A Corner of Missouri
Elevating Sheryl Crow's Influence
On a flight back from Denver earlier this year, I watched the Showtime documentary Sheryl, a profile of Sheryl Crow and her many decade career.
Tuesday Night Music Club was a prominent CD in my house, part of a Columbia House order. I don't remember intending to listen to it. Though the hits like "All I Wanna Do" were almost parasitic at the time. And I clearly remember the cover. Probably a "formative moment" in boyhood type cover.
Given I grew up in the 90s, Sheryl Crow's music achieved enough radio play to be ubiquitous even if I wasn't an explicit fan. And I certainly remember when "Soak up the Sun" was released as the single off of C'Mon C'Mon in 2002. Also a "formative moment" music video.
And I'll be forthcoming: I'm a serious apologist for her duet with Kid Rock on "Picture". And I also ride for "Only God Knows Why," speaking of Kid Rock. We don't always choose the things we love.
There used to be a great used books, movies, and music store in Fayetteville, North Carolina called Edward McKay. There I bought my own copy of Tuesday Night Music Club one year. I think I was just in a phase of recollecting a lot of albums my family listened to, trying to revisit them with an older and more patient ear.
The album is acknowledging of its own influence. Broadly Americana--a genre that I always thought was kind of stupid because it's basically rock music influenced by country and blues which rock music is to begin with. Or Americana is a genre given to people who sing country music yet don't have a distinguishable southern accent.
Anyway...clear I have opinions.
Tuesday Night Music Club, apart from its serious hit singles, "Leaving Las Vegas", "Strong Enough", and especially "All I Wanna Do", is an album detailing a songwriter, musician, and singer's skill.
Sheryl Crow is one of those sneakily accessible singers. She sometimes intentionally compresses her voice to add some gritty crackle ("Leaving Las Vegas"). But she can just as easily sing with a fuller voice in the slow-dance ready "No One Said It Would Be Easy," also doing her absolute best to mimic and then almost transcend Chrissie Hynde. Her voice is never unattainable though. It's sing-a-long-able.
Individual artists may credit Sheryl Crow as a definable influence, but I don't think she's as culturally influential as she should be. This I recognized especially the more I started listening to HAIM.
HAIM's third album Women in Music Pt. III, has two songs that play as saturated with Crow's influence.
"Gasoline" has the whisper soul voice that Crow so often sings with. A strong voice, but almost presented like she's singing directly into your ear. The Haim sisters add production accoutrements that might not make it into Sheryl Crow songs. Flourishes that put them audibly in the 2010s. Like "Gasoline" though, "The Steps" features a fundamental bar-band or 'round-the-fire foot stomp groove that is all over Tuesday Night Music Club.
Again with more modern production, and a faster BPM, Maren Morris's classic "Rich" is like a combination of "Leaving Las Vegas" and Steve Miller's "Joker". A groove that is at the edge of sloppy, or just such a jam that the band doesn't really care if the drop a quarter note here and there. Vibes.
Two songs from Miranda Lambert's album Revolution which I will die violently defending as a classic album, each have elements of Sheryl Crow's accessibility, focus on groove, and fundamentals of rock music as a louder offspring of blues and country. "Me and Your Cigarettes" and "Maintain the Pain" each contain the precision of Nashville, but Lambert's voice has that local legend quality of someone who it seems like we could sing like, or very nearly like, but probably very distantly can actually.
The artists who were directly influenced by Sheryl Crow probably made her aware of that influence. And sure, she did have a big studio like Showtime produce a documentary on her life. But that documentary was more interested in her personal life and how it seemed to stunt her flourishing as an artist.
She's worth a revisit and a recognition for her contributions to American music.
Here's a little playlist for this essay.
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