Sans Crow, Fleetwood Mac To Tour In 2009

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Crow takes some 'Detours'
By ALAN SCULLEY, 8/01/2008


Sheryl Crow knows the days of her albums routinely selling million of copies have passed. With downloading and file sharing, record sales are down significantly in every genre.

She no longer expects to get her songs played on commercial radio, either. Satellite radio and National Public Radio are now her main outlets for airplay.

"I think pop radio is very driven by beats, by young artists, a lot of dance music, a lot of rap -- well not rap, I guess, but R&B," Crow said in a phone interview. "It's just a different time. It's about what sells, and it's much more difficult to get on pop radio..

"The best I can do is make records that matter to me, that I think have integrity," she said. "And just trust that there will always be a need for singer-songwriters, and it's not all about dance music."

Crow's latest CD, "Detours," is widely seen as the most personal and outspoken of her career. It comes after a challenging three-year period that saw her much-publicized romance with cyclist Lance Armstrong end in early 2006, followed just days later by the news that she had breast cancer and needed to undergo what was described as "minimally invasive surgery," followed by radiation treatment.

On the brighter side, Crow, 46, adopted a baby boy, Wyatt, last spring and said she is relishing her life as a mother.

"I couldn't even begin to know that it was going to be as wonderful as it is," she said. "I'm really lucky that he's a very curious child, very game, and a good little traveler. Just a healthy and happy, joyful little guy. So it just makes every day like Christmas."

Crow said having - and beating -- cancer made her feel it was time to adopt. Facing cancer also prompted her to take stock of her life.

Some of that came out in "Detours." That much is apparent on the title song, which addresses how people -- even if they have a plan for life -- can get sidetracked.

"I think that's an experience that happens to all of us, when we have a pretty strong sense of what it is our course is meant to be, and then we realize one day we're very far away from that," Crow said.

Social and political concerns also filter into a good number of the new songs.

"Gasoline" is a futuristic tale of oil and greed. "Peace Be Upon Us" laments the misguided motivations of war. And several songs (including "Motivation" and "God Bless This Mess") touch on the idea that people have become too distracted with their own lives to care about the problems of the nation and the world.

And yes, a few songs deal with romantic struggles. There has been speculation that three songs in particular -- "Now That You're Gone," "Drunk With The Thought Of You"

and "Diamond Ring" -- are about the Armstrong breakup. But Crow cautioned against taking that narrow a view.

"I think the experiences of those songs are very universal," she said. "I've been in several relationships that have ended up being really learning experiences for me. I wouldn't say that everything was relegated to the Lance relationship.

"There's a lot to be learned from all your relationships. So I definitely could not say those were specific to him."

Crow is clearly pleased with how "Detours" turned out, and plans to showcase a healthy chunk of the new material in her live shows.

"We will definitely do a lot of familiar stuff, and a fair amount of the new stuff, just because it's so timely and it's translating well live," said Crow, who said she is taking out the largest band she's used in years, complete with a pair of backing vocalists.

As for one other rumored live venture - touring with Fleetwood Mac next spring - it turns out that Crow will not be part of that venture, despite earlier reports. Fleetwood Mac has just announced preliminary plans to tour early in 2009 without her.

"I'm not really sure how that rumor got started," Crow said. "I don't know how my quote got attached to me that we were definitely doing it. That's not the case."

Sheryl Crow will perform with James Blunt and Toots and the Maytals at the Mann Center for the Performing Arts (52nd and Parkside, Philadelphia) on Aug. 2 at 7 p.m. Tickets are $49.50 to $85.

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