Sheryl Crow’s Career ‘Evolution’: 20 Feet From Stardom To The Rock Hall, Euro Treks & Stadium Plays

Sheryl Crow once sang that “A Change Would Do You Good,” and that’s as true for her as anyone. From her start in the live music business as a backup vocalist, first with Jimmy Buffett and the Coral Reefer Band, followed by work with Don Henley and Michael Jackson in the 1980s, to her Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame career as a groundbreaking solo artist, Crow is still finding that change does indeed do a person good.

That, apparently, includes changing one’s mind. After announcing in 2019 that Threads would be her final album, she’s back with Evolution, which was released March 29.
“With the last album, I felt that signaled an end to making a full artistic statement,” Crow explains. “Now, people listen to playlists, they listen to whatever their algorithms send them, and they listen to one song at a time. So, being a lover of albums, I felt like I can continue to put songs out, but making an album today seems archaic.”

“She’d been wanting to record, and part of the impetus is that at this moment in time we’re on a precipice of transhumanism versus soul and spirit; the forces of the world are leading us toward this very kind of transhumanist society,” Crow’s longtime manager Scooter Weintraub says, invoking a term that means humans evolving past their physical and mental limitations technologically. “Certain things triggered it, like hearing somebody use AI to mimic somebody else’s voice on a demo. And in her mind, you couldn’t tell the difference. And she really freaked out. She wrote the song ‘Evolution’ based on that idea. It’s a story about self-examination; trying to get to a quiet place and hold culture.”

Perhaps that’s why, after announcing her recording “retirement,” she never quite left the stage. She regularly performs at festivals and benefits that align with her values. She’s toured stadiums with Chris Stapleton, livestreamed shows during the COVID pandemic and headlined her own 2022 tour. And this summer, she’ll make a return to stadiums in support of her friend P!NK, on a dozen “Summer Carnival” dates between Aug. 10 and Oct. 12 after an 11-city run of European headlining shows in June.

Crow has maintained a long career and remained relevant by simply following her muse that started with her evolution into a superstar and walking those 20 feet to stardom, strapping on a guitar and bringing her own songs to the stage during a time when MTV was breaking new artists with videos of flashy pop stars mostly performing other people’s songs.

She, instead, broke through with her stone cold classic and triple Grammy-winning Tuesday Night Music Club in 1993 and has never looked back. She helped blaze trails for other women like Sarah McLachlan, Alanis Morissette, Ani DiFranco, Aimee Mann, Fiona Apple, PJ Harvey and more now-revered artists.

“I felt like if the Grammys don’t start showing some women playing guitars, than we won’t have young girls who want to do that,” Crow says. “And I will say, having come on the heels of Madonna and Paula Abdul and that craze, it felt like an oddball moment that I’d actually made it. I was as surprised as everybody else was.”

Weintraub has had a front row seat to Crow’s career as part of her musical family since those days as a backup singer.

“She played a certain kind of music that wasn’t in vogue in those MTV days,” Weintraub says. “it was Mariah and Whitney and Madonna. There were very few, if any, women with guitars in their hands. Bonnie [Raitt] was already there, but from a previous generation. Sheryl was able to make a connection between that style of music and commerciality.”

With the rise of a generation of “women with guitars” in the wake of Crow’s initial success came the female-forward Lilith Festival, conceptualized by McLachlan and brought to fruition as a traveling festival from 1997-99 with the help of Nettwerk Music Group’s Dan Fraser and Terry McBride, and Little Big Man agent Marty Diamond, now executive vice president and managing director of Wasserman Music.

“We all wound up on the Lilith tour. And that, in so many ways, changed what touring looked like because, until that moment, you could beg and beg, but you couldn’t get more than one woman on a bill,” Crow says. “An agent would say, ‘Well, if you do that, men won’t buy tickets.’ And all of us were saying, ‘But wait a minute, we’re getting played on radio. Why wouldn’t they?’ But it was really a lovely and empowering moment when Sarah called and said, ‘Would you co-bill on this? Let’s create a festival with a bunch of women.’ And it was all the women that were on the radio. It was beautiful.”

And it inspired another generation of women artists, including a young Brandi Carlile, who was in an audience for Lilith and whom Crow cites as an example of the importance of not just being seen, but seen as being successful.

“The way you inspire other young females to be successful is by doing it, so young girls will say, ‘I can do that.’ I interestingly, I saw a [social media] post just yesterday from Joy Oladokun … talking about how much Tracy Chapman had basically saved her life, giving her a depiction of what she could do. That’s the way it works. And I feel like, man, what a beautiful legacy.”

Crow’s own legacy is resplendent and undeniable. It inspired, and continues to inspire, new generations of artists and rightfully earned her a place in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, into which she was inducted last year.

Getting there took Crow down her own winding road that would include singing for fast food nation. She grew up in the small town of Kennett, Missouri, where she was surrounded by music with her mother and father playing in jazz bands. She studied music at the University of Missouri. An introduction to St. Louis producer Jay Oliver led to her recording jingles for McDonald’s. Oliver introduced her to other musicians, including his friend Jimmy Buffett.

“I was in the Coral Reefer Band before they became the Coral Reefer Band in St. Louis, and then I went out with Don Henley, and then Michael Jackson. So I’ve been doing this a long, long time,” Crow says, laughing.

The experience of being “20 feet from stardom” was critically important to Crow in reaching her own stardom as well as in life, she says.

“I’ve had the benefit of experiencing how a lot of people tour,” she says. “My band and my crew are my chosen family. I have watched their kids grow up. They’ve been there when my kids came into my life. We’ve been through cancers together, and we’ve lost people. To me, that’s what makes touring invaluable, because you bring that all on stage with you. When I was at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, I had three tables of people that had been there for 30 years and more. It’s a beautiful way of life.”

Thankfully, Crow’s beautiful way of life has manifested in brilliant music and live performances. Since the release of seven-times platinum-certified Tuesday Night Music Club, Crow hasn’t gone more than four years without releasing an album, including three-times platinum Sheryl Crow (1996), and platinum-certified The Globe Sessions (1998), C’mon, C’mon (2002), and Wildflower (2005). Later releases include Detours (2008), 100 Miles from Memphis (2010), Feels Like Home (2013), Be Myself (2017), Threads (2019) and her latest, Evolution. Crow has sold more than 50 million albums worldwide, according to the Recording Industry Association of America.

And she’s toured in support of them all, and then some, with the help of longtime agent John Marx and Ben Schiffer, who handles day-to-day duties, for WME. In a way, she’s come full circle with her most recent appearance: a jam-packed Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles on April 11 for “Keep The Party Going: A Tribute To Jimmy Buffett,” where she reunited with the last iteration of the Coral Reefer Band; Henley, playing with the Eagles; Paul McCartney; Jon Bon Jovi; Zac Brown; Jackson Browne; Brandi Carlile; Mac McAnally, and other A-listers.

It was a far cry from her first headlining show reported to Pollstar, when Crow sold 332 tickets at a 625-capacity Fox Theater in Boulder, Colorado, on Dec. 28, 1993. But within a year, she was opening for The Rolling Stones in front of 59,935 at Miami’s Joe Robbie Stadium on Nov. 25, 1994. Less than two months later, she opened for the Eagles at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California, in front of 65,035. In 1997, she was invited back to open four Stones shows, just before she joined Lilith Fair. Over the course of 30 years, Crow has reported 5.7 million tickets sold and grossed $318 million, not adjusted for inflation.

In between all of the albums and tours, Crow has gone through more than her share of life changes, too. She moved from California to Nashville in 2006, just three weeks after being diagnosed with breast cancer. Shortly after that, she adopted two sons, Wyatt and Levi.

“I was crazy. I just was like, ‘I’m going to change my life completely’ right after I had my diagnosis, which was not the best planning. But I will say that moving here was fantastic because I’d been in L.A. for 20-something years, I was always on the road and never really felt like I had roots anywhere. But when I moved here, I really felt like this is a community,” she says.

The community includes a rich musical family for Crow. When she arrived, she immediately reached out to friends like Emmylou Harris, Vince Gill and Amy Grant and within about two weeks she was invited to her first guitar pull.

“In this town, you’re a working musician who gives back and who guards your private life and your kids all go to school together,” Crow says. “I really noticed that since I’ve had kids. In L.A., I’d be putting my hand over their eyes when they’d see an Abercrombie & Fitch billboard. In Nashville, it’s all wholesome. It’s all churches. But it’s a great place to raise kids, otherwise I would not be here.”

Among Crow’s family is a community of young artists, many of whom cite Crow as a friend, mentor and ally, including Carlile, Allison Russell and more. She performed at the “Love Rising” benefit concert in support of LGBTQ+ rights March 20, 2023 at Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena, which Russell played a large part in organizing.

“I have family here who’ve been here forever. At first, when Californians started moving here, I was like, it’s driving up the cost of houses,” Crow explains. “But honestly, the more liberals we can get to move here, the better!” But while acknowledging her liberal politics aren’t always appreciated by some in Music City, it is changing, too.

“You’ve got people like Shaboozey and Mickey Guyton who are digging into the roots of country. It holds [the country music establishment’s] feet to the fire,” Crow explains. “I think Beyoncé has been elegant and eloquent in the way that she emphasizes that by just saying, ‘This is country. So whatever y’all think country is, move over.’ She’s utilizing amazing Black talent that already exists in country. It’s bold and beautiful and honest.”

Crow is also not content to sit on her laurels. And, as artists do, when she feels the need to create, she creates – and Evolution is very much a result of that need in the moment, “retirement” be damned.

This is evidenced by her collaboration with P!NK, who been her friend for some 20 years, and who she’ll join on the road come fall as part of her “Summer Carnival Tour” in which they’ll play some of the largest venues out there, including Chicago’s Soldier Field, L.A.’s Dodger Stadium, East Rutherford’s MetLife and Las Vegas’ Allegiant Stadium.

“I’m really grateful that she’s asked me to come out and play for her fans,” Crow says. “Getting to open up for her is going to be, for us, joyful. Especially as you get older, you are filled with a sense of, ‘Wow. We are still doing this.’ And it is humbling; it’s really a gift. I’ll be thanking her every day for inviting us to play for her fans.”

With her sons approaching college age and the lure of performing continuing to call, Crow and Weintraub are keeping her future plans for the rest of 2024 and going into 2025 close to their vests. Marx says her plans are “dynamic.” She hints at a possible “one woman show,” details of which they’re not divulging. No matter when and how it all happens, it’s sure to mark Sheryl Crow’s continuous and gorgeously multi-hued evolution that’s been a joy to behold.