Crow’s Background
Sheryl Crow was born in Kennett, Missouri, in 1962. After she graduated from the University of Missouri, she worked as an elementary school music teacher and would sing in bands on weekends. She started singing jingles and eventually moved to Los Angeles to work as a backup singer.
After “gigging as a backing vocalist for everyone from Don Henley to Michael Jackson,” AM Crow signed a deal with A&M records to release her own album. The result was “a slick set of contemporary pop, relying heavily on ballads.” AM It “did not reflect the harder edged, roots-rock sound Crow wanted” RD and she convinced A&M not to release the album. AM Then-boyfriend Kevin Gilbert and producer Bill Bottrell tried to salvage it, but eventually aborted it.
The Tuesday Night Music Club Collective
In 1992, Gilbert introduced her to the Tuesday Night Music Club, a group of “Los Angeles-based songwriters and producers, including David Baerwald, David Ricketts, and Brian McLeod.” AM The loose collective “would get together, drink beer, jam, and write songs” AM at producer Bill Bottrell’s Toad Hall studio. TB Because she was the only member of the collective that had a record deal, she became the focus of the sessions. TB
Crow “decided to craft her debut album around the songs and spirit of the collective. It was, for the most part, an inspired idea, since Tuesday Night Music Club has a loose, ramshackle charm that her unreleased debut lacked.” AM “While the songs all feature Crow on lead vocals and were all co-composed by her, the reality is she was part of a collective, yet only she got the record contract and therefore, the bulk of the credit for the resulting effort.” DV
“The opening quartet of [songs] are remarkable testaments to their collaboration, proving that roots rock can sound contemporary and have humor” AM while exhibiting “remarkable storytelling skills.” CD That same spirit, however, also resulted in some half-finished songs…Still, even with the weaker moments,” AM “Crow and [Co. usually] strike just the right tone” AZ and “Crow manages to create an identity for herself – a classic rocker at heart but with enough smarts to stay contemporary.” AM
The TNMCers’ “playing is typically on the mark, loose and limber…But the group has a weakness for mid-tempo arrangements that don't always do justice to Crow's range; her later efforts branch out more into harder rock and slower, more intense ballads, to good effect.” DV
The Reception
“With her gruff, edgy delivery and sweet, seductive timbre…Crow evokes comparisons to tough yet tender blues-rockers like Bonnie Raitt. But Sheryl Crow is too talented to be plugged into any one stylistic bag. Tuesday Night Music Club is a striking debut recording, teeming with the kind of musical curiosity all too rare in contemporary pop.” CD
“Overall, Tuesday Night Music Club is an occasionally spotty but generally solid debut” DV that is “a peak of mainstream pop-rock.” AZ It “captures the relaxed mood, spontaneous creativity, and drunken good times of those weekly sessions.” RD “That’s the lasting impression Tuesday Night Music Club leaves.” AM
The album was a slow burn. Three singles met with little success before “All I Wanna Do,” the fourth single released nearly a year after the album came out, then took off. After that song and “Strong Enough” became top five hits, the album soared into the top-ten on Billboard and became a multi-platinum smash. At the 1995 Grammy Awards, Crow won Best New Artist, Record of the Year, and Best Female Pop Vocal Performance (the latter two for “All I Wanna Do”).
The Controversy
Crow’s relationship with Gilbert “became acrimonious soon after the album release.” WK She further alienated the collective when, despite nearly a year of working together and even talking about touring together to promote the record, she dumped them. MM Bottrell says they met at a coffee shop on the Sunset Strip so that he could give her the finished master of the album and, “she essentially told me to get lost.” MM Supposedly she was going to save money by using a smaller touring band. MM
Crow fanned the flames when, in the wake of the album’s success, she took credit for writing the songs. This led to both Gilbert and Baerwald publicly castigating Crow. WK Bottrell said at one point that she was given the second-larging portion of publishing rights because she had a large debt as a result of her unreleased first album, WK reportedly as much as a half million dollars. MM
The Songs
Here are thoughts on the individual songs from the album.
“Run Baby Run”
The album kicks off with “the Beatles overtones of her freedom cry,” CD the “poignant power ballad Run, Baby, Run.” RD By just “the second line of this album [which] references the day Aldous Huxley died – it's obvious this is going to be a musical horse of a different color.” DV Of course, that same line also demonstrates how the album “occasionally reaches too far in attempting Significance.” AZ Nonetheless, the “Retro Hammond organ, slinky blues licks, nicely synchopated piano and Crow's keening vocals propel the steady-building ‘Run, Baby, Run.’ Some soaring slide work on the break and Crow's quirky lyrics embellish the song's classic verse-chorus-verse structure into something special.” DV
“Leaving Las Vegas”
“Crow has a gift for taking familiar song structures that fit like a comfortable shoe and imbuing them with fresh twists. On the otherwise Joplinesque blues grind Leaving Las Vegas, it’s the way the muted electronic drums and laconic bass line counterpoint the chorus of background vocals surrounding Crow's impassioned lead voice.” DV The song “mixes…metaphors to equate relationships to games of chance, tolling themes of duty and resignation.” CD
“All I Wanna Do”
Those two songs were both released as singles. The former was a minor UK hit and the latter a top-10 alternative rock hit in the U.S. The album really, broke, however, upon the release of third single All I Wanna Do. While “somewhat lightweight and widely misunderstood,” DV “the deceptively infectious” AM song “put this otherwise rather unassuming album on the map” DV first as a #2 pop hit and then as a Grammy-winner for Record of the Year. The “’Stuck in the Middle with You’ homage” AZ “was slotted number nine in the run order for a reason…it's a relative throwaway of a song – a slacker fantasia set to vibes, percussion, slide guitar and a simple, endlessly repeating bass figure – that was never intended to characterize this album.” DV It “might not be Hall of Fame material, but it was good enough to launch a career.” DV
“Strong Enough”
After the success of that song, Crow followed up with another top-5 U.S. hit with the balld Strong Enough, “a mostly-acoustic tune that strongly recalls Rumours-era Fleetwood Mac.” DBW The album pulled off one more top-40 hit in the U.S. with Can’t Cry Anymore. The song’s “clanking guitar riff” AZ makes for an irrestible “pulsing rhythm.” DV
“Solidify”
Elsewhere on the album, Crow “seems to want to channel Sly & the Family Stone” DV with Solidify, “but the style just doesn’t suit Crow at all.” DV
“What I Can Do for You”
She does better with “the funky threat of What I Can Do for You,” AZ even if “the chirpy background vocals (‘you – you’) grate” DV and “her speak-singing on the verses…doesn’t come off well.” DV
“The Na-Na Song”
The “surreal” CD “Na-Na Song offers a “pure delirious rush of…chanted free-association lyrics,” DV although it can come across as “an embarrassing stream-of-consciousness ripoff of John Lennon’s ‘Give Peace a Chance.’” DBW
“No One Said It Would Be Easy”
Crow invests an “emotional charge” DV on the “touching” CD “No One Said It Would Be Easy, “a song about trying to salvage a troubled relationship” DV Backed by a “dreamy lead guitar,” DV “Sheryl Crow brings a post-modern country sensibility to bear.” CD
“We Do What We Can” and “I Shall Believe”
Next up is “the smoky jazzy of We Do What We Can” TB followed by the “sweet pedal-steel inflected gospel of I Shall Believe,” CD “a strong cut that shows off Crow's burgeoning skills as a composer and singer of moving, contemplative ballads.” DV
Notes:
The deluxe edition included a second disc of previously unreleased tracks (“Coffee Shop,” “Killer Life,” “Essential Trip of Hereness,” “You Want More”), B-sides (“Reach Around Jerk,” “Volvo Cowgirl 99,” “All by Myself,” “On the Outside,” “D’yer Mak’er”), and a new remix of “I Shall Believe.”
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