Sunday Sitdown with Willie Geist - Sheryl Crow

Episode Date: September 8, 2019

With her breakout hit song “All I Wanna Do,” Sheryl Crow quickly went from talented backup singer to household name. In this week’s “Sunday Sitdown,” Willie Geist travels to the musician’s Nashville home to talk about her journey from a tiny town in Missouri to the top of the music charts, and why she says her latest album “Threads” will be her last.  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey guys, Willie Geist here with another episode of the Sunday Sit Down podcast. Thanks as always for clicking and listening along. I've got a big one for you this week. Nine-time Grammy winner. The seller of more than 50 million albums over the course of her incredible career, the one, the only, the great Cheryl Crow on the Sunday Sit Down podcast. Cheryl has a really cool new album out called Threads. It's a collaboration album.

And when you've made as many friends in the business over as many years as she had, You can call on people like Stevie Nix and Keith Richards and Sting and Marin Morris from the new generation of artists, Bonnie Raite. The list goes on and on. It's an incredible album. Cheryl invited us into her home in Nashville to sit down in her studio where she recorded this new album. Joining me this morning, as always, the producer of the Sunday Sit Down podcast, Maggie Law. Hello, Maggie. Really? Hi. How's it going?

Also with us, a special guest. The producer of the interview with Cheryl Crow, the great Hannah Van Winkle. So, hi, Hannah. Hi, guys. Thanks for having me. Welcome. So for people who don't understand what it means to produce one of these stories, Hannah, researches the guest.

She writes questions and gets ideas for how we want to approach the interview. She looks at the location. She makes it look and feel beautiful, as she always does. Hannah's a great producer, and she's one of a small handful of producers who put together our Sunday interviews and does such a great job. And I think we were both especially excited about this one. We're both Cheryl Crow fans. For sure.

And to get out on the road and just like go into her universe for a day, I thought it was just so cool. Totally. I mean, it's wonderful when an artist or somebody invites you into their home, you feel like you get a different perspective of who they are and what they're all about. And, you know, I grew up with Cheryl in the 90s listening to her music and well after the 90s into the aughts. And it was so neat to see her on a personal level. She's such a cool chick. Yeah. And I was just blown away.

and she was so willing to open up to you. And your conversation was so great, so I can't wait for folks to check it out. Yeah, so she invited us to our house on the property. She has a barn, which actually is a barn. She has horses, but above the barn, just to give people an idea, you walk upstairs. There's a recording studio above the stables, basically.

And that's where she recorded this album. Yeah, and where other artists have come to record as well. Casey Musgraves recorded her album there, right? That's so cool. Yeah. I lost track of how many guitars were on the wall. So many. And it was just a cool vibe in there.

And you could tell that that was really a space for her to create and to bring others in to just work on these collaborations. And that's the cool thing, Maggie. She just had like people just drop in. Like come by the house and let's cut a song. That natural culture. We're all kind of friends. Totally. Come by.

We want you on my record. We'll just write, create and sort of figure out. I love it. Yeah. And it's also like a good hang spot. There's sort of a bar downstairs and it's like kind of weird and cool. And one of the things that jumped out at me and you highlighted. this in your research, Hannah, was, I didn't ever thought about this in the 90s when she came out

and she became big with her first album and all I want to do was have some fun was her first big hit was that she felt like an outsider in music. You'd think, I think it went platinum seven times. She won three Grammys for him. This huge album. But she was saying like at that time, her music was not cool. It was Nirvana and Seattle and back and all that. And she was like, I felt like and still in some ways feel like an outsider in the music world. And I think that's one of the things that makes Cheryl such a unique artist is she's always had to go up against the boys club, if you will. And she's faced sexism at every turn in her career.

And to just persevere and keep going and keep creating wonderful art is just a testament to the type of woman that she is. And I'm still so thankful that we have her around, you know, 30 years later. Not that many. 20 plus years later. Yeah, 26, something like that. Yeah, I love that. You asked her about it.

And she was like, you know, when you face that, how do you keep going? She's like, you just keep pushing. She's like, you just keep putting your stuff out there and you just keep going. And that's how you get through it. And she's also, I love, she's at the point of her career where she's like, I don't care what people think about my music. How liberating. I know. Yeah.

And she kind of points to in 2006, she got a breast cancer diagnosis. She split her engagement off with Lance Armstrong. And she just moved to Nashville. And she was like, I want to get out of L.A. I don't want cameras chasing. We want none of that and be closer to her sister who lives in the Nashville area. And she's like, that's basically the point in my life, 2006, where I stopped caring what people thought. And it's great for her too.

I mean, that's only like a three and a half hour drive from where she grew up. So I feel like she's so much closer to her roots there. And the type of person that was she was steeped in, you know, in that, you know, country, you know, little Missouri town that she grew up. And I feel like she's found a little piece of that in her Nashville home. And her parents are still in that little town, like 10,000 people. I know she said a two-stop light town in Missouri. Yeah. And look at her now.

Okay, I could talk to you all day, but we're going to actually let people hear the interview. All right. Sounds good idea. We'll talk to you again after the interview. And now, Cheryl Crow from her home in Nashville on the Sunday Sit Down podcast. Cheryl, thanks for having us over. Yeah, my pleasure. Thanks for coming by.

Just figured I'd drop in on a Monday afternoon. So let's talk about the music that was made, I think, in this very room, right? Yeah, a lot of music. albums but let's talk about threads and first of all the group of people that you assembled on this record was it like just go through the roll-a-dex not at all and call them all it would make me sick to think people would think I just was like okay let's make a collaborative record it started off with Chris Christofferson right in the studio and I think I felt like after having that experience of

sharing the thing that he still connects to it just so so profoundly affected me that I felt like, wow, as we all get older, isn't this what it's all about? Isn't what you share in a safe and creative environment what it's all about? And getting to the heart of it. And so I just want more of that. And I've had such an unbelievably blessed career. You know, I started out listening to records. And here I am, and I know a lot of the people whose records I still listen to.

And I still own the hard, you know, vine. So I just started with the help of Steve Jordan, who's just ridiculously awesome, contacting people I love. In fact, we called the record people I love for, well, really up until recently. Well, the list is unreal. I mean, right out of the box, we get Stevie Nix and then bridging the generations with Marin Morris, Bonnie Raid, Keith Richards, Sting, Eric Clapton. I mean, it's a all-star list of rock and roll hall of famers. Did you have an idea of the group you wanted when you set out and just sort of like asked friends and saw what you got back?

Yeah, no, it was really organic. And it was not, it wasn't like a conventional project in that you have a timeline. I didn't even have a record deal at that time. There was a lot of freedom and liberation in that. And also, nobody's saying you need to put a record out. So we worked on it like sporadically over three and a half years. The hardest part was saying, okay, I think we're done. because I still think of people that have really deeply affected my creative life and also my personal life.

But really, for the most part, there were obvious choices for me, people that have been constants through my career. You know, Keith was there. I mean, he was part of the very first gig that I ever did in front of a massive audience in 1997 in front of Joe Robbie Stadium. And Bobby Keyes handed me a thing of tequila and said, all right, he knew I was like. like terrified to go out and sing with the Rolling Stones and he's like take a sip of tequila here's your courage and push me out and you know I just think about all the experiences that I've had you're talking about emily Lou Harris and as being here during 9-11 and watching it on TV at a studio downtown and I was living in New York at the time and there's just so many overlaps of life experiences that

are a part of the fabric of the record and then being able to also invite in people I feel like are the next generation who also inspire me. I was just saying how crazy it must have been for you to step out on stage, get pushed out on stage by Bobby Keys and be standing next to people you'd grown up listening to. Yeah, people whose records I had. I mean, what's really crazy to me, and I tell this story to so many young people who were starting out, I was in the audience when Keith Richards was producing Hail Hell, Hell, Rock and Roll.

I was a young school teacher. It was 1986, 87. I was there Friday night, Steve Jordan on drums, who became my producer, and Keith Richards in St. Louis. And 30 years later, here I am in the studio with Keith and Steve's producing. And I'm from a town of like three stoplights. So, you know, it's one of those things where you go, if you dream it, you can kind of manifest it. Or, you know, it can happen. It can happen.

So, and I would like to say any, you know, anyone. are on earth but it really is true in America there are many ways to find your way there and I've been so lucky you know well you've just answered my question about pinch me moments but it sounds like you're someone who stops along the way and takes a breath and said I can't believe what's happening in my life yeah I do it all the time and whenever I'm working with somebody even though like Stevie and people I've known for a long time who've been with me through like life experiences I still have those moments of, you know, remembering that she was the one on the front of the album cover and ballet slippers. And, you know, I mean, things that meant a lot to a young girl.

And that really, I think, became the illustration of what it was I wanted to be, you know. What is that like? I've talked to actors who have that experience, too. I interviewed Bradley Cooper not long ago. And he was talking about the experience of growing up worshipping Robert De Nier. And then suddenly you're in a scene with Robert Teniro. And then Robert Teniro's telling you, you did a good job. And then suddenly Robert DeNiro's texting you.

And like, how does that, it all happens so fast. And it's like you're living in a dream in some ways, I have to imagine. I think, well, the way I relate to things now is from looking at how different life was. I mean, obviously back then when I was a kid, there wasn't, I mean, you had Friday night TV when you could see if you stayed up late enough, people playing music or, you know, you could see it on Dick Clark or, you know, there wasn't YouTube, there wasn't social media, there wasn't even cable. Right. I mean, if I can date myself.

And so these people that were in the albums and in the pictures and in the magazine, Cream Magazine, Rolling Stone Magazine, they were so much more mythical and so much larger than life because we didn't know that much about them. And so whatever pictures you saw of Robert Plant and Led Zeppelin in front of a private plane, that's what you thought it was. Right. That's what you wanted. And you wanted the, you know, the idea of getting out of your hometown and traveling and seeing

the world. That, you didn't know what the world looked like yet. And so for me, all these people have represented so much of that to me. I mean, I do find that when I'm around these people, I'm still a fan, even though, and I never can quite put myself on their level. I still want to hear the old stories. I had a wonderful evening in a limousine with Emmylou and, oh my gosh, drummer from the band, a senior moment.

Yeah. Yes. Just who died. LeVon. Thank you. I had one too. I know. I had a wonderful evening with Emily Lou and Levin Holm in a limousine.

And just those moments that go, oh, they were in the last walt. And I remember, you know, you still, that still doesn't leave, you know, the part of your brain that catalogs all those things. And then that flips when Marin Morris or something like that walks into this barn and they go, oh, my gosh, I can't believe I'm standing in the same room about to play music with Cheryl Crow. Is that an odd thing for you? It's an odd thing when somebody walks in and say, oh, you've inspired me. I can't believe I'm here. I'm working with you. And I immediately, my knee jerk is to go back, oh, thanks.

I mean, I'm just stealing from these people back here. And I do, that's my knee jerk. But it is, I'm getting used to now how good it feels to know that I've been an inspiration to young artists, particularly young women. I mean, my sole objective in the last few years is to try to get instruments into women's hands again. and try to get them to a piano, to a guitar, to write, to be alone in their thoughts and to actually get them down. And it's different now with so many writers in a room

and everybody's conscientious about the six second attention span. And so you've got 15 writers on stuff. And we need those troubadours. We need those singer-songwriters. And that's why it's great to have Brandy on the record and to have Margot and to have Chris Stapled and to have Gary Clark Jr., to have these people that are tooth tellers and that are clearly tied to their references.

And Marin is, you know, an extension, I think, of Stevie and me. And it's fun. It makes me feel good about the future. So a lot of people heard through various interviews that you've given that this is your last album and they freaked out. They're like, Cheryl Crow's going away. She's done with music. So I'm here on behalf of the American people to stage an intervention.

We need you, Cheryl. We need you. But you're not going away. you're just going to stop making entire albums. Yeah, we had, I had an experience last year where I put out a song called I Wouldn't Want to Be Like You, which featured Annie Clark, another amazing artist and total truth teller. And it was so wonderful to be able to just put it out in the immediate because it really

pertained to what was going on just in America at large with our inability to accept the truth as being powerful and important instead of the newest sense that it is becoming. and it was for me it felt great to be able to just put it out and not have to wait for a full body of work to be completed with a whole plan of what's the single and all that and I feel like in this day and age and as much as I've loved albums people really cherry pick songs and they make their own playlists and so it feels good for me to say this is this is really the summation of my my whole life creatively and even on a personal note and be able to pay it forward as well. And from here on out, just to put songs out that I feel like, okay, this has meaning right now. And people can make their own Cheryl Groh albums. And you'll still tour and you'll still, I'll definitely still tour. It's what I know best. My 12-year-old was totally bummed out when he heard I wasn't going to tour anymore. He's like, what? We're not going to tour, Mom. No, I love the road. So he's been reading the internet too. He thinks you're retiring.

Oh, let me tell you what he has not been reading is the internet. I am like, I'm like the police. Good job, Mom. That's very smart. That's very smart. No social media in our house. So is that a commentary then on the music business right now, which is that it's not worth it in some ways to put out an entire album? That is not a commentary on the music business.

That is a commentary on technology. And it's also a commentary on the way people now expect to receive their music, which is through a streaming service. It's not a full body of work. It's what they hear on the radio. You know, there are still a lot of young people that are buying vinyl and that are going on different sites to find music that's left of center. I mean, there's just a multitude of ways you can find music. It's difficult now to actually download a whole record.

But this is just me, and I tell every young artist, create a body of work because you want to go out and you want to play. You want to have a life of playing songs. that have meaning for you that aren't just the hits and that you're going to connect with your audience. You know, I'm a dinosaur. No, no, you're not. But, I mean, I think you're not alone in this thinking,

which is that it makes more sense to put out a single. But it used to be, as you know, well, you want to tell a story through 14 or 16 tracks or whatever it is. Oh, yeah. Is something lost and not having as much of that anymore? Well, I think it is. I mean, it would be as if every writer now just wrote, you know,

short stories. I mean, to be perfectly honest, I think there is a great metaphor in looking at the news. The way the newspaper is, it's archaic or obsolete by the end of the day, whereas everything is just so immediate. It's like I'm writing a newspaper or a novel with a beginning and a middle and an end and an arc and redemption and all these different experiences in an album when really a tweet is what people are going to. That's what they're going to take with them. I mean, obviously. And it makes me sad, and that's why this has felt good to say, I don't know how I would follow this up. This is my statement.

Yeah, I mean, I have some sadness over the fact that I feel like albums are too much for people to actually hold. It's too much for them to sit down and spend the time to actually just enjoy being in a moment. Same with when you got and you play for people in there like this. Right, you know. Right. Instead of watching. Yeah. But that's what they do because it's instinct now.

Yeah. They want to show somebody that they were here or watch it. Some bad quality video they shot later, but that's where we are. So the headline though is Cheryl Crow is not retiring for music. I want everybody to see that. That's right. I am not retiring for music. It is the only thing I do well.

Okay. Tell me more about this room because your last two albums, right, have been recorded in this space and this cool, What do you love about making music in here? I love that it's at the end of my driveway. And, no, I mean, I'm a mad collector of weird stuff. I'm a nine-year-old's constantly like, Mom, why do we live in a house with pictures of dead people on the walls? But I just, I love the fact that it's kind of an inspiring place to walk into. And actually, while we were making this record, the Threads record, we made the Be Myself record in the course of the course of the record.

like in the course of three and a half weeks during school hours. So it's nice to be able to drop my kids off, come down here, work, create, go pick up my kids. They come back for an hour and hang out. We eat dinner, musicians. It's a very, very social place. And yet my kids get to witness that it actually is work, that there is work that goes into me walking out on stage and having people be excited and all that, that there is something that happens before that, that is the culmination of years of practice.

And so they're not so apt to argue over their piano practicing now that they know that, oh, it can lead to something cool. Right. But we've had great people in here. We've had bluegrass players. We've had Chris Tapleton's been in here. Keith Urban's written in here. Casey Musgraves made her record here.

I know. I actually didn't know that until I was reading the research. I mean, it's fun to be able to offer it up and see. say this is a sanctuary where the industry is not allowed. You can come in here and just explore and discover and just be inspired. Do your kids appreciate what you do for a living? Do they get that mom's a big music star? And are they interested in it to very different things?

My kids, I don't think until they'd be myself record, really understood that it was work. A lot of times they felt like it was just something that kind of was an annoying thing that took me away. Like if I ever put on makeup, they'd be like, are you going to work? You know? But now there, I mean, I think it's flipped a little bit. Like this summer, we went on the road and they both, every show brought out guitars. They're very involved. They want to be a part of it.

They would go behind the keyboards and play tambourines and play drums and percussion stuff, miced and everything. That's amazing. And they got paid. So that could be part of it. What was their rate? $5 a gig. Okay. About halfway through those.

summer my nine-year-old said mom I'm thinking that we could do a flat fee of a hundred bucks well like he's my he's my little accountant my other one's like the feeling he wants to be a bass player he wants to play in my band when he's 19 but he's like and I said you should really do the math because you're if you get five bucks a gig we're actually doing more than 20 gigs so he came back mom 135 and we could get half of it during the break and half it at the end of the summer so Sounds like he's going to be an agent, if not a musician. I know, I know.

You can help you negotiate. Or a lawyer. Yeah. But that's fun that they get to play along with you and see what you do. They do. And I mean, honestly, it has been the one thing that has above all, not only given me a spark on stage with the fact that I have so much gratitude that at my age, I'm still doing what I'm doing. I love my band. I love this new surge of energy that's come my way, I guess, by being.

around as long as I have. Like, I have a lot of young people that know every word because they've grown up with their parents playing my music, and that's been exhilarating. And I've gotten to show my kids the world, you know, through first-timer's eyes. So it's kind of a win-win. Pretty good deal.

I was reading the liner notes on the way over here where you kind of explain your relationship with every artist. But my favorite part was the first part where you talk about your parents and your hometown and where all this started. Yeah. As you said, a three-stoplight town in Missouri. But it seemed to me there was music in your house from the minute you were born, basically, with your mom.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I would say that probably back then music was in everybody's house. I mean, music was very social. You had people over. You played records, you know, and my parents loved music so much that they actually played with their friends in a swing band. And they would come home. you know, after a gig and they would stay up. Everybody drank and everybody smoked. Of course. And they would play the Magnovacs.

They'd play, you know, all kinds of music. Whatever was happening at the time. They'd also play a lot of big band stuff. And they'd play along. They'd sing. They'd dance. And we would, of course, be on the other side of the wall, asleep on the stairs, wanting to be a part of it.

And that's what I thought everybody's upbringing was like. Right. And, you know, many years later, of course, that's not what everybody's family was like. But I would not trade that appreciation for music for anything. So at what point in your life then do you come down the stairs and join in and start singing and playing? Well, there was a point where they weren't doing anymore, but they liked for us to perform. And I hated playing for anyone.

You did? I was never a front person in the band. Really? Oh, no. I mean, I was never in a play. I mean, I never. Is that right? You were shy?

I just was not confident about. playing or I just oh would not want to do that and then actually many years later I was in a band in college and the girl the front girl quit and she went on to be on star search and I wound up standing in her space and I was like okay it's not as bad as I thought was gonna be oh really yeah and just like that you got past it no not really I mean not really for a long time did not feel that comfortable up front but yeah I mean just through practice. I mean, thank God I didn't grow up in a time of YouTube because, you know, you go out and you play and that's where you figure it out, you know, you don't figure it out

with a curling iron in front of the mirror. And I wasn't born to it. I mean, I wasn't born in that comfort zone of I just want to be famous. Right. You just want to play music. I wanted to be great. Yeah. Yeah. You were talking. I wanted to be like Bonnie Wright. Like when, and I want to be like Stevie and you know but but I would never like dream of doing it in front of anybody and here they are the first two tracks on your new record that's pretty crazy I know so you were talking about being a music teacher it seems like you want you wanted to be around music you wanted to teach music you want to play music what was the goal at that point in your life were you happy being a music teacher or was that a way to get you into a career playing music on

Yeah, I mean, I think if I'm honest, I was engaged at a young age and moved to St. Louis, and that fell apart and I was teaching. And so I got into bands in St. Louis and played on the weekends. And then I got, this wonderful producer, MJ Oliver, hired me to do some commercial work, jingles. And one of them went network or went regional in Chicago, and then it went network, national McDonald's. And I made, you know, twice what I made in two years of teaching. I mean, that's just, that just makes you feel really good about what teachers make.

I know. Right. And I took my tapes out to L.A. and thought, well, I'm going to go out and try to get work. And in the meantime, I keep writing. And that's kind of what I did. I just kept following it. And I think in some ways, the innocence of it and also the ignorance of it just kept me thinking, well, I'll just keep going. I mean, even if they say, no, I'll just find somebody else, you know,

And that was just my wide-eyed, you know, if I keep working at it, I'm a really good person. Then, you know, only good things will happen. Right. There's a reward for being a good person. There's a reward for being. Then Chaubez taught you that wasn't true. I know, I know. So what were those years in your 20s like when you were out in L.A.

Doing backup singing, what were those years like for you, just lifestyle-wise? Yeah, I mean, my first year out there, I lived across from a, um, Kroger, I think it was either or no, I can't remember what the, the, Ralph's movie out there. Rouse, I lived across the street from a Ralph's, and I would go over, and I would get trail mix and a baked potato, and I would eat, I mean, just minimal, but, like, saving my money, right? I wind up with a boot on my car. I mean, just all the experiences that you think of, that for a young person who has no money, you know, having to, like, take a bus to wait tables, a look of. I waited tables, I gave my tapes to everybody, and then I found out about an audition for Michael Jackson, and I went to that and wound up in a roundabout way, going on the road with him as a backup singer, and came home, went back to waiting tables, gave my tape

to somebody who produced Sting, Hugh Padgham, got a record deal. I mean, I just kept plugging out it. You know, I knew I had some good songs. I knew I knew how to play instruments. I knew I love music. And the fame thing wasn't as big back then as it is now. There wasn't a lot of, you know, there weren't the vehicles that there are now, the magazines.

They're really just straight up tabloids. So I just kept plugging away and one thing just, you know, led to another. Were there people telling you you should be this kind of artist or you should look this way or here's what's going to sell? And what did that feel like? You knew what kind of artist you were. I'm sure there were people telling me. Yeah.

Yeah, I came off the Jackson tour and I didn't want to be Madonna or Lisa Lisa in the cult jam or Paula Abdul. I wanted to be more, you know, earthy. And so I did a bunch of showcases and everybody was like, we want to give you a development deal. And it was Don Henley, who I did some backup part for who said, you got to save your songs and quit giving them to people. through a publishing deal you've got some good songs and he he really helped me and got me a development deal and I just got turned down by everybody who said we don't we don't know what to do with like a blue-eyed country soul singer right now you know right and so I went back to waiting tables you know and I just kept

plugging at it and gave my tapes to people and eventually Hugh Padgeon walked into A&M and said I believe in this young woman and I want a producer and so And then your life explodes. I mean, it was actually, I was looked at the dates. It was 26 years ago last week that Tuesday night came out. Yeah. You know, seven times platinum, all the Grammys. So you go from struggling to get a record deal to now, you're the biggest thing going.

What was that like for you, that moment in your life? It was, I mean, it was kind of surreal. You know, I was still pretty naive. And everything in my life had so far been built on this. idea if you work hard and da-da-da-da, you know. But things really did change. I mean, and I wasn't really equipped to handle all of it. We basically, it was like, thank you for the Grammys. This is incredible. I flew my entire family and my 85-year-old grandmother out and had my outfit made. You know, I mean, I just wasn't really, I just wasn't savvy. And we got on the bus the next day

and went straight up north and continued on like it had never happened. And I just wasn't able to really internalize all of it and I just I think when it came time to make my second record I was super just chafed you know I was I was over overexposed people were starting to get really sick of me and it really turned and it just I had to just learn as I went you know how to kind of protect my own personal life and my feelings and there came a point actually I read the fountain head, which you should never graduate from high school without reading it, but I was reading it in my 30th.

That's all right. You got there. And it made me really feel like, okay, you know what? I got to, like, I just put everything away except for the music, and I never read another review or I haven't read one since then, and just stayed in the music, and it really, it really helped. And I also had to learn how to accept a compliment. I had to learn how to accept an award and go, okay, this doesn't mean.

I mean, it's the end. It also doesn't mean that you're, you know, this is just an award. It's just something to acknowledge that you've worked hard and that people have liked it. And, you know, it's a little like Sally Field. You like me. You really like me. But, yeah, I mean, it's all, all of life is just learning how, you know, how to stay in your own body. Reading and listening to interviews with you through the years, there's this thread that I guess I hadn't thought about of you being at that time kind of an outsider.

in the music industry. I think you said you weren't one of the cool kids because that's Grunge and Nirvana and smashing pumpkins and back in that era of music. Did you feel like an outsider despite all your success? You felt like you didn't belong in that club?

Well, I just, you know, it all kind of went together. I couldn't figure out who I was. And yeah, the record, the Tuesdaysaint Music Club record was actually my second record. You know, I made a record and it didn't come out. And I didn't want it to come out. I felt like it was really slick. And I was worried that people,

wouldn't they wouldn't care, it would just wind up in the bins. And so I wound up making this record that, I mean, I really didn't know what would happen with it because it didn't sound like anything else. It didn't sound like Seattle. And in some ways, I think it jumped started a whole different movement. You know, Atlantis came out after that and there were women who were starting to come out again making music that was not just, it wasn't all about grunge. And that was good, but I couldn't look at it as.

is my having been a part of that. I could just only look at it as me not really having anybody to hang out with when it came to like award shows. Like it wasn't, Beck wasn't, I just didn't know where I fit in. And in the meantime, I was embraced by all these incredible people that I had loved.

Right. People that I think related to the music more than maybe what they related to that was happening. And so I went up developing a relationship with Bob Dylan and with Stevie and with, the Rolling Stones and so many people that, you know, they were my people anyway. So in a weird way, it really was a wonderful experience. I love what you said. It was kind of like hanging out with your parents' friends, but in the best way. Yeah, exactly, exactly. That's crazy. Yeah. So you mentioned

then the second album, you said sort of Cheryl Crow, three years later, felt like you kind of shed all the, all this fame and all this attention, and here's what I should be. Was that the first? album where you felt like, okay, this is really me. Yeah, I mean, it felt a little bit like a reboot. Yeah. I went in with the pressure of having sold 8 million records. And we basically just closed the doors. And we were in New Orleans, which already has its own extremely infectious musical vibe.

And we just got down there and just played like we were in a sandbox. Me and my buddy Jeff Trott and our buddy is a great drummer, Brian McLeod. And Trina Shoemaker. female engineer, which I think had a huge part in my finding my sound and discovering how to produce my own records and just a real gift. And I came out of it feeling like, okay, in fact, my manager is like, you know what you're doing, just go in, demo your stuff, your demos are always great and we'll see where we're at. And that, those demos are the record. And that felt like, okay, this is, the first one was this explosion in my life.

and now I'm sort of back on track. Exactly. This one felt like, okay, this is, I've taken all my clothes off. You may not like everything about it, but this is what it is. Oh, my gosh. I just can't imagine how you handled all that so quickly. I mean, to go from that little town in Missouri to everybody on the face of the earth singing your songs and knowing who you are and being interested in your personal life

and who you're dating and all those things, How did you manage that sort of celebrity side of it when that hadn't been a part of your life at all until you were 30 years old? Well, and I've talked about this with Stevie. You know, I was a late bloomer. She talks about, I mean, she has fascinating stories about what she did before they actually had their big first record. And she was 20 or 29. I was 29. And I feel like I was pretty well formed as a person because I had these great parents.

I was from a great family. I was from a Midwestern town and everything kind of jarred, jarred that. And I think at which point I'd been working for a really long time and not stopping, and then I got diagnosed with breast cancer, and my personal relationship fell apart, and people were camping outside of my house. And it really started to make it feel like, oh, I see. It's not just about being with you when you're super famous and you're getting the awards. It's like we've got to get a picture of her at her lowest.

And man, we're going to sell some copies. And it really felt kind of sinister. And I just, I wound up saying, I got to move closer to home. I got to find a way to put down roots, like what I grew up with. And I just kind of restructured my life. I moved to Nashville. I adopted my sons. And I surrounded myself with, you know, equals, allies, people who are cut from the same cloth.

And it has just been a blessing ever since. And, you know, and I am a meditator. I've meditated for 22 years, but really at that point, did I start to settle in to the idea that manifesting peace within is the only way you can manifest peace throughout your life. And so I just really started to hone my practice. That seems like a big time in your life, 2006. Moving here, surviving breast cancer, thank God.

your boys coming into your life. I think you've said it was almost liberating in some way. You said, okay, I've taken all this incoming, and I don't have to care what people think. I don't have time to care what people think anymore. Exactly. I mean, there is just as my kids say, a ginormous shift in coming out of the other side of something that's major like that.

And I'd never wish a cancer diagnosis on anyone or anything of that magnitude, But I think if you take that experience and really sit with it and hold that emotion, which we Westerners are not equipped to do and work our way through it, that emotion is, that's the gateway to enlightenment and to liberation, and to losing the attachment to things and to people and what people think. And it was for me. It was definitely a transition of my life. And I also would not allow myself to go to me.

music to bail myself out. Interesting. So I took about a year and did nothing but just kind of walk and observe and cry and be mad and all of it. And then when I was done, I was done. And I picked up a guitar and had a three-month-old and just started all over. And people, you know, when you moved to Nashville, you kind of did country for a little while, not to put you in any kind of box, but people's, I've heard you describe about eight different

ways. How do you describe yourself as an artist on this long journey? How do I describe? Oh, well, yeah. Are your country or your roots? Right. Well, I think I'm definitely, I mean, now there is a term called Americana, which wasn't around when I was around. But yeah, I mean, Americana seems to be really steeped in, you know, early country and rhythm and blues and, you know, rock and roll. And that is definitely what my roots were. When I moved here, I had all these people saying, you've got to make a country record because every girl that walks in the studio says, I want to make, if it makes you happier, I want to make a Sheryl Crow record.

And, you know, I do love country. I do gravitate to the Emmylose. I gravitate to the Grand Parsons. I gravitate to the Rolling Stones doing their version of country. And that's where I found myself. I didn't really fit in in the country format, but that's country now is a lot different than what it was. So I shouldn't fit in.

I fit in sort of back in the maybe 60s where Whalen and Willie and the boys were. Now singing with some of them on this record. And now singing, yeah. I mean, Willie has been really, to me, if I ever had a duet partner, it would be him. I mean, when I have had the opportunities to sing with him, which has been on so many occasions, I just, that is my version of high right there. You've never been afraid to put politics in your music either. You're very politically engaged.

We were talking about a bunch before we started here. Is that important to you to say something on your records about whatever's happening in the country? Because you were doing it, talking about sexism 25 years ago on your records and guns on records and all these different things that some people might say, you know what? I need to sell this album. Maybe I'll stay away from it. Why is it important to you to comment? Oh, but it's so emotional for me. In fact, just even hearing you talk about guns and reflecting on love is a good thing

and how that affected my album of not having Walmart release that record, I can't even speak about it. I have two young boys, and for me to walk into the studio and abandon the elephant in the room would be impossible. I am my age, and I have just an incredible community people around me who we all, no matter what side of the aisle, we stand on are concerned about the same things. And that is raising our children in an environment that is worthy of the beauty of this planet, for one thing. I mean, we're only here for a minute. And for me to instill in my children that is important to be compassionate and to be empathetic

and to have the world not exemplify that for them, to talk to them, about what truth means, that it's not an inconvenience, that it is necessary, no matter how hard it is, to instill that in them and then constantly have to have conversations with them about why they hear what they hear on TV and otherwise, from people who make the decisions that will affect them for the rest of their lives. It's egregious, and it's impossible for me to, at this moment, come in and not at least address some of that, because it's egregious. Because it's so on, it's on the surface for me. It doesn't mean that every song's going to be doom and glim,

but I mean, it's definitely worth having a conversation about, you know, even the song wouldn't want to be like you, talks about how inane it is that people think if they can tell alive, you know, 50 times that it's the truth, even when it's been on a video that you said it. You know, it's just, this is not our reality. And part of it is, is us. is the people who are the models for our children,

making the right decisions and owning it. And it just, you know, I think if you watch the video for Redemption Day, you see how I feel about life, that our children are standing between our legs, watching what we do that will affect the way their lives will be forever more. And it goes all the way back in history. And we need to own this.

We need to own this moment. And we got to get back to something that's more gentle and more accepting and compassionate around our dinner tables and talk about the cold, hard facts, about what we're, how we're conducting ourselves and what it means to our children. And what do you think is the power specifically of music to do that above sort of the din of the daily cable news, I can say, and Twitter and all that, the fighting that goes on in politics. What can music say about a moment in this country? Well, you know, and I'm going to make myself sound extremely old and critical, but I think that sex, I think we have to get out of sex being what sells music. And my kids, I mean, they are totally down with Post Malone, but luckily they also love Sean Mendez and Alessio-Cara. And, I mean, there is great music out there, and then there's music.

that is pop music and there's room for everything. But I think at a certain point, we do have to start talking about some things that matter, and maybe it's not going to be that generation. But I think if there were some examples of people doing that and that music getting heard, it would be more enticing for them to write about it. For me, when I was a kid, I could hear things on the radio that were saying things, and it made me want to do that. If all you're on the radio is music that's basically about sex,

then you wanna do that. That represents success. So, you know, I think we could look at the Grammys as maybe creating some new categories for more conventional songwriting to at least show these great people that are writing about what's happening like Brandy and, I mean, a whole generation, of people that aren't getting heard that I hear on Lightning 100 here in Nashville, the Courtney

Barnett's and the Lake Street Dives and people that are writing about stuff, they just don't have an outlet to be heard. So that's my soapbox. And why is that? Because Marin has talked about this a lot, Casey Musgraves, has talked about that a lot, that it's hard as great as they are to get their songs on the radio, even on country radio. How can you explain that as somebody who's lived it, who's been through it? I think we have a long way to go where it comes to equality for women. I mean, obviously, you can look at the soccer team, but what's happening in music, it's not just about payment. It's actually about being heard. And, you know, it's too easy for those who have a social media following of 30 million

to be heard because it behooves the advertisers. When commerce is so in bed with art, we're going down a rabbit hole. We've got to figure out a way to have some people stand up. And it seems to be women who are standing up and who are saying this. And that doesn't help our cause either. It makes us annoying. And, you know, just like the women running for president, you speak your mind and you're suddenly terse. We have to find our way. And I think we will.

I think there are a lot of great women out there who are really pushing the platform forward to get women in every role in the music business, agents, heads of labels. program directors, engineers, producers, we're all working on it. We're a long way away, but I'm not giving up hope. And you're doing something about it. And we're doing something about it. You're helping to support these artists that deserve support. Is it encouraging to you, though, to see somebody like Brandy Carlisle step up on that Grammy stage

and just steal the night and have everybody watching it at home, whether they tuned in for somebody completely different go, who is that? In other words, if they have a place in a stage, people listen. I mean, I am getting very emotional in my, you know, my new liberated age. But after she played and she jumped up and down, I cried. I was just like, this is what I've been waiting for. You know, those are the moments I can let my kids watch at the Grammys. I can't let them watch the whole show.

I mean, I can't let them watch the show at all, which also bums me out. And that's no knock against the Grammys because I love the Grammys. but just seeing someone play a song and having an audience have the molecules change in the room? Yes, that's right. That to me is the power of music. And I text her the next morning and said,

just thank you, thank you. The MS are written thank you like 40 times. I got chills watching it too. I mean, I'd listened to her, but I'd never seen her perform on a stage that thing. She just destroyed it. I've seen her, and I've seen her, and I've seen artists like her who are so unsung through their careers that they don't

always get that moment. And for me, that moment was a moment we could all celebrate. So how did you 25 years ago push back against the things we're still seeing today? As you said, one of the only women in the room sometimes, whether it was at the Grammys or someone else, you bumped up against a lot of people who didn't treat you well probably because you? you were a woman, how did you keep your head down and plow through that? Well, I think largely, I mean, they say success is the best revenge, but success now is measured by so many different things that are foreign to me, but I would say I just didn't

stop, you know, and I think that for me was my greatest revenge. And at a certain point, if you just keep, if you keep being authentic as to who you are, and you keep at least being open, you don't let it shut you down and you keep writing, you keep doing that thing that you do, you wind up being around as long as I am and you become a legacy artist. You just don't go away. I think that's part of it. But, you know, I mean, I would say that I care in a way that is deeper now as a mom and as an, as a environmentalist. I care in a way that is extremely passionate and that only enhances your music. It only enhances your message. And that's the other thing. I don't, I want to find a way to actually, in my life, not just in my career, push humanity forward.

And if that means going to work with Bill Gates, yes, I'm putting it out there. Or, you know, finding a way I can actually be useful when music is not necessarily working for. fast enough. So it sounds like you have thought a little bit about legacy. Again, she's not retiring, but you do think about what you're going to leave behind as an artist. I think about what I'm going to leave for my kids. We were riding bikes the other day, and there was a whole area where the trees have been cleared out, and I was like, oh, it looks like they're going to put something in here.

And my nine-year-old said, well, are they going to cut down all the trees and the rainforest until we can't breathe anymore? And I was like, when I was nine, I definitely wasn't thinking about the end of the world. You know, and our kids shouldn't be holding that. They shouldn't be afraid of what the world's going to look like when they inherited. So whatever my legacy is as a musician, that's great. But I'm going to fight for them however I can. Stick around to hear more from Cheryl Crow on the Sunday Sit Down podcast, including the person she wants to work

with most, which may surprise you. Welcome back to the Sunday Sit Down podcast. Now more of my conversation with Cheryl Crow. So we've got, this is the last album, we know that. What is out there on the horizon that you still want to do that you've never done? Even if it's not music, is there some other thing? You're such a creative person that interests you that might surprise people that you've been tinkering with or thinking about?

I mean, it sounds ridiculous, but I really, I want to. to work. I want to work in the environmental forum. I mean, if there was some way, and I mean, I'm constantly joking about, I want to go to work with Bill Gates. But I feel like, I just feel a sense of urgency about this, and even if it's at the macro level of creating programs in our community, just ways to at least push humanity forward. And so this is what I'm interested in right now. I mean, I'll keep writing, and music has been a great place. for me to go, but my desires now are bigger than that to help not only educate people, but at least galvanize some kind of movement towards helping in that realm.

And you're already doing that and keep doing it. I think we've shouted up Bill Gates twice now, so we're going to get there. Okay. Have you talked to Bill about, does he know about this yet or no? No, he doesn't. No, he does. I've got to get through this record. All right, we'll do that now.

You'll edit it. You won't use them twice. Okay, yeah, we'll just use it once. Also, people are wondering, your health is good? My health is great. Good, yeah. Good. Yeah, really good. I feel more energetic and fit than ever.

I don't know why. Yeah, life is really, from the interview overall, it sounds like my life is a downer, but my life is so great and so joy-filled. And when we go out and play, I've fully experienced that in my body. I just feel so grateful to be doing what I'm doing still. It feels like just sitting across from you, you're in a good place of you're comfortable with who you are. You've got a great set of kids. You live where you want to live.

You're near family. You're making the music you want to make. Is it nice to be at that place after sort of like scrapping through your career for so long? It is, man. You know, I love my age. I'm constantly looking around while everybody's getting their faces redone and they're, you know, and I'm just like, no. age is great. I mean, I don't like seeing the lines and all that stuff,

but the more I detach from the physicality of it and the more I'm into the gratitude of it, I find that there's a lot of joy to be had. So I'm just awake and happy. And no, we won't say any names about people who you're looking at their faces and saying, no, man. I don't think I need to.

It is self-evident, isn't it? I would love to be young just so I could be around longer, but I don't want to be young again. I agree. People always ask me, wouldn't it be great to be 22 again? Not really. Yeah, I love what I know. I mean, I'm lucky genetically that I'm, I come by being pretty fit naturally. But I think you can still be sexy when you're in your 50s and still be pertinent and not be, you know, archaic and still have some.

something to say and still be cool and all that. You're doing it. You're proving all of that. I feel like the girl from the staring at left, I can kick. I'm 50. I like to kick and stretch. And stretch. I'm 50.

Molly Shannon's going to love that. You did that. Molly Shannon. I love her. Last thing I want to ask you because I've seen you've talked about in some other interviews and you mentioned being a backup singer for Michael. Yeah. Do you look back now on that tour with new eyes,

all that we know about it now? My experience on that tour was I got to see the world. I didn't even own a passport. And, you know, I have talked about Michael. I've probably said all I would say about it. Yeah. Makes you sad to think about it. Mad, some combination.

Yeah, I kind of talked about it, and it got covered in Europe by a newspaper, and I think that would be all I would say about it. Fair enough. Thank you, Cheryl. Thank you. Appreciate it. Thanks for having us over.

Yeah, glad you came. My big thanks to Cheryl Crow for welcoming us into her home studio in Nashville and for a great conversation. Her new album, Threads, is available now. Hannah, one of the things that struck, I think, both of us, was how seriously she takes her activism and how important it is. And she sort of grounds it in her own children of what she's leaving for them. Absolutely. Like you say, she just wants to leave the world a better place for the. them and it's a wonderful message.

Cheryl Crowe. She's pretty cool. Now, dare I ask, were you alive when her first album came out? Maggie? I was alive. It was 93. I was one year old at that point. But the late 90s, early aughts, as Hannah said, I was definitely a fan.

That's the thing. She's had such a long run. She's captured like three generations. Exactly. She really has. She is so cool. That was such a blast. My thanks again to you guys and to Cheryl and to all of you listening for tuning in this week to the Sunday Sit Down podcast. To hear more of the conversations with all of my guests,

be sure to click subscribe and listen for free every week. And don't forget, of course, to tune in to Sunday today every weekend on NBC. I'm Willie Geist. We'll see you right back here next week on the Sunday Sit Down podcast.