With All I wanna do, Sheryl Crow made it onto all the charts on the planet and gave rise to a career that last year crossed three decades, a temporary barrier that is added to the many others crossed by the warrior singer from Missouri, Backing vocalist for Michael Jackson in his early days and winner of 9 Grammy Awards, including best rock album, one of only two women to have achieved it (the other was Alanis Morrisette). This recognition is not surprising for an artist who throughout her career has fought against sexual harassment and mental problems, fights from which she emerged victorious and with her ideas increasingly clearer.
Composer, producer and owner of her own destiny, Crow has not hesitated to break her own commitment to not publish more albums with the presentation of Evolution (The Valory Music Co.), nine songs where she reflects on the challenges of the present while evolving in the future. country rock sound with songs like the one that gives the album its title. “It’s about the arrival of artificial intelligence, what it will mean for our lives and everything we should ask ourselves,” explains the artist via video conference from her home in Nashville, surrounded by guitars. But she points out that “in our own evolution we not only face AI, we must also reflect on what it means to be alive, in the present, and face mental and emotional challenges.” This summer she will visit Barcelona to present it at the Alma Jardins Pedralbes festival (June 24). Club Vanguardia members have a 15% discount if they purchase their tickets on the Vanguardia Tickets portal.
The silky and powerful voice of the American has in this new work music that moves away from country rock without losing the character given to it by producer Mike Elizondo, a traveling companion for the last 20 years. “I didn’t want to waste time or try to create something that looked like Sheryl Crow doing the same old thing, it’s an album that doesn’t feel so much from the past, but more like an album from the future.” Evolution was the first song that he shared with his producer, where he only added the voice unlike previous works in which he also played the bass. “It doesn’t matter, the song is what’s important, Mike created something I could never have done.”
This “evolution” breaks with the announcement made years ago by the artist that she would not publish new album material. It was after publishing Threads in 2019. “Many people warned me that I would regret saying it, but I really felt, and I still feel, that records as a work, as an artistic statement, have become a dead art form. People don’t listen to it in its entirety, songs are selected and put in playlists with other musicians. That’s why I felt like that album was a wonderful closure and that I would continue writing songs and releasing them.” But when he found himself again with a handful of new songs the question came about what to do with them, “before I knew it I had enough to do what I call a download of a bunch of songs that came out from the same era and come out the same day”.
Sheryl Crow’s twelfth studio album arrives when the artist has already blown out 60 candles. “It’s hard for me to assimilate it, I feel like I’m 36,” she says with a laugh, “but the further away you get from things, the blurrier they become. It’s something I hate.” Among these increasingly blurry images is the sexual harassment she suffered from Michael Jackson’s manager, Frank diLeo, while she was a backup singer with the singer in the late 1980s. “It’s interesting to see the change in recent years in These issues make me feel that I live in a safer world in which if I speak out they take me seriously”, very different from the response she found when she reported her case, “there was nowhere to turn. In fact, the only person I asked for help, who was a lawyer, told me that I should get over it, that I should be happy to have that promise of a job or whatever.”
The change in attitude towards harassment after cases such as those of Harvey Weinstein or Bill Cosby shows for the singer that “we are finding our way, although there is still a long way to go. But I’m glad that light is being shed on this injustice that has existed for so many years, especially when it comes to creativity in the arts with Hollywood and with the music industry.”
In his case, he also had to deal with doubts about the authorship of his own songs, a problem that in his opinion persists in the sector. “There are many incredible women who do the same jobs as men but do not earn the same as them. In the music business, women have not been allowed – or even encouraged – to produce themselves.” Crow remembers her record company’s skepticism when she told them that she would produce her first album, “I thought they were going to faint, but luckily the album turned out well, and that opened some doors for women to produce themselves.” themselves”. Despite this, “we continue to assume that any great success in a woman’s career was probably the work of a man. I remember a well-known woman said that my first album had been written by men. Sometimes women don’t even defend other women, there is still a lot of work to be done.”
Against all odds, Crow is the only female artist with two Grammys for best rock album (in addition to 7 others and 32 nominations), a recognition that does not prevent her from criticizing the way the winners in this category are chosen, because “Invariably there are very few women, I don’t know if mostly men vote. There are many women who make rock, but they do not have the same platform as some male groups, and sometimes it is difficult for a female rocker to compete with a man because we think that rock is a male genre.”
Along the way he has also faced mental problems to confront what he calls the “rat race” that music can become. “Genetically I am a person who experiences ups and downs, and sometimes when you are catapulted into fame or public life you don’t know how to protect yourself, it catches you.” Talking about it publicly has helped her get over it, which is easier now than when she started her career. “Getting away from the competitive part of my craft, feeling good about it and learning to take care of myself was hard, but in the end it was very important.”
Learning, and in particular education, was part of the artist’s first stage, a music teacher after finishing university, an important task because
“More than ever, art has to be the balm that helps, especially our young people, to navigate everything that is coming their way. “Music includes people, it makes them feel like they are heard or seen when a song speaks directly to you.” This quality is all the more important for Crow today because social media and video games have reduced attention spans. “”The fact that we cannot listen to a song for more than six seconds before moving on to the next worries me, we need to calm our spirits to let something touch us. “That’s where healing happens, where we find ourselves.” That is why he maintains his faith in music, “especially in live music,” even more than in the word given when it implies leaving the songs aside.
