Sheryl Crow was a backup and studio session singer until her platinum solo album Tuesday Night Music Club (1994) and its breakout single, "All I Wanna Do." She quickly became a regular at the Grammy Awards and on MTV, where her good looks and jangle-rocking style have kept her extremely popular. During the late '90s she kept the hits coming, including "If it Makes You Happy" and "A Change (Will Do You Good)" (1996) as well as the Grammy-winning album The Globe Sessions (1998). Her 2002 release, C'mon, C'mon, earned more Grammy nominations and produced the hits "Steve McQueen" and "Soak Up the Sun."
Crow spent two years as a backup singer for Michael Jackson's "Bad" tour... She dated bicycle superstar Lance Armstrong from 2003 until 2006, when they split up after a brief engagement... In February of 2006 Crow was surgically treated for breast cancer.
Born on February 11, 1962, in Kennett, MO; daughter of Wendell (a lawyer and trumpeter) and Bernice (a piano teacher) Crow. Children: one, Wyatt (adopted 2007). Education: Received degree in piano and voice from University of Missouri at Columbia, c. 1984.
Played in Kennett-area bands in late 1970s, early 1980s; played in a Columbia, Missouri-based band called Cashmere; moved to Los Angeles, c. 1986; joined Michael Jackson's Bad tour as back-up singer, 1987-89; sang backup for Don Henley, Rod Stewart, 1989; signed with A&M Records, 1991; released debut A&M album, Tuesday Night Music Club, 1993; performed with USO tour for American troops stationed in Bosnia, 1995; released Sheryl Crow, 1996; released The Globe Sessions, 1998; made film debut in The Minus Man, 1999; released Sheryl Crow and Friends: Live in Central Park, 1999; released C'mon, C'mon, 2002; released Very Best of Sheryl Crow, 2003;Wildflower, 2005; released Detours, 2008.
Awards: Grammy Awards, Best Female Pop Vocal Performance for "All I Wanna Do," Best New Artist, and Record of the Year for "All I Wanna Do," 1994; Grammy Awards, Best Rock Album for Sheryl Crow and Best Female Rock Vocal Performance for "If It Makes You Happy," 1996; Grammy Award, Best Rock Album for The Globe Sessions, 1998; Grammy Award, Best Female Rock Vocal Performance for "Sweet Child O' Mine," 1999; Grammy Award, Best Female Rock Vocal Performance for "There Goes the Neighborhood," 2000; Grammy Award, Best Female Rock Vocal Performance for "Steve McQueen," 2002; Academy of Country Music Award, Vocal Event of the Year, for "Building Bridges," with Brooks & Dunn and Vince Gill, 2007.
Addresses:Record company—A&M, 560 Broadway, New York, NY 10012. Web site—Sheryl Crow Official Site: http://www.sherylcrow.com.
Singer, songwriter
After several years of backup singing for established artists—and one aborted bid at launching a solo career—Sheryl Crow burst onto the pop music scene with 1993's Tuesday Night Music Club, a strong album that included two hit singles, "Leaving Las Vegas" and "All I Wanna Do." Blessed with a voice well suited to her rock ‘n’ roll material and what Rolling Stone's Elysa Gardner termed "naughty-cheerleader good looks," Crow became a ubiquitous presence on MTV and VH-1. In the fall of 1996, three years after her debut, Crow released a second album, Sheryl Crow. That album and her following releases, The Globe Sessions and C'mon, C'mon, were well-received by both critics and the record-buying public, confirming that the singer was more than a one-album wonder.
Born Sheryl Crow, on February 11, 1962, in Kennett, Missouri, Crow grew up in a sturdy Midwestern community that was the backdrop for an outwardly normal childhood. "Sheryl was a cheerleader and a twirler," her sister Kathy recalled in an interview with Rolling Stone's Fred Schruers. "She wasn't shy about getting out and doing something, even if it meant that she had to be out by herself doing it." But while Crow was a popular, athletic student who posted good grades, she endured many nights of what she would later call "sleep paralysis," a condition she shared with her mother. "There would be nights where I would be so afraid to go to sleep," she told Schruers. "In sleep paralysis, sometimes you get to the point where you are sure you're going to die in the dream, and your breathing stops and all that. It's a bizarre and twisted feeling where you feel completely paralyzed."
After graduating from Kennett High School, Crow moved on to the University of Missouri and took music and education classes. After graduation, she relocated to St. Louis, where she spent her days working as a music teacher at an elementary school. Her nights, meanwhile, were spent singing lead vocals in a variety of local rock bands. In 1986 she abruptly left St. Louis for the West Coast, a move that stunned her family and friends. "I'd just broken up with a boy and I was really bummed out," Crow recalled in a conversation with Newsweek's Karen Schoemer. "I got in my car with a box of tapes and I drove from Missouri out to L.A., 28 hours by myself, nonstop. I didn't know a soul in L.A. I pulled in on the 405 at 4:30 in the afternoon, and sat in traffic and just cried my eyes out. Like ‘Oh my God, what have I done?’"
Crow's break came after only six months, however, when she crashed a closed audition and landed a job singing back-up for Michael Jackson's 1987 Bad international concert tour. "Being a background singer—putting on a tight black dress and doing choreography—has very little to do with being a musician," she told Robert Seidenberg in Entertainment Weekly. The exhausting pace of the tour, during which the tabloid press identified her as Jackson's lover, wore her down. Tired and again depressed, Crow endured several difficult months. "When I went through a really bad bout of depression, my mom would call, and my mom and I are very close," she told Schruers, "but she would call, and she would say, ‘You're a cute girl, you're smart, you've got everything in the world going for you,’ and that would just make it worse. Because then it makes you even loathe yourself more for being sick."
Signed with Major Label Late in 1989, Crow secured a job singing backup for Don Henley, a gig that eventually led to work with Rod Stewart and several other big-name acts. Her studio session work soon caught the attention of A&M Records, which signed her to a recording contract in 1991. Company executive Al Cafaro told Schruers that Crow was "a very, very strong person, with an ultimate, overriding confidence in herself, but constantly assessing where she's at and what's going on." The record company soon arranged to record a solo album for the young singer, but the final product was a mess. Entertainment Weekly's David Browne wrote that the album's "songs lumber from ersatz gospel to forced psychedelia; the production has the sterile glaze of '80s pop." Todd Gold, writing in People, similarly characterized it as a "slick, soulless album." Fortunately for Crow, the decidedly overproduced album was never released. "Had we put out the first bunch of tracks," Crow later told Schoemer, "I would never have been heard of again."
Crow eventually became friends with a group of L.A. musicians who informally jammed together under the name "Tuesday Night Music Club." Their sessions formed the basis—once A&M execs got wind of the sound—of what would become an album much more suited to everyone's liking. The record that became her 1993 debut, Tuesday Night Music Club, put together with the help of a stellar group of musicians and studio wizards that included David Baerwald, David Ricketts, Kevin Gilbert (Crow's boyfriend for a time), and Bill Bottrell. Over the course of just a few sessions the group constructed the outline for Tuesday Night Music Club, and Bottrell and Crow fleshed out the album over the next few months.
However, in the months following the album's release, Crow and several musicians who performed on the album clashed bitterly over a number of issues, from the nature of Crow's tour in support of the album (she recruited lesser-known musicians for the touring band to save money) to her false assertion on David Letterman's show that "Leaving Las Vegas" was autobiographical (Baerwald, a friend of soon-to-be-deceased Leaving Las Vegas novelist John O'Brien, had come up with the song's basic underpinnings).
Driven to establish herself as a legitimate talent, Crow toured tirelessly in the months following the album's release. Crow's touring helped give the second single, "All I Wanna Do," the fertile ground it needed to become a monster hit in the summer of 1994. After seven months of struggling to spur album sales, "All I Wanna Do" gave Tuesday Night Music Club the push it needed. Within a matter of weeks, the debut was a hit (eight million copies were eventually sold) and Crow had become a fixture on cable television's video-music channels. Critics noted that the attention was well-deserved. "Her melodic, quirky songs of sexual tension, fulfillment and harassment on Tuesday Night Music Club are both thoughtful and plain fun," wrote Playboy's Vic Garbarini. David Hiltbrand, reviewing the album for People, compared Crow's singer/songwriter abilities to those of Rickie Lee Jones.
Her Woodstock appearance in 1994 enhanced Crow's reputation, as did the three Grammy Awards she received in 1995, including one for Best New Artist of 1994. But after a while, she began to retreat somewhat from the public spotlight. "I was really, by the end of it, very overexposed," she told Schoemer in a 1996 interview with Newsweek. "I've said that it's really great for other female artists to look at me and know what not to do. Part of it was my own fault. I'm an accessible person. I'm willing to do whatever. Not for the fame, but I just kind of went along with it."
Silenced Critics with Follow-Up In 1995 Crow began to lay the groundwork for her second album, mindful of persistent rumors that she would not have hit it big were it not for the talents of the other Tuesday Night Music Club musicians. The final result was 1996's Sheryl Crow, an album that established her as a talented artist in her own right. "While still working with collaborators," wrote Rolling Stone's Gardner, "[Crow] operates more like a leader than a club member this time, writing a few songs independently and imbuing all of them with a greater sense of who she is and where she comes from. The lyrics seem grittier and more intimate … and the craftsmanship is strong and self-assured." Entertainment Weekly's Browne lauded Sheryl Crow as "a loose, freewheeling yet remarkably robust album that tugs at your heart and feet—sometimes within the same tune."
The album was also controversial. One song, "Love Is a Good Thing," contained lyrics suggesting that guns sold at Wal-Mart stores sometimes find their way into the hands of children. Wal-Mart responded by banning the album from its shelves—a move that industry observers expected to cost Crow hundreds of thousands of dollars in sales—but Crow remained defiant. Indeed, in the weeks following Sheryl Crow's release, the singer seemed more certain than ever of her musical direction and vision. "At the end of the day, I can play a Bob Dylan song and it will be a great song" she told Schoemer. "I hope that 25 years from now some young artist might play one of my songs and it might be a revelation in some way."
In 1997 Crow joined Lilith Fair, an all-woman touring festival organized by singer-songwriter Sarah McLachlan. Later, Crow would also be one of the featured performers in the film, Lilith Fair—A Celebration of Women. "Now you have a lot of females who are stepping up to represent women in America or women in the world, becoming role models for young girls," Crow told Chris Willman in Entertainment Weekly. Crow also became involved in a number of other projects in 1997 and the beginning of 1998. She recorded "Tomorrow Never Dies," the theme song for the 1997 James Bond film, which was nominated for a Grammy Award. She also worked with Stone Temple Pilot's former front person, Scott Weiland, contributing to 12 Bar Blues, which was issued in the spring of 1998.
In 1998, Crow returned to the studio to work on material for a new album. Her third album, The Globe Sessions, was released on September 29, 1998, and "My Favorite Mistake" was issued as the album's first single. The Globe Sessions received good reviews in Rolling Stone and Entertainment Weekly, though Douglas Wolk of Salon labeled the album as, "[…] the soul of normalcy by most standards." Commercially, The Globe Sessions performed well, reaching number five on the Billboard 200, while "My Favorite Mistake" would reach number two on the Adult Top 40 chart. In 1999 The Globe Sessions was re-issued with Crow's cover of Guns ‘n’ Roses' "Sweet Child O' Mine." In 1998, she received a Grammy for best rock album for The Globe Sessions. The following year she received a Grammy for best female rock vocal performance for "Sweet Child O' Mine."
Crow stayed busy in 1999, recording a live album, Sheryl Crow and Friends: Live in Central Park and taking on her first acting role in the independent film The Minus Man. Her cover of the Guns n' Roses song "Sweet Child O' Mine" appeared on the soundtrack for Big Daddy. A three-year bout of uncertainty, depression, and a near emotional breakdown precluded any new material from being released until C'mon, C'mon, in late 2002, a few months after her fortieth birthday.
"You get to a point as an artist," Crow told Esquire writer Scott Raab, "where it can be to your detriment to have money and be hanging out with … people who are famous …. It's not been good for my artistry. It's made this record a very difficult record for me to make." Still, Crow's famous friends, including Lenny Kravitz, Liz Phair, Emmylou Harris, and Gwyneth Paltrow, show up on nearly every track of C'mon, C'mon. Critics often pointed out Crow's seemingly contradictory words and actions in reviews of C'mon, C'mon, her contradictory feelings regarding her famous friends, her public lambasts of belly-baring pop stars, and the ambiguity of her image. "Sheryl Crow: VH1 party girl or tormented loner?" asked Entertainment Weekly's David Browne. Still, Browne acknowledged that "C'mon, C'mon [will] jostle its way into your head," and deemed Crow a "supreme craftsperson, the spawn of Stevie Nicks and Tom Petty."
Despite the insecurities that Crow admits plague her recording sessions, she still gets a thrill out of playing live. "I love the communication that goes on when you're playing in front of people," she told Interview's Elizabeth Weitzman. "When you go out and play and the song reaches people, everything else just falls away—the magazine articles, the production. It's that moment that is the reality."
Crow released her next album, Wildflower, in September of 2005, the same month that she announced her engagement to champion bicyclist Lance Armstrong. The album was filled with love songs, but none that referred directly to her relationship. Stephen Thomas Erlewine of All Music Guide described the album as warm, introspective, and subtle. "It's easy to spin Wildflower a couple of times before the songs start to sink in," he wrote. "Once they do, the album seems to be one of her most consistent records and one of her best." Soon after Wildflower was released, Crow's life became intense and difficult. She was diagnosed with breast cancer in early 2006 and underwent successful treatment. She and Armstrong separated around the same time. In 2007, she adopted a son, Wyatt. Meanwhile, she got involved in political activism on issues such as global warming.
Those experiences became the subjects of her next album, Detours, released in February of 2008. One glance at the song titles on the album made that clear: "Make It Go Away (Radiation Song)" described her cancer treatment; "Diamond Ring" went straight at her broken engagement to Armstrong; "Lullaby for Wyatt" was dedicated to her son. Protest songs on the album delivered messages about oil and pollution, the war in Iraq, and the fate of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina with sly humor. Her "decade's worth of life packed into two years," as Erlewine of All Music Guide put it, "have led Crow to produce her liveliest, weirdest album since 1996's messy masterpiece Sheryl Crow." Erlewine expressed hope that Detours was not a detour for Crow, "With any luck, this album isn't a one-time journey down a side road but rather the touchstone for the next act in her career."
Selected discography Tuesday Night Music Club, A&M, 1993. Sheryl Crow, A&M, 1996. The Globe Sessions, A&M, 1998. Sheryl Crow and Friends: Live in Central Park, A&M, 1999. C'mon, C'mon, Interscope, 2002. Very Best of Sheryl Crow, A&M, 2003; tour edition, Universal International, 2004. Wildflower, A&M, 2005. Detours, A&M, 2008.
Sources Periodicals Billboard, August 29, 1998. Entertainment Weekly, October 14, 1994; February 24, 1995; September 27, 1996; July 11, 1997; September 25, 1998; April 19, 2002. Esquire, September 2001. Interview, October 1998. Knight-Ridder Tribune News Service, April 7, 1994. Newsweek, October 24, 1994; September 16, 1996; April 15, 2002. New York Times, March 12, 1995. People, November 29, 1993; September 23, 1996. Playboy, February 1995. Rolling Stone, December 15, 1994; October 3, 1996; November 14, 1996. Salon, September 16, 1998. Time, March 13, 1995; April 22, 2002. Wall Street Journal, September 11, 1996.
Sheryl Crow's fresh, updated spin on classic roots rock made her one of the most popular mainstream rockers of the '90s. Her albums were loose and eclectic on the surface, yet were generally tied together by polished, professional songcraft. Crow's sunny, good-time rockers and world-weary ballads were radio staples for much of the '90s, and she was a perennial favorite at Grammy time. Although her songwriting style was firmly anchored to the rock tradition, she wasn't a slave to it -- her free-associative, reference-laden poetry could hardly have been the product of any era but the '90s. Her production not only kept pace with contemporary trends, but sometimes even pushed the envelope of what sounds could be heard on a classicist rock album, especially on her self-titled sophomore effort. All of this made Crow one of the most dependable stars of the decade, and she showed no signs of relinquishing her hard-won success in the new millennium.
Sheryl Suzanne Crow was born February 11, 1962, in Kennett, MO. Her parents had both performed in swing orchestras, her father on trumpet and her mother as a singer; her mother was also a piano teacher, and ensured that all her daughters learned the instrument starting in grade school. Crow wrote her first song at age 13, and majored in music at the University of Missouri, where she also played keyboards in a cover band called Cashmere. After graduating, she spent a couple of years in St. Louis working as a music teacher for autistic children. She sang with another cover band, P.M., by night, and also recorded local advertising jingles on the side. In 1986, Crow packed up and moved to Los Angeles to try her luck in the music business. She was able to land some more jingle-singing assignments, and got her first big break when she successfully auditioned to be a backup singer on Michael Jackson's international Bad tour. In concert, she often sang the female duet part on "I Just Can't Stop Loving You," and was inaccurately rumored by the tabloids to have been Jackson's lover. After spending two years on the road with Jackson, Crow resumed her search for a record deal, but found that record companies were only interested in making her a dance-pop singer, which was not at all to her taste.
Frustrated, Crow suffered a bout of severe depression that lasted around six months. She revived her career as a session vocalist, however, and performed with the likes of Sting, Rod Stewart, Stevie Wonder, Foreigner, Joe Cocker, Sinéad O'Connor, and Don Henley, the latter of whom she toured with behind The End of the Innocence. She also developed her songwriting skills enough to have her compositions recorded by the likes of Wynonna Judd, Celine Dion, and Eric Clapton. Thanks to her session work, she made a connection with producer Hugh Padgham, who got her signed to A&M. Padgham and Crow went into the studio in 1991 to record her debut album, but Padgham's pop leanings resulted in a slick, ballad-laden record that didn't reflect the sound Crow wanted. The album was shelved, and fearing that she'd let her best opportunity slip through her fingers, Crow sank into another near-crippling depression that lingered for nearly a year and a half. However, thanks to boyfriend Kevin Gilbert, an engineer who'd attempted to remix her ill-fated album, Crow fell in with a loose group of industry pros that included Gilbert, Bill Bottrell, David Baerwald, David Ricketts, Brian MacLeod, and Dan Schwartz. Dubbed the Tuesday Night Music Club, this collective met once a week at Bottrell's Pasadena recording studio to drink, jam, and work out material. In this informal, collaborative setting, Crow was able to get her creative juices flowing again, and the group agreed to make its newest member -- the only one with a recording contract -- the focal point.
Crow and the collective worked out enough material for an album, and with Bottrell serving as producer, she recorded her new official debut, titled Tuesday Night Music Club in tribute. The record was released in August 1993 and proved slow to take off. Lead single "Run Baby Run" made little impact, and while "Leaving Las Vegas" attracted some attention, it reached only the lower half of the charts. A&M took one last shot by releasing "All I Wanna Do," a song partly written by poet Wyn Cooper, as a single. With its breezy, carefree outlook, "All I Wanna Do" became one of the biggest summer singles of 1994, falling just one position short of number one. Suddenly, Tuesday Night Music Club started flying out of stores, and spawned a Top Five follow-up hit in "Strong Enough" (plus another minor single in "Can't Cry Anymore"). Crow was a big winner at the Grammys in early 1995, taking home honors for Best New Artist, Best Female Rock Vocal, and Record of the Year (the latter two for "All I Wanna Do"). Her surprising sweep pushed Tuesday Night Music Club into the realm of genuine blockbuster, as its sales swept past the seven million mark. After close to a decade of dues-paying, Crow was a star.
Unfortunately, success came at a price. In 1994, Crow had been invited to perform "Leaving Las Vegas" on Late Night with David Letterman. In a brief interview segment, Letterman asked if the song was autobiographical, and Crow offhandedly agreed that it was. In actuality, the song was mostly written by David Baerwald, based on the book by his good friend John O'Brien (which had also inspired the film). Having been burned by the industry already, some of the Tuesday Night Music Club took Crow's comment as a refusal to give proper credit for their contributions. Baerwald in particular felt betrayed, and things only got worse when O'Brien committed suicide not long after Crow's Letterman appearance. Although O'Brien's family stepped forward to affirm that Crow had nothing to do with the tragedy, the rift with Baerwald was already irreparable. Some Club members bitterly charged that Crow's role in the collaborative process was rather small, and that the talent on display actually had little to do with her. Tragedy struck again in 1996 when Crow's ex-boyfriend, Kevin Gilbert, was found dead of autoerotic asphyxiation.
Stung by the charges, Crow set out to prove her legitimacy with her second album when the heavy touring for Tuesday Night Music Club finally ended. Bill Bottrell was originally slated to produce the record, but fell out with Crow very early on, and the singer ended up taking over production duties herself. However, she did bring in the noted team of Mitchell Froom and Tchad Blake as assistant producer and engineer, respectively. Froom and Blake were known for the strange sonic experimentation they brought to projects by roots rockers (the Latin Playboys) and singer/songwriters (Richard Thompson, Suzanne Vega), and they helped Crow craft a similarly non-traditional record. Released in the fall of 1996, Sheryl Crow definitely bore the stamp of the singer's personality and songwriting voice, especially in the idiosyncratic lyrics; plus, she was now writing mostly with her guitarist, Jeff Trott, proving that she could cut it without her estranged collaborators. The singles "If It Makes You Happy," "Everyday Is a Winding Road," and "A Change Would Do You Good" were all radio smashes, and "Home" also became a minor hit. Sheryl Crow went triple platinum, and Crow brought home Grammys for Best Rock Album and another Best Female Rock Vocal (for "If It Makes You Happy").
Crow toured with the Lilith Fair package during the summer of 1997 (the first of several times), and subsequently wrote and performed the title theme to the James Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies. In the fall of 1998, she returned with her third album, The Globe Sessions. A more straightforward, traditionalist rock record than Sheryl Crow, The Globe Sessions didn't dominate the airwaves in quite the same fashion, but it did become her third straight platinum-selling, Top Ten LP, and it won her another Grammy for Best Rock Album. It also spawned two midsized hits in the Top 20: "My Favorite Mistake" and "Anything But Down." In 1999, she contributed a Grammy-winning cover of Guns N' Roses' "Sweet Child o' Mine" to the soundtrack of the Adam Sandler comedy Big Daddy. She also performed a special free concert in New York's Central Park, with an array of guest stars including Keith Richards, Eric Clapton, Chrissie Hynde, the Dixie Chicks, Stevie Nicks, and Sarah McLachlan. The show was broadcast on Fox and later released as the album Live in Central Park, just in time for the holidays. "There Goes the Neighborhood" won her another Grammy for Best Female Rock Vocal; however, partly because of some shaky performances, the album flopped badly, not even going gold.
Hit with a case of writer's block, Crow took some time to deliver her fourth studio LP. In the meantime, she produced several tracks on Stevie Nicks' 2001 album, Trouble in Shangri-La, and also recorded a duet with Kid Rock, "Picture," for his album Cocky. Finally, in the spring of 2002, Crow released C'mon C'mon, which entered the LP charts at number two for her highest positioning yet. It quickly went platinum, and the lead single, "Soak Up the Sun," was a Top 20 hit and another ubiquitous radio smash. The follow-up, "Steve McQueen," was also a lesser hit. At the beginning of 2005 it was announced that there would be two simultaneously released new albums available by the end of the year. The project was then scaled back to the single-disc Wildflower, which saw release at the end of September. Crow was forced to take time off from her musical career in 2006 after being diagnosed with stage 1 breast cancer. After successful treatment, she returned in 2008 with her sixth studio album, Detours. 100 Miles from Memphis followed in 2010 and featured guest spots from Keith Richards, Justin Timberlake, and Citizen Cope. ~ Steve Huey, Rovi
Sheryl Suzanne Crow (born February 11, 1962) is an Americansinger-songwriter, record producer, musician, and actress. Her music incorporates elements of rock, folk, hip hop, country and pop. She has won nine Grammy Awards from the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences.
Sheryl Suzanne Crow was born in Kennett, Missouri, on February 11, 1962. Her father Wendell Crow is a lawyer and trumpet player, and her mother Bernice, a piano teacher.[4] She has older sisters Kathy and Karen, and a younger brother Steven.
Crow has stated that her musical inspirations are not restricted to one genre, as she likes absolutely anything with a drum beat. In 2008, she told Ellen DeGeneres that "If it didn't have a drum beat, you can just forget about it!"[7][8]
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After graduating from college, Crow worked as a music teacher at the Kellison elementary school, in Fenton, Missouri.[9] Teaching during the day allowed her the opportunity to sing in bands on weekends. Later, she was introduced to local musician and producer Jay Oliver. He had a thriving studio in the basement of his parents' home, in St. Louis, and helped her by using her in advertising jingles. Her first jingle was a back-to-school spot for the St. Louis department store Famous-Barr. McDonald's and Toyota commercial jingles soon followed. She was quoted in a 60 Minutes segment as saying she made $40,000 on her McDonald's commercial alone.[10]
Crow also sang in the short-lived Steven Bochco drama, Cop Rock, in 1990. The same year, her song "Heal Somebody" appeared in the film Bright Angel. The following year, she performed "Hundreds of Tears," which was included in the Point Break soundtrack, and sang a duet with Kenny Loggins on the track "I Would Do Anything", from his album Leap of Faith.
1990s
Scrapped debut album (1992)
In 1992, Crow recorded her first attempt at her debut album with Phil Collins' producer Hugh Padgham. The self-titled debut album was due to be released on September 22, 1992, but was ultimately rejected by her label.[12] However, a handful of cassette copies of the album were leaked along with press folders to be used for album publicity. This album has been widely dispersed via file sharing networks and fan trading. In the meantime, Crow's songs were recorded by major artists such as Celine Dion, Tina Turner and Wynonna Judd.
The group existed as a casual songwriting collective prior to its association with Crow, but rapidly developed into a vehicle for her debut album after her arrival. Her relationship with Gilbert became acrimonious soon after the album was released, and disputes arose about songwriting credits.[11]
Crow appeared in the "New Faces" section of Rolling Stone in 1993. Tuesday Night Music Club featured many of the songs written by Crow's friends, including the second single, "Leaving Las Vegas." The album was slow to garner attention, until "All I Wanna Do" became an unexpected smash hit in the spring of 1994. As she later stated in People, she found an old poetry book in a used book store in the L.A. area and used a poem as lyrics in the song.[15] The singles "Strong Enough" and "Can't Cry Anymore" were also released, with the first song ("Strong Enough") charting at #5 on Billboard and "Can't Cry Anymore" hitting the Top 40.[16]Tuesday Night Music Club went on to sell more than 7 million copies in the US and UK during the 1990s. The album also won Crow three Grammy Awards, in 1995: Record of the Year, Best New Artist and Best Female Vocal Performance.[11] She performed at the 1994 and 1999 Woodstock Festivals, as well as the Another Roadside Attraction in 1997.[17]
In 1998 Crow released The Globe Sessions. During this period, she discussed in interviews having gone through a deep depression, and there was speculation about a brief affair with Eric Clapton. The debut single from this album, "My Favorite Mistake," was rumored to be about him, although Crow claims otherwise about a philandering ex-boyfriend.[24][25] Crow has refused to say who the song was about telling Billboard Magazine on the release of her album. "Oh, there will be just so much speculation, and because of that there's great safety and protection in the fact that people will be guessing so many different people and I'm the only person who will ever really know. I'm really private about who I've had relationships with, and I don't talk about them in the press. I don't even really talk about them with the people around me."[26] Despite the difficulties in recording the album, Crow told the BBC in 2005 that: "My favorite single is 'My Favorite Mistake,' it was a lot of fun to record and it's still a lot of fun to play."[27] The album won Best Rock Album at the 1999 Grammy Awards. It was re-released in 1999, with a bonus track, Crow's cover of the Guns N' Roses song "Sweet Child o' Mine," which was included on the soundtrack of the film Big Daddy. The song won the 1999 Grammy for Best Female Rock Vocal Performance.[28] Other singles included "There Goes the Neighborhood," "Anything But Down," and "The Difficult Kind." Crow won Grammy best female rock vocal performance for "There Goes the Neighborhood" in 2001.[29]The Globe Sessions peaked at #5 on the Billboard 200 chart, achieving US sales of 2 million as of January 2008.[30]
She also released a live album called Sheryl Crow and Friends: Live From Central Park. The record featured Crow singing many of her hit singles with new musical spins and guest appearances by many other musicians including Sarah McLachlan, Stevie Nicks, the Dixie Chicks, Keith Richards, and Eric Clapton. "There Goes the Neighborhood" was included in the album, eventually winning the Grammy for Best Female Rock Vocal Performance.
Crow had been involved with the Scleroderma Research Foundation (SRF) since the late 1990s, performing at fund-raisers and befriending Sharon Monsky. In 2002, as a result of her friend Kent Sexton dying from scleroderma, she interrupted work on her new album C'mon C'mon to record the traditional hymn "Be Still, My Soul," to be played at his funeral. In November of that year it was released as a single, with the proceeds going to SRF.[32]
Crow's fourth studio album, C'mon, C'mon was released in 2002, spawning the hit single "Soak Up the Sun." Second single "Steve McQueen" won the Female Rock Vocal Performance Grammy.[33]
Crow opposed the 2003 invasion of Iraq, wearing a shirt that read "I don't believe in your war, Mr. Bush!" during a performance on Good Morning America and posting an open letter explaining her opposition on her website.[34] Crow, performing with Kid Rock at the 45th annual Grammy Awards, wore a large peace sign and a guitar strap with the words "No War."[35]
Crow recorded the song "Kiss That Girl" for the film Bridget Jones's Diary. She also recorded a cover version of the Beatles' song "Mother Nature's Son" for the film I Am Sam. Crow duetted with rapper Kid Rock on the crossover hit single "Picture." She also assisted Rock on the track "Run Off to L.A."
Crow collaborated with Michelle Branch on the song "Love Me Like That" for Branch's second album, Hotel Paper, released in 2003.[36] Crow was featured on the Johnny Cash album American III: Solitary Man in the song "Field of Diamonds" as a background vocalist, and also played the accordion for the songs "Wayfaring Stranger" and "Mary of the Wild Moor."[37]
In 2003, Crow released a greatest hits compilation called The Very Best of Sheryl Crow. It featured many of her hit singles, as well as some new tracks. Among them was the ballad "The First Cut is the Deepest" (originally a Cat Stevens song), which became her biggest radio hit since "All I Wanna Do." She also released the single "Light In Your Eyes," which received limited airplay. "The First Cut is the Deepest" earned her two American Music Awards for Best Pop/Rock Artist and Adult Contemporary Artist of the Year, respectively.
Her fifth studio album Wildflower was released in September 2005. Although the album debuted at #2 on the Billboard charts, it received mixed reviews and was not as commercially successful as her previous albums. In December 2005, the album was nominated for a Best Pop Vocal Album Grammy, while Crow was nominated for a Best Female Pop Vocal Performance Grammy for the first single "Good Is Good." However, she ultimately lost in both categories to Kelly Clarkson. The album got a new boost in 2006 when the second single was announced as "Always on Your Side," re-recorded with British musician Sting and sent off to radio, where it was quickly embraced at Adult Top 40. The collaboration with Sting resulted in a Grammy-nomination for Best Pop Collaboration With Vocals. As of January 2008, Wildflower has sold 949,000 units in the U.S.[30]
In 2006, Crow contributed the opening track, "Real Gone," to the soundtrack for Disney/Pixar's animated film Cars.[38] Crow was diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer in mid-February 2006, her doctors stating that "prognosis for a full recovery is excellent."[39]
Crow's first concert after her cancer diagnosis was on May 18 in Orlando, Florida where she played to over 10,000 information technology professionals at the SAP Sapphire Convention. Her first public appearance was on June 12, when she performed at the Murat Theater in Indianapolis, Indiana.
The singer also appeared on Larry King Live on CNN on August 23, 2006. In this show she talked about her comeback, her breakup with Lance Armstrong, her past job as Michael Jackson's backup singer, and her experience as a breast cancer survivor.
In late 2006, Crow was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for the song "Try Not To Remember" (Best Original Song category) from the film Home of the Brave.
Crow wrote a foreword for the book Crazy Sexy Cancer Tips, author Kris Carr's book that was based on her 2007 documentary film Crazy Sexy Cancer. Crow contributed her cover of the Beatles's "Here Comes the Sun" on the Bee Movie soundtrack in November 2007.[40] She contributed background vocals to the Ryan Adams song "Two" from the album Easy Tiger.
Detours (2008–2009)
Crow at Memphis, TN (August 18, 2007)
Crow returned with her sixth studio album Detours, which was released on February 5, 2008. Detours debuted at number two on the U.S. Billboard 200 chart, selling about 92,000 copies in its first week and an additional 52,000 copies in its second week.[41]
Detours was recorded at Crow's Nashville farm. Her son, Wyatt, makes an appearance on the song "Lullaby for Wyatt," which is featured in the movie Grace Is Gone. "The songs are very inspired by the last three years of events in my life," Crow said of a time that found her battling breast cancer and splitting with partner Lance Armstrong.
"Shine Over Babylon" was the first promotional single from the album (download only). The first 'official' single to be released from the album was "Love Is Free," followed by "Out of Our Heads."
Crow has also recorded a studio version of "So Glad We Made It" for the "Team USA Olympic Soundtrack" in conjunction with the 2008 U.S. Olympic team sponsors AT&T. Crow also stated that $1 of each ticket purchased for her 2008 tour would be donated to the United Nations World Food Programme.
A&M Records re-released Sheryl's debut album, "Tuesday Night Music Club" as a deluxe version 2CD/DVD set on November 17, 2009. The bonus CD contains unreleased songs and B-sides, and a new mix of "I Shall Believe." The DVD features music videos for each of the album's singles.
In 2010, Crow contributed the original spoken-word track "My Name is Mwamaroyi" to the Enough Project and Downtown Records' Raise Hope for Congo compilation. Proceeds from the compilation fund efforts to make the protection and empowerment of Congo’s women a priority, as well as inspire individuals around the world to raise their voice for peace in Congo.
A&M Records released Crow's seventh studio album, 100 Miles from Memphis, on July 20, 2010. The album has a classic soul vibe and features lead single "Summer Day."[42]100 Miles from Memphis (released July 20 on A&M Records), the distance from her hometown to the music mecca, is an ode to her formative memories of music - and one that the label hopes can inspire young music fans to investigate the landscape beyond processed pop and Auto-Tune.[43]
Crow's eighth studio album is in the works and is said to have more country flavor. Crow explained the album will be out early 2012.
On September 20, 2011 it was announced that Crow will write the music and lyrics for DINER, a new musical inspired by the critically acclaimed 1982 film. The show will come to Broadway in the fall of 2012, and will be directed and choreographed by Tony Award winner Kathleen Marshall.[45]
The 2002 release of the album C'mon C'mon by Sheryl Crow features the song "Safe and Sound" which is dedicated to Owen Wilson (boyfriend at that time) in the liner notes and said to be an autobiographical account of their relationship.
Crow began dating cyclist Lance Armstrong in 2003. The couple announced their engagement in September 2005 and their split in February 2006.[citation needed] Immediately following her split from Lance Armstrong, Crow was treated for breast cancer at a Los Angeles-based facility by breast cancer surgeon Dr. Kristi Funk. Crow had "minimally invasive" surgery in late February 2006, followed by radiation therapy.[46][47]
On May 11, 2007, Crow announced on her official website that she had adopted a two-week-old boy named Wyatt Steven Crow. The child was born on April 29, 2007.[48] She and Wyatt live on a 154-acre (0.62 km2) farm outside Nashville, Tennessee.[49]
On June 4, 2010, Crow announced that she adopted another boy named Levi James Crow, born on April 30, 2010.[50]
In May 2011, it was reported that Crow and longtime acquaintance Doyle Bramhall II (musician, Sheryl Crow touring band member, and "100 Miles From Memphis" producer) began dating [51]
Crow performed at the opening night of the Cheyenne Frontier Days Rodeo,[52] despite animal welfare experts urging her not to on account of the well-documented animal cruelty at the event. Almost 13,000 people signed a petition calling on Crow not to perform.[53]
She is the great-granddaughter of former congressman Charles A. Crow (1873–1938), who was of Irish descent.[54]
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