Sheryl Crow Biography

• Sheryl Crow discography

With her successful blend of country, blues and rock sensibilities, Sheryl Crow has risen from her beginnings in small town Missouri to a global career. Upon moving to Los Angeles in the mid-80s, she landed a plum job as Michael Jackson's backing singer on the worldwide 'Bad' tour, but then struggled to make her own solo career a success, paying her dues for over a decade. However, since the breakthrough album 'Tuesday Night Music Club' (1993), Crow has spent much of her time in the spotlight, with recent events such as adopting a two-week old baby, the break-up of her engagement to cycling legend Lance Armstrong, and courting controversy with her environmental and anti-war campaigns ensuring that she will keep on giving the columnists something to write about for some time. Just don't ask her about toilet paper...

Crow's exposure to music came initially through her parents, as her father, a local attorney in the town of Kennett, Missouri, was a jazz trumpeter for a local big band and her mother was a piano teacher and singer. Sheryl began song-writing in her teens, and whilst at college played covers in a band called 'Cashmere'. She graduated from Missouri State, and worked as a music teacher for autistic children, whilst continuing to perform in a covers band and recording radio jingles in St Louis.

By 1986, Crow had made the decision to take a shot at the big time, and headed for Hollywood. A chance meeting with a local producer there led to her getting some further work singing on jingles, but her big break came when she passed the audition to be Michael Jackson's backing singer for his global 'Bad' tour. Two successful years as a backing singer to the world's biggest pop star, however, are not necessarily the best route to a subsequent solo career. Upon her return to L.A., Crow was frustrated by the fact that the only promoters interested in taking her on wanted her to be a bubblegum pop act. For a young woman with integrity, brains, good ideas and keyboard/guitar talents to match her vocal abilities, this was nothing short of an insult.

She pressed on with music, and despite a serious bout of depression, she continued the session and backing singing, with artists from Stevie Wonder to Don Henley, as well as penning songs that were to be recorded by artists such as Wynonna Judd and Eric Clapton. In what must have felt at the time like her big break, Crow hooked up with producer Hugh Padgham, known for his long-standing relationship with Phil Collins, and her first solo album was put together in 1991 after she signed for A&M. However, Padgham pushed his pop sensibilities into the production, and the ballad-heavy album was not popular with the label, who left it on the shelf.

Yet, as one door seemingly closed, a window opened - and Crow's success was eventually to flow from a far less-likely source. She was invited to take part in a weekly, casual gathering of music professionals known unofficially as the 'Tuesday Night Music Club', who would meet weekly at producer Bill Bottrell's home studio to hang out and jam. Impressed by her evident vocal talents, as well as by the fact she was the only one among them signed to a label, the group was galvanised into action. The entire collective (which included her then-boyfriend Kevin Gilbert, Bill Bottrell, David Baerwald and Dan Schwartz, among others) pitched in songs, and by 1993 sufficient material had been written to knit together an album named after their weekly jam sessions.

The album was very slow to take off, and after sales of the singles 'Leaving Las Vegas' and 'Run Baby Run' had been moderate at best, A&M took one last punt by releasing the single 'All I Wanna Do'. Crow, the band and the label could not possibly have foreseen the huge success that the single was to bring - a laid-back, Ray Davies-style study of characters having a daytime drink in a seedy Los Angeles bar, it was extremely popular with radio stations, and the album enjoyed huge sales off its back. Incidentally, Crow was not only magnanimous enough to confess to having pilfered some of the lyrics for 'All I Wanna Do' from a poem she had read, but generous enough furthermore to track down the writer, Wyn Cooper, and ensure he received his dues.

However, jealousy and tragedy were only just around the corner. Irked by the limelight Crow was getting, which stood in contrast to the collaborative and democratic approach of the original 'Music Club' nights, there were unhappy murmurings amongst the various band members. These boiled over after Crow appeared on the Letterman show, and an offhand comment to the chat-show host led people to (erroneously) believe that 'Leaving Las Vegas' was a partly autobiographical number. The song had actually been mostly the work of band-member David Baerwald, based on a story by his friend John O'Brien. That O'Brien then went on to commit suicide worsened matters (although his parents publicly absolved Crow of any guilt), and the group of musos who had already been burned by the industry did not take kindly to the whole affair.

The two years of heavy touring for the first album wouldn't have helped - but by the time the second album was being recorded, Crow had parted ways with the Club, determined to prove she could make it on her own and write her own stuff. Admittedly, she did have help from her guitarist Jeff Trott, although the album 'Sheryl Crow' (1996) was mostly written and entirely produced by her. The standout singles were 'If It Makes You Happy', 'Every day is a Winding Road' and 'A Change Would Do You Good' - and strong sales enabled her to consolidate her initial success. As well as going triple platinum, the album also won a Grammy.

After performing on the Lilith Fair tour in 1997, Crow penned and performed the Bond film song, 'Tomorrow Never Dies', following the likes of Gladys Knight and Tom Jones in doing so. The next year brought the release of her third album, again mostly her own work, with some co-compositions with Trott and a cover of Dylan's 'Mississippi'. The album earned another grammy for Crow, and rumours also abounded that she had an affair with guitar legend Eric Clapton, and that the single 'My Greatest Mistake' was about this - which she firmly denied. Clapton did join her on stage, however, for a performance in Central Park, along with other star guests such as Keith Richards, Chrissie Hynde and Stevie Nicks. The shindig was released as an album, 'Sheryl Crow and Friends: Live in Central Park' (1999), in the USA, but sales were disappointing.

After a lengthy hiatus, reportedly due to a case of writer's block, Crow's fourth studio album, 'C'mon C'mon' hit the shops in 2002, entering the charts at number two in the states and the top ten in the UK. 'Soak up the Sun', a song as happy-go-lucky as its name would suggest, was a huge hit, another easy-going radio-friendly rock number. A greatest hits album, 'The Very Best of Sheryl Crow' (2003) actually contained some new compositions as well as past glories, and a well-received cover of Cat Stevens's 'The First Cut is The Deepest', released as a single. In 2003 Crow had also met and befriended Lance Armstrong, the cycling legend, and struck up a relationship with him. Despite being so close to Armstrong that she would often be seen in the team car during Tour De France stages, the couple were eventually to split in 2006, a joint statement to the press requesting that they be left alone to get over it.