, the album’s breakthrough hit, “All I Wanna Do,” almost didn’t make the final cut.
In a way, her seemingly sudden success has caused some listeners to overlook the caliber and consistency of Crow’s music. “When I came out with ‘All I Wanna Do,’ a lot of people felt I was just some pop diva,” she told me last year. “Most people still think that.” Other artists, though, certainly appreciate her work; she has shared stages and studios with Kid Rock, the Rolling Stones, Johnny Cash, and many more. “She has a wonderful ability to make words work, to phrase, to really build a song,” her friend and frequent collaborator Stevie Nicks once said.
Perhaps Crow’s greatest strength also sometimes presents an obstacle—her role as one of very few artists capable of bridging numerous musical worlds, from old-school rock snarl to contemporary hooks, from country to folk to radio-ready pop. Over the course of her six albums, sometimes this has even created a bit of confusion about her own musical identity (back in 2002, she told me that “I had gotten so far away from who I am that I didn’t know who I was writing for”), but it adds up to a career that long ago should have silenced all of her early skeptics.
“There are the older, real classic rock stars, and then the rest of us fall somewhere between that and the readymade pop stars,” she has said. “We’re really in some no-man’s land. We just have to wait, and I guess maybe we’ll get that respect when it’s time to retire.” For Sheryl Crow, that respect is long overdue.
Source: http://www.sundancechannel.com
Mean Poppa Lean – “Sheryl Crow”
“Sheryl Crow”
by Mean Poppa Lean
Origin: Brighton, UK
Format: Single/Audio CD/Mp3
Year: 2009
Who do we love? Sheryl Crow!
Sheryl Crow – “Lullaby for Wyatt” (Live, 2009-10-25)
“Lullaby for Wyatt”
Bridge School Benefit Concert
Shoreline Amphitheater
Mountain View, California (USA)
25 October 2009
Los Angeles Times magazine – October 2009 issue (scans + article)
EVERY DAY IS A WINDING ROAD
SHERYL CROW
The Grammy winner has learned to take life’s turns as they come – and finds well-being the destination
Interview by Carol Wolper / Photographs by Peter Lindbergh / Produced by Kim Pollock / Sudio provided by Milk Studios
She is a natural storyteller. Whether writing a song or having a conversation, Sheryl Crow has a way of communicating profound points with a light touch. Even the most skeptical readers or listeners will be lured into sticking around—and be glad they did. Recently, Crow spoke to us about surviving cancer, becoming healthy, growing wiser and getting better.
ON HAVING A MOTTO
My dad said something to me years ago, which may sound cliché but has resonated particularly in the last few years: “Don’t sweat the small stuff.” It has really served me, more than any other phrase, because there are so many things you can obsess on, especially if you have a personality like mine where you want to fix things and make everything good. Certain things are not that important—most things aren’t important when considered against your health and well-being.
ON GETTING IF WRONG
The mythology I created for myself as a kid was if I took care of everybody, then everybody would love me. If I made myself without needs, they would love me more. I think that’s where I was fragmented all the years before my cancer diagnosis. I think I perfected the art of being right with everyone, earning people’s love by taking care of them and never demanding anything.
ON SELF LOVE
Putting yourself first is not a selfish act. It’s a selfless act. In fact, it’s very challenging to say to other people, “No, I’m not always free of need 100 percent of the time,” and therefore give them the opportunity to show up—to actually be a participant in your life.
ON THE BIG LESSON
Since my cancer diagnosis, I can be in an airport, and before I even get to my gate, I’ll have a handful of women come up and say, “I’m a survivor” or “I’ve just been diagnosed.” It’s a conversation that goes on between strangers and creates an instant familiarity, an instant sisterhood. And one of the stories I hear over and over from these women is that there’s a metaphysical correlation between their breast cancer and their lack of ability to let other people nurture them.
ON SPIRITUALITY
eople in tune with the link between the physical and spiritual will tell you the left breast symbolizes nourishment coming in, and the right breast is nourishment going out. My cancer was in my left breast, and that was very thought provoking. Whether or not I can fully attest to a belief that that’s the way it is, it certainly created a concept for me as to how to live my life.
ON GETTING THROUGH IT
Every day when I went into radiation, I was already in despair because my personal life had taken a crash, and I realized I was being forced to show up for myself in a way I never had to before. I couldn’t have someone else do the radiation for me. I couldn’t have a man come in and save me, save my health, prop me up and make me better. It was me who had to lay there on a metal table with this giant alien-looking machine shooting a beam into my chest. And to lay there and think that this was less about the high-tech machinery, although that was scary, and more about my ability to handle the moment—that was empowering. It definitely jerked me into the reality that we come into this world with an incredible strength, and we learn how to be a victim, or we learn how to approach things from the standpoint that, really, things just happen, and there’s an opportunity in every challenge.
ON HER GO-TO GUYS
I’m lucky. I’m surrounded by amazing people who have been consistent as my life coaches—or as I call it, emotional chiropractors. I sometimes need someone to tell me the way I’m looking at it is not the only way to look at something. My manager is probably my closest friend and my confidant but also one of the wisest people I’ve ever known. The other guy is Abdi Assadi, a healer. He’s an acupuncturist in New York who wrote this amazing book, Shadows on the Path.
ON MEDITATION
One of the things—and this comes from someone who was highly self-critical and a type-A personality—that has changed my life is meditating. The simple act of making my brain shut off for 20 minutes in the morning and 20 minutes at night may not seem like much, but what ends up happening, besides creating space in your day, is your awake posture begins to replicate your meditative posture.
ON HER TURNING POINT
The moment I said I’m just going to let go of the picture of what my life was supposed to look like and give in—not give up, give in—and let go and see what comes my way, that’s when the real blessings came, when my life opened up in ways I could never begin to verbalize.
ON AGING
My 39th year was my worst. I dreaded turning 40. The moment I embraced turning 40 was the night of my fortieth birthday. I threw myself a big party, had all my friends up onstage, and we played and had an after-party. It went on for 24 hours. It was like a wake. But out of that wake came the best year of my life. I think there’s a wisdom that you cannot have in your twenties. You can be an old soul, but some life experiences you just can’t get until you get them.
Everyday is a Winding Road, Live @ Bumbershoot Festival (2009-09-05)
[vimeo http://vimeo.com/27100104 w=600&h=338]
–
Bumbershoot Festival
Seattle, Washington, USA
5 September 2009
– audience recording –
HD720p
Video courtesy louisinchains
A joyous and energetic rendition of Winding Road.
She was really on top form that night.
Beautiful, tiny, nimble, sweet rockandroller.
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