Everything You Should Know About Sheryl Crow
“Evolution, ever-changing…” So goes the chorus of Sheryl Crow’s newest single “Evolution,” the title track off her March 2024 album, and the same can be said for the singer-songwriter-producer who’s scored a string of hits since she burst onto the charts in 1993. The multi-hyphenate artist has magically made it look easy over the past four decades as she’s sold more than 50 million records worldwide while taking detours from her home base of rock and pop into the worlds of country, soul, the blues, and more.
“I describe people like her as ‘made out of music,’” country superstar Chris Stapleton, who duetted with Crow on “Tell Me When It’s Over” off her 2019 album Threads, told the New York Times. “I think she’s one of the best that we’ve ever had, and may ever have.”
For that, fans — and Crow — have her parents to thank. And she did just that during her 2023 induction to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, expressing her appreciation to her mom and dad for exposing her at a young age to influences ranging from Duke Ellington and Dionne Warwick to Elton John and James Taylor, and thanking them for “all the years of unconditional love — and for piano lessons.” Her life in her small hometown of Kennett, Missouri, she told the New York Times, was “just shy of being the Partridge Family.”
On her own, she’d branch out musically and draw inspiration from the likes of Bonnie Raitt, Carole King, Tina Turner, Linda Ronstadt, Joni Mitchell, Kate Bush, and Stevie Nicks, the latter of which she’s grown to call a dear friend. Other icons who influenced her include Johnny Cash, who gave her a thrill by personally phoning her to ask if he could cover her 1996 song “Redemption Day.” He did, and it was posthumously released on his 2010 album, American VI: Ain’t No Grave.
Small Town, Big Success
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To paraphrase her 1996 hit, every day’s been a winding road for Crow since she shifted careers from teaching elementary school to becoming a professional musician in the 80s. One early gig led her to touring — and seeing — the world with one of the industry’s biggest stars. “I loved watching Michael [Jackson] in his brilliance,” Crow, who sang backup on the King of Pop’s tours from 1987 to 1989, told the New York Post. “For me, the experience was life-changing. I learned a lot, and I feel extremely blessed to have gotten to be a part of that,” she said of the master class.
As she was starting out in the industry, she also provided vocals on records for such A-list talent as Stevie Wonder, Don Henley, Jimmy Buffett, and more. Her 1993 album, Tuesday Night Music Club, proved to be her solo breakthrough, and it earned her three of her nine career Grammys, including Record of the Year and Best Female Pop Vocal Performance (for the irresistible “All I Wanna Do”), as well as Best New Artist honors.
In the years — and albums — that followed, Crow has tackled some tough topics in her songs as she’s flexed her musical muscles. She’s fearlessly addressed everything from music-industry sexism to gun violence in her lyrics, while also tackling abortion rights, the environment, and the looming threat of artificial intelligence on her latest release.
Health & Harmony
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Her bravest battle arguably came in 2006, right on the heels of her ill-fated and high-profile romance with cyclist Lance Armstrong. “I’ll always remember how busy I was when I got the mammogram that caught my cancer — it was Grammys week and I very well could have put it off a few months. Instead, I kept my appointment and it was a game changer,” Crow, now an outspoken women's health advocate, told Radiology Business. “The mammogram caught my breast cancer early, and I’m now healthy and cancer-free. I want every woman to make her health a priority.”
The scare helped the artist — a single mom to sons Wyatt, 17, and Levi, 14 — realize what her own top priorities were as she continued to blaze trails with her life and career. Most recently, the accomplished producer chose not to produce her latest album, her 11th, partly because she didn’t want the process to become too time-consuming, keeping her away from her sons. “There is nothing that can compare to the joy and love you’ve given my life and nothing I do means anything without you guys,” she told her two teens at her Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction.
Using Her Voice
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“Sheryl Crow personifies what rock & roll means in the hands of someone with clear-diamond focus and the drive to fight for what she believes is right musically, personally, and globally,” journalist Holly Gleason wrote in Crow’s induction essay for the Hall, hailing her “dusky voice that could question and witness at the same time.”
The singer — who set her sights on the James Bond franchise and scored the title theme to 1997’s Tomorrow Never Dies — has also taken aim at outdated takes on aging and beauty. “Getting old is definitely not for sissies, to quote the great Bette Davis. I don’t love getting lines on my face, but I’m not going to get a facelift,” Crow, 62, the subject of the 2022 Showtime documentary Sheryl, insisted to The Guardian.
Instead, the rocker intends to face — and embrace – her current role as one of the music industry’s more experienced women with dignity, using all she’s learned through the years to help the next generations of female musicians. “I hope at the end of the day,” she’s said of artists such as Olivia Rodrigo, H.E.R, Lorde, Maren Morris, and Haim, “[they] can see that if you just keep going, and you stay interested and curious and fearless about what you’re experiencing and writing, that you can be around 30 years.”
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