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'musical milestones' CROW continued from page 11 Crow's 2008 album Detours summed up all the personal and political concerns that had piled up over the course of the decade. After that outpouring, she decided that the time was right to cast off some of that baggage and reorient herself with the free-spirited R&B that had first perked up her ears as a youngster. The aptly titled new 100 Miles From Memphis is old-school soul through and through, a sound at the center of Crow's musical personality that her more rockoriented albums have never shown. "Detours was a very political, very personal, sociopolitical kind of record — very lyric-driven, slightly stoic," she says. "It seemed like a good time to do something a little more sexy." Crow wrote many of the new songs with new collaborators Doyle Bramhall II and Justin Stanley, who also produced the album. She recruited a soul-centric band that included guitarist Chris Bruce, bass player Tommy Sims, keyboardist Jeff Babko and drummers Victor Indrizzo and Homer Steinweiss. She and the whole crew laid down tracks in New York City (Jimi Hendrix's legendary Electric Lady Studios) and L.A., along the way attracting special guests like Keith Richards, Justin Timberlake and Citizen Cope and piling up so many tunes that she hopes to release a second album from the sessions. Crow's vocals were recorded at her own home studio, located downstairs at the 17-room house about a half hour south of Nashville that she recently put up for sale. (She wants to live closer to the city.) "Every window looks out on pastures with horses," she says. "It's all farmland out here, and it makes for a truly idyllic and inspiring atmosphere." And so Crow's journey, which once took her across the country, has brought her here — about 200 miles from Memphis, the city that once upon a time gave her both glorious songs and straight teeth. Before heading out on the road with many of the players featured on 100 Miles, Sheryl Crow spoke with M Music & Musicians Magazine at home about her never-ending musical education. M: How did hearing music from Memphis help to shape your sensibilities? As of Oct. 30, 100 Miles from Memphis has spent 12 weeks on Billboard's Top 200 Album Chart, debuting in the first week of August at No. 3 and at No. 1 on the Rock Album Chart. Sheryl Crow: Growing up with those influences coming out of Memphis, the history of that, the legacy of that, in conjunction with living in a small town dominated by farmers and people who were very connected to the earth —all those things informed my art and my writing. For me, to make this record feels like going home. It's truly what I grew up singing. We used to have pickup bands that would play weddings and parties, and everybody had the dictionary of tunes to know so that we could all play with each other in different formations. Stax, R&B, all that music was part of that dictionary. What led you back to that? My last record was really political and very much about what was going on in the world. This is a more lighthearted record, one I hope people don't analyze too deeply. It's about being emotional and vulnerable, it's about sensuality. R&B lends itself to that. It was challenging to write that way, because it exposes you to write about emotions and stuff. But I loved it, and I'm gonna love playing the stuff live. How did you come to work with Doyle and Justin? I've known Doyle for years. He's come to see me play and always asked me when I was going to make an R&B record. It's the sort of thing I wind up singing onstage whenever I'm getting away from my own music and cutting loose a little bit. It always goes in the direction of Delaney & Bonnie and music from that era. He had just finished producing the [currently unreleased] Eric Clapton record with Justin, and I loved what they were doing. I was looking for a producer at that time to do exactly what I'm talking about, and it just seemed like the perfect marriage. Why haven't you self-produced in a while? Mainly because it's a lot of work, and my life's branched off into different directions. For me it's a luxury to be able to be the artist, to walk in with songs and get to be inspired and be in the moment. And just because you're not producing yourself doesn't mean you don't have an opinion. Both these guys are familiar with my music, and were great about always including me. I could have been as present or as un-present in that role as I wanted to be. I could be the artist and know that while I wasn't in the room things were still getting done. I'm at a place in my life right now where that matters to me. It matters to me that I have time to be with my kids, time to do the things that I really want to do — and know that everything isn't resting on me. How did the songwriting process work? It was interesting, because usually I write music and lyrics together, or I'll write the lyric first. I very rarely will record music without at least having a good start on the lyrics. This was different in that we had a lot of musical ideas, went in and started recording and did a lot of tracks. We'd do two or three [instrumental] tracks a day. I wound up feeling like I had all these term papers I hadn't finished. (laughs) It's not my favorite way to write. I'm so used to writing lyrics as a whole, as the music's being done or even before. But we had so much music and we were so quick to record it that the next thing you know we had all these tracks. In the A SHERYL CROW DISCOGRAPHY 12 1993 Tuesday Night 1996 Sheryl Crow Social Club PAN PIPES FALL 2010sai-national.org 1999 Globe Sessions 1999 Live From Central Park 2002 C'mon C'mon 2003 The Very Best of Sheryl Crow

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