April 5, 2018 • 42 mins
The only difference between Sheryl Crow and most of us is that her life’s path took her into the rarefied air of celebrity. Along the way, the veteran singer and musician has released ten studio albums, earned nine GRAMMY Awards, and has sold an estimated 50 million albums worldwide. Following the release of her latest album Be Myself, Crow sat with host Scott Goldman to reflect on her commitment to looking at life without illusion and responding to what she finds with honesty and artistry.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Required Listening. I'm your host, Scott Goldman, Executive
director of the Grammy Museum. Each week in the Clive
Davis Theater, I have the unique opportunity to speak to
artists from across the musical spectrum about their career, their inspiration,
and their creative process with Required Listening. I'm thrilled that
I can bring these conversations to you. On today's episode,
(00:26):
my interview with Cheryl Crowe. We talked just after she
released her latest album, Be Myself. Cheryl Crowe is one
of the most successful singer songwriters of the last two decades.
Her multi platinum album Tuesday Night Music Club ties together
a loose, eclectic sound with truly polished and personal songwriting.
(00:46):
She won three Grammys for that work and went to
write and release hits such as if It makes You
Happy every Day, as a Winding Road and a Change
would Do You Good. She survived about with breast cancer,
adopted two young boys, and continue you making her personal
brand of rock and roll, and we talked quite a
bit about being an artist decades into her career and
(01:07):
what that means. We also spent some time talking about
the current political and social climate and how that effects
her thinking about songwriting and the things that are important
to her. This is an artist who is eager to
continue her creative journey. So let's go to the Clive
Davis Theater and listen to my conversation with Cheryl Crowe.
(01:31):
Would you please welcome Sheryl Crowe professional moderation here and
know what to do with the microphone. First, Hi there,
Thank you for being here. I can't believe I've never
(01:53):
been to this museum. Well, better late than never, right,
I don't live here anymore so, and you're getting ready
to have your team at the anniversary coming next and
I moved eleven years ago, So alright, alright, so you
missed us, You missed the window a little where. Yes,
we're very happy about that. But I want to talk
about the new record. We'll wind the way back machine,
you know, we'll get that going a little bit later.
(02:13):
But the new record. I suspect that there's a little
bit of a hint of what's going on Hardy in
the title. Yeah, it was the most joyful experience I've
ever had making a record. We made the whole record.
I worked with my old buddy Jeff Trot, and we
called in Chad Blake, who worked on my early records.
So the three of us have this thing and we
(02:36):
made the whole album in about a month, and there
was just so much in the ether, and that particular song,
you know, it kind of makes fun of the absurdity
of what's happening today and what what gets talking about hips? Yeah,
what kind of gets um earmarked as being valid and important,
you know, with followers and nine million followers and hanging
(02:57):
out and juice bars and all that, and just this
idea that if you can't be someone else, that I
guess we'll just be yourself with like that's a constellation prize.
So and then it wound up being the title track,
and I think, really, truth be told, it really is
where I'm at. I mean, I feel like, hey, I'm
my age and I love it, and I don't want
to be anybody else. I don't want to be younger. Um,
(03:18):
I want to look younger, but I don't want to
do anything about it. I don't want to do what
it takes a little younger. So you know, it's just
about acceptance and it's really brought me a lot of
too well. And and I want to talk about being
you know, kind of an artist who's had a thirty
year career. Well well, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm gonna let
you describe it, because anyway that I describe it, I
(03:40):
will get pillaried for. But before we get there, you mentioned,
and you've talked about this in interviews about kind of
you know, the sense of that there's a lot of
fear in the ether and we're in this very strange
time in our country, and I'm wondering, despite all of that,
and how you could get really negative about that? Is
that a good climate for a songwriter. I think ears, open, eyes, open,
(04:05):
heart open is um. If you approach your life like that,
then your art will really reflect that. And I have
two small boys, so everything I do right now in
my life is I'm experiencing everything for the first time.
And also there's a sense of urgency with regard to
the world and the environment and the truth and the
life that I set up for them and what I
model to them. That has everything to do with everything,
(04:29):
and it definitely is reflected on this record. And I
also have this other belief that music, it really represents
who we are. Art is the thing that catalogs who
we are in our evolution all the way back to hieroglyphics.
Our paintings are writings are music. It tells us who
we have been throughout our history. And there's always been
(04:51):
you know, prefab pop, there's always been singer songwriter, There's
always been like the outsiders, you know, documenting what's going
on socio politically, and I feel like right now it's important,
at least for me and for artists like me, to
to use this forum or this idiom to really give
(05:11):
voice to what we're all experiencing and what people my
age are discussing. And there's something really liberating about being
my age and not writing songs for pop radio, which
is geared towards the thirteen year olds, you know, So
it was either going to be be myself or music
for grown ups the title, But we are, I mean,
we are in this point and this is something that
(05:33):
I would imagine you react to as an artist. We
are at this point where we've never been more connected
than any time in our history, and yet one man's opinion,
we are more disconnected than I don't think that that's
one man's opinion, and that is all over this record,
from the very first song all the way to the end.
(05:54):
The fact that we're so addicted to just the overload
that our our iPhones give us, that we crave it.
When we turn it off, there's like a little bit
of a detox. And but yet the thing that's supposed
to be connecting us is the thing that's creating the
chasm between us. And it's all over the record. Um.
You know, there's a song called roller Skate, which actually
(06:16):
wrote for my kids, and I sing on the song,
and it's about wanting human contact, like sitting in a
room with someone, and yet we're all on our iPhones
and we're not actually in the room together, and the
lyric is put your phone away, let's roller skate. But yeah,
it's all over. I was. I was literally I was
in Austin, Texas yesterday and I got up in the
(06:36):
morning and I went to at breakfast at the hotel
and I see these three very nice people walk in,
clearly having a casual breakfast, probably tourists enjoying, you know, Austin, Texas,
and the three of them sit down, they pull out
their phones and they proceed to look at their phones
and in the entire time, and I was there for
at least an hour. I didn't see them say one
word to each other. It's actually really um well, I'll
(07:00):
tell you something funny about this record. Two things. We
made the record in school hours, Like I took my
kids to school, dropped him off, came home, and we
did We recorded between eight thirty in the morning and
five thirty at not and it was great. It is
a great schedule and it I think it did not
at all undermined my creativity or my inspiration. In fact,
I felt like as soon as I got in there,
(07:20):
it was just like, you know, vomiting out songs. It
was just like I couldn't write fast. When you have
you have talked about, you know, kind of now that
you're a parent, the need to schedule inspiration. Yeah, but
this was a really inspired record for a number of reasons.
But it was undeniable what was going on socio politically
in our country and what it was doing to me.
(07:42):
And I actually did go through a detox period and
I do not I keep my phone on me, but
it's always unsilent. When I'm with my kids, I don't
have my phone on me. And um, I will never
regret missing phone calls or text or any of that
to be present and to model that from my children,
because they're will be a point in our evolution as
people on this planet where it is going to cause
(08:05):
some major, major problems. And it's really had me thinking,
I mean, as an artist and as a human being,
about what we're becoming. One of the things that you know,
I laughed in reading about you and preparing for this interview,
that that you did not want to become a parent dinosaur.
I am a dinosaur. I am a total and I
am proud of it. Yeah. I mean, I'm just not technological.
(08:29):
Like in the studio, I know how to you know,
I know how to get my stuff on tape. I know,
you know vaguely how to work protols, but if it
comes to Facebook and twittering and all twittering tweeting, um,
it's just not my world. You know, that's not what
I grew up. I get that. In the preparation for
this record, I read that you went back and listened
(08:52):
which is not something I think you're inclined to do
to the second your second and third albums, And I'm wondering,
as you doing that, what did you hear? Did you
learn something from listening back to those? Yeah? I mean,
I had made the Feels Like Home record, which was
a really great experience, and I set out to I
(09:12):
was living in Nashville, and I wanted to experiment with
writing with Nashville songwriters because I think some of the
greatest songwriters that are out there right now are in Nashville,
and they write in threes. And it was really a
stretch for me because I've only ever co written with
like one or two people. And but I think what
wound up happening was I learned a lot, I stretched
a lot. But by the time I got to making
(09:33):
this record, my buddy Jeff had just moved it down
and I said, I just want to go in and
feel like that young artist again, closed the door and
just throw stuff into this steo and see what kind
of concoction we can come up with, and kind of
like a laboratory. And so we went back and we
(09:54):
listened to some of it really mainly to get to
refresh ourselves on the spirit of it. And the second
record was the result of the first record becoming so massive.
I think it's old eight or nine million records, and
we were really overexposed and I went from being like
the Golden Child to being the most hated person in music.
And then the third record was the result of, you know,
(10:16):
coming to terms with all of it and going in
and having had a bad breakup, and it always on
the record right there. And the thing that was that
created the continuity of all of it, though, was our
writing process. When I would write with Jeff was me
always on the base and singing and him playing guitar,
great guitar riffs and lines, and a drummer or a
drum programmer. So he said, let's just do that again.
(10:38):
Let's just do that. And what is it about him
that makes the collaboration work so well? I think we
were imprisoned together in a past life. Um, I don't know.
I mean, I think part of it is that, I mean,
he's really a true artist in his own right, like
the way he looks at life. And he's also one
(10:58):
of the most exceptional human beings I've ever known, as
far as his generous, compassionate spirit. But the other thing
is he plays in a way that is strangely kind
of unschooled. And although he's he's a great guitar playering,
he writes great riffs, but they're not like technically bombastic.
They're just it's what I relate to, you know, there's
(11:19):
something kind of ignorant about it and something sort of
rough around the edges, and it just it's like a
it's a musical compliment to my weird way of writing
lyrics and things. So I read that you guys spend
some time before you actually get into the studio and
really work on songs, kind of talking things down and
(11:41):
and talking about what you're doing. What what are those
conversations like, what are they about? Well, I'm sure that
my conversations with him, although what ultimately came out of
our conversations was the song. My conversations with him would
be like the conversations you would have with your wife
or your best friend, or your parents or whoever about
(12:02):
what was happening. And the things I was seeing, particularly
as a mom mom mom of young kids, was just
this idea of how do we navigate or how do
we help our kids navigate how hard it is to
grow up? I mean, growing up is hard anyway, without
all the trappings of likes and dislikes and bullying and
being embarrassed online and just all all the information that's
(12:26):
thrust on them that dictates, they make decisions that we
wouldn't have made it at that early age. And so,
you know, those were the conversations, the conversations about how
ugly we were becoming during the election campaign, the fear
of the mistrust. I mean, all these things that were
sort of hanging in the ether would just wind up
(12:46):
being our conversation in the morning, and we'd go in
in the morning and fire up a drum groove, and
the next thing you knew, there were like three songs
about what we discussed. You know. I read an interview
with him with Jeff and and he said the following
I kept thinking, if I was a Ryl Crow fan,
(13:09):
this is Jeff talking, what would I like. It's not
too shiny, but it has enough brilliance in it, and that,
ladies and gentlemen, is why Jeff Trot is my musical husband.
But as I read that, I kind of read into
that that there's a certain amount of raw quality to
(13:31):
the music that you want to retain him. I right, Well,
one of the funny and we we do this every record.
We write and we get something together and then we
start overdubbing to it, and we're like, we're just gonna
make a really great demo of it, and then we
try to redo it so that we make it great,
and then it never holds up to the initial spontaneous
(13:52):
feel of the demo. And so the records aren't perfect,
and they are rough around the edges and all the
most authentic places. And that's what I love, you know.
I feel like there's a lot of skin left on
the pavement that way. Yeah. He also used the phrase
and I particularly love this and irreverence toward recording technique. Yes,
(14:15):
we are reversed elitists. What does that mean to you?
What what does that mean? Yeah, I mean part of
it is just not going back and making everything perfect.
I mean you have the option with pro tools to
make everything so perfect that literally good way through it,
you know, quantities and considered. And I was, I'm sure,
(14:37):
either on my way to school or on my way
home from school listening to NPR, and there was a
thing about I think it was the Swedish production groups
that do a lot of the big hits for a
lot of different people, and from Katie Perry to Rihanna,
and I think they started with Brittany and they were
talking about how they had actually mapped out the success
(14:58):
of a commercial pop hit, and that is the six minute, no,
the six second attention span. And if you don't hold
their attention for six seconds, and they'll change the channel.
And that's why you have to have a hook or
repetitive line every six seconds. And I was listening to
that thinking, Holy, I'm retiring. I'm retiring. I am a dinosaur.
(15:22):
So you know, yeah, part of our AMMO is to
just never head towards the vortex of mediocrity by following
anybody's rule about how records are supposed to be made.
You also, you also, in addition to working with Jeff,
you had this other kind of secret weapon. You mentioned
his name, Chad Blake. Yes, the great engineer. We could
(15:45):
we could go on and on about the records that
he's he's worked on. First of all, the dude lives
in Wales. How did you get how did this record?
It was crazy? We um we had a whole bunch
of songs and I looked at him, I was like,
what so we should record these even though we'd already
recorded him. And we're like, what's our dream? What would
be like the perfect scenario? And we're both like, Chad
(16:08):
Chad Blake, and I hadn't seen him in actually almost
maybe sixteen or seventeen years. I emailed him. I said,
I don't know what you're doing or where you're doing,
whatever it is you're doing, but have these songs, and
I can't imagine doing them without you and or or
having anyone else mix it. Is there even a chance
that you would come come to America? And I got
(16:31):
an email right back saying when and yes, and he did.
And the interesting thing too about it was that I
hadn't realized when I got him on the phone. He
was talking, you know, very softly, and he had had
throat cancer the year before. He was doing great. But
I think the two of us in the time that
we had not worked together, both of us having had cancer,
(16:53):
both of us having had kids and I having adopted kids,
both of us having lived some real yeah, some real stuff,
some challenging, hey remember who you are moments. We came
back together and it was really you for it. It It
was really a celebration of life and of art and
how much music still matters and how much we believe
(17:13):
it still changes the molecules, and and it was just
a great time. Every day at four thirty, we stopped
and had a Guinness on tapes. Can I come to
the next session? Yes, you describe the way he works,
and I love this word. You referred to the way
he does his thing as he tampers with the music,
(17:38):
and I'm wondering if you can describe that. Yeah. Um,
you know, we throw our demos up and it would
be like, okay, let's try to recut this, and then
we wouldn't beat it, and then we'd say, okay, well,
what is this good enough? And he'd be like, just
leave me for a moment, and then we come back
and he would have just like, I don't know, it's
(17:58):
like he poured special sauce all over it, you know
what I mean. And he's just good that way. I mean,
I don't know what the heck he does. He's you know,
everything is in a computer now. I'm really like, I'm
not kidding you when I say I'm a dinosaur. I'm
always like looked into the screen, going wow, that music
looks really cool, you know, I know, charts and graphics
(18:19):
and that. But he'd like have knobs and be twiddling
with sound waves changing and I would listen back to
it and it would just be just like a party
going on in the drum track, you know, And I
already knew what the drum tracks dound like, but then
he would make it sound like a party. So he's
just he's an artist, you know. That's the gift I've
given myself, is just being surrounded by artists in there
(18:42):
in their domain and and in his world, in that
engineering world. It can really make the difference in terms
of achieving your vision. Yeah, and there's a certain amount
of letting go that goes along with that for all
of you artists that are out there in Cyberland. I
think part of the thing about inviting people other artists
in is to let them bring to it what they
(19:06):
do and not having attachment to what you already have.
And sometimes you will really be surprised by how much
your art is enhanced by just allowing people to show
up and put a little bit of them into your art.
You talk a little bit about Jeff and his you know,
(19:26):
his ability to take the guitar and create something cool.
It strikes me that listening to the record, this is
a very guitar forward record, and it's mostly it's mostly
groove and bass and guitar. Is it important for you
to kind of have that riff, that guitar sound to
(19:47):
work against as as a songwriter or vocalist. It has
been off and on. I mean sometimes it hasn't been.
This record, I felt really itchy, just really in fact,
we're getting ready to go in and do an EP
I still and feeling like I'm not done yet. I
think part of it I don't actually I don't know
what part of it is. I just feel I feel
(20:09):
I do. I feel like I feel a sense of
urgency to be writing and recording right now because I
feel like what we're going through is not even just
even as a nation. I mean, we played in Manchester
the night before the Ariana Grande a concert and the
world is different, and I feel like that music is
(20:32):
the thing that people come into a room they don't
know each other. And this is the old days I'm
talking about, before before this and um, but it was
where you came to want your body to experience something
and you wanted to have a connection with people that
you would probably never see again. And that's what we're
this is what's destroying our humanity? Is this this lack
(20:56):
of being able to be together and feel a connection
and feel empathy and compassion and rhythm together and an
EBB and a flow and spirit. So I just feel
like I gotta I need give me a base and
put a mike up. I feel like, you know, there're
more of us that are feeling this way. So it's
it's for me. It's a great time to be an artist.
(21:17):
And I know that music, you know, it finds its way,
no matter how that is. In the old days, you
make a record and you know how many people own
it because they buy it, So you don't know how
many people are hearing it, but it does, it does
fund its way well. And and and also, I mean
this has been proven over time. Every time there is
some social disruption where some natural disaster or something that
(21:41):
affects millions of people, who are the first artists to
step up musicians. And I believe that, you know, and
I would like to see radio play more of the
songs that I think are really reflecting. But then there's
there is the aspect that people are they entertainment. I mean,
we've seen that people want entertainment, they love reality, they
(22:04):
love celebrity, they love so maybe they don't want to
hear it, but I think there will be a moment
where our starvation for it will become more And I'm
convinced that all things go, you know, in cycles, that
at some point that this will come back. And speaking
of cycles, and you mentioned this earlier, and and I'm
going to be delicate here. Um, as as an artist
(22:25):
who has had a thirty plus year career, there is
a certain there, there is there, there is there is
a certave. Okay, my math is terrible. Um, there is
a certain liberation in not worrying about the next radio
(22:45):
hit and being able to do the art that you
feel is important. To take a while to come to that. No, Um, well, no,
I mean there's a certain point where you put your
ego down and you say, you know what, I'm not
going to be I'm not gonna get played on the
radio all the time anymore. I'm I'm mold. And that's okay.
(23:07):
But but also at the same time that I'm saying
that in one year, I'm also saying, but your best
stuff is yet to come, your best stuffs in front
of you. You have more to say now, you know.
So I'm more making music for myself and I'm loving
playing more than I've ever played in my life. I've
never had so much fun playing music as I am now.
And you know, you just have to be where and
(23:30):
who you are, and um, that's where the liberation is.
I mean, if you're fighting that, then you're you're stuck
in a moment. When I was listening to you know,
to Be Myself and and and both that track and
a number of others, I mean, it just so instantly
strikes me as my gosh, this is Sheryl Crowe music.
And I'm wondering if as you listen back to it
(23:52):
when you were finished recording, it's like, yep, that's me,
I write. So I mean, well, so I feel like
all my records are definitely me and I I never
listened to my own music, nor do I watch myself
on TV, nor do I ever read any of the
reviews or any of it, because I'm just that's just
(24:14):
my makeup. I can't enjoy it. But you know that
being said, I feel like there there are frustrations on
different records, and I hear them because I lived them
and for me, for this record and the Globe Sessions
and the Sheryl crow record, and um, those records were experiences.
(24:35):
I came in and I walked out with the record.
The other records were more. There was more gnashing of teeth,
more trying to figure out what am I what? What
kind of record am I making? What am I saying?
You know, not nearly as fun as this record was. Well,
and you've called this effortless. It literally was like Margraphine outlerits.
(24:55):
I just could, like, you know, like full the mental
image here, hold on full chunks of lyrics out carrots
and all. Sorry, that's gross. I have two young boys.
These are the things we talk about, barfing, pooping. You
know how many of you have boys? So you know
(25:18):
the drill, right, Okay? You know, as as you progress
through your career, and as we said, you know, being
an artist who's head a long career and as you
start to you know, to think about kind of where
you're at. Are there either things that you still want
to do or things at your point that you want
(25:38):
to avoid. Um I don't know about the avoiding thing.
I'm the person that walks up to the cliff and goes, well,
look that thin I think I can do it, and
then I jump off. And then it's later on when
I hit the rocks. I was like, well, maybe that
wouldn't been better if I hadn't done that, But there
are things I still want to do. I just want
to keep making music. I feel, you know, I know
(26:00):
I have a finite amount of time because who wants
to see a seventy five year old lady squeezing herself
into leather jeans and you know, kicking high kicks. But
I do I feel I'm going to hold judgment on I. Well,
you know, if I can do it, I'm going to
do it. But I love my work. I love my
(26:21):
my I love my job. You know, my kids, for
the first time on this record, came in and got
to see me doing work, and they finally realized that
it's it isn't just fun. That there were lots of
years of sitting in front of a piano practicing, and
lots of years of watching people playing and listening and
trying to pick out songs and all that. There was
(26:42):
a lot of leg work that went into it. And
my ten year old asked me recently, so, well, you're famous, right,
And I said, well, I'm well known because I've done
this job for a long time and I've had some success. Well,
if you're famous, then we're famous, right, So we're going
through that right now. Yeah. Well, yeah, it's like by osmosis.
(27:03):
So yeah, just the idea that you know, I'm really
fortunate and I have been around for a long time,
but there was a lot longer that was before that,
and so right now, it's just it's such a gift
to be able to go and just make records the
way I want to do, and I want to keep
doing it. Yeah, and I'm wondering. You talked about your
son's how has parenthood kind of changed your I'm exhausted,
(27:26):
tired all the time. Um well, I made the Detours
record three months after I adopted Wyatt, and and i'd
also just completed I think I waited for a long
time after I had breast cancer to sit down and
right had a really bad breakup and breast cancer all
the same time, and I thought, you know what, I'm
not going to use music to save myself or to
(27:48):
distract myself. I'm gonna sit with this. I'm gonna hold
the emotions and i'm gonna digest it. I'm gonna process it,
and then I'm going to write a record. And in
the meantime, this little boy came along, I adopted him
and he was three months old. And what that created
in me was I just looked at life a lot differently,
compounded with all these other things, but it did create
(28:09):
a sense of urgency in me to write the truth
and the reality of what it means to be alive
and present, and that has stuck with me. And um,
I do probably care more about my words now than
I ever have because I want to leave on something
that matters, and that's great, and that documents who we
(28:30):
are in a you know, in a truthful way, um,
warts and all. So it's great. You know, it's informing
everything for me. I want to go back a little bit.
And and You've talked often about your influences, whether it's exile,
Erara Stones or or Graham Parsons, or the Burritos or
(28:52):
Emmy Lou Harris, whatever. But I'm wondering when when you
were growing up and your mother was a piano teacher,
what music do you remember hearing around the house. Well,
first of all, my parents were in a swing band
and now lived in a really small town, so they
were not in a big swing band, but they were
in a popular swing band that played a lot, and
they would come home with their friends and like they
(29:13):
play local towns and they play events or whatever, and
they would come home and we had a giant magnavox
and um, they would play music and dance and sometimes
some of them would jam along. Said but it was
a lot of stankin um, a lot of Buddy Rich,
a lot of a lot of swing band music, a
lot of uh, the great crooners. But they also played
(29:35):
a lot of popular music too, Like we had Tapestry
and James Taylor, and we had Chicago, we had Stevie Wonder,
we had Mahelee Jackson. I mean they were really they
were great about subconsciously exposing us to all kinds of
different lots of different kinds of music, as well as classical.
I mean we, my sisters and I are all three
(29:56):
trained in classicals. Was there an artist that you heard
either at home were on the radio when when you
were young, maybe you know the first time that you
went that's what I want to do. UM. Well, I
will definitely say that. UM. Three artists in particular, Elton
John was a big one for me because I played
piano and I could pick out those songs on the piano,
(30:17):
and I felt like that's what I could do. You know,
I wasn't playing guitar yet. I did want to rock,
but that was my thing. Um But Tapestry and Mudslide Slim,
those those two records, I knew every word and I
saw myself in that music. I saw my troubadour self
in that music. That's my earliest recollection. We um, we
(30:41):
were talking earlier, and you were telling me, and we've
emailed about a teacher that that you had when when
you were young. So just parenthetically, the Grammy Museum, in
partnership with the Academy, every year gives out a Grammy
Music Educator Award, and Sheryl had emailed me about a
teacher that she had when you were how old. Well,
I up in the church choir and she was the
(31:01):
choir director. And then she later went on to she
talked at the college level, not very far from my hometown,
and then she came back and she started teaching. And
I don't know how many of you guys thought anybody
in here follow country music. So I'm from a really
small town called Kennett, Missouri. And she had David Nail,
who has had a lot of success Trent Thomlinson who
(31:24):
had some success but was also a fantastic songwriter black
Jack Billy. But not only that, State winning like national
winning choirs really has taught kids all along myself included
not only how to sing correctly, how to make the
most of your voice, but just a broad appreciation for
(31:45):
music and for blending and for being a part of
a collective musical sound. And um, I've just I've never
known anyone like her who has turned out so many
students who probably ignored what their parents said about getting
a real job and went on because they just wanted
(32:05):
more music. But also the larger interest in music education
and keeping music education and keeping teachers like Verretta in schools.
Why is why is that important to Well? I don't
have any of you guys know I was an elementary
school teacher. I taught music in St. Louis kindergarten through
sixth and I think it was within three or four
years after I moved to l A they discontinued music
(32:28):
in that school district. And I've seen that happening a lot.
It would sort of get handed off to, you know,
ten minutes, three days a week, and the school the
classroom teacher would teach it and for me, and I
think most school districts are a lot of school districts
are bringing them back. And certainly say the music has
been tantum out with getting programs that weren't state provided
(32:52):
or at least even locally subsidized. They've been really helpful
in getting instruments in and implementing programs. But I just
feel like, um, that our creativity is getting squashed, you know,
smaller and smaller and smaller, and it has so much
to do with what the future looks like. You know,
kids need a creative outlet. It's great for you know,
(33:14):
really both sides of the brain. It's great for expression,
particularly at a time when there's a lot of chaos.
Theres a lot of pressure. Every kids supposed to go
to the greatest college. Music is that place where you
go and you're moved, you know, you're And I feel
the same way about sports, you know, um, I feel
the same way about recess. Our brains need a break
(33:35):
from learning exactly what we're supposed to know for a test,
and it's it's vital, I think. And a break from
those smartphones. Yes, yeah, I have to ask you in
the time we have remaining, I have to ask you.
If you're working on a duets project, and this is
duets with a bunch of great artists and we can
(33:56):
talk about whoever, but you do a duet with Johnny Cash.
Tell me a little bit about that. Well. I had
a good fortune, um of knowing Johnny and June. In fact,
June was one of the first people I met. In
nine three, I got to do Idiots to Light, which
is a Sunday night radio show that Vince Kelsey used
(34:18):
to host. And it would just go on. It wasn't
even like, wasn't an hour show. It could just go
on and on, like three or four hours. And I
was on with June Carter and my first record to
come out, it wasn't really even making a dent yet,
and I got to sit there and just absorb her storytelling.
I knew a lot of the Carter family material. I
got to play along. Um. It was just fascinating. And
(34:39):
then after that we were friends, and then for years
we kept in touch, and I knew Johnny and when
June passed, he asked me to sing at her funeral.
And then after about a month after she passed, I
think his His son in law gave him a copy
of this song that I had written, called Redemption Day.
And we were entering the goal war and he got
(35:00):
a hold of this song, which is kind of about war,
and he wanted to record it. And he called me
and asked me about almost every line in the song,
just so that before he sang it, he would know
what the impetus was or what the meaning of it was,
so that he could I mean, he was Johnny Cash.
He wasn't just going to sing something, you know, which
is why we which shows you what kind of great
what an artist. Yeah, exactly, and that's why we believed
(35:22):
him when he's saying something. And so he um. He
recorded it and and then he passed away about three
months later. Cut too recently, and I'm making this collaborative
record with people that I've loved and known and worked
with for years, and yet I've never asked to come
collaborate with me. I called his family and said could
we use the demo vocal because it had come out
(35:44):
on a Rick Rubin record, a Rick Reuben produced record
at some point when we asked, could we do the demo?
So we combined our voices and re cut it and
it's it's really special. I I gotta ask you that.
So the first time you hear his voice coming through
your really like, I mean, it made me cry. In fact,
we were doing it on stage when we were opening
(36:05):
up for Rascal Flats. We had we were doing this
song and we had his voice coming halfway through and
you would feel a gasp. And we had images also
up there. We had war images and images of American
in the desk bowl and just amazing beautiful images. And
then you would see some images of Johnny Cash and
you hear his voice singing, and you would feel an
(36:26):
audible gasp in the audience and people you was just
see them starting to like get really choked up. And
that's I know. I can speak for my band when
I say we we all felt the same. Who else
who else is on the record, Well, Chris Kristoffer is
one of the Chris Christofferson is one of the reasons
that I decided to make this record. And he was
having um, you know, vast memory loss, and we went
(36:49):
and recorded a bunch of his songs. So I asked
me if he come record with me, And then I
just started calling people that I've loved and known like
Stevie Nicks and Don Henley, who was one of the
first people to give me a gig, and Joe Walsh,
and Vince Gill who was practically my neighbor, and gosh,
who else. It's a pretty good list right there. Oh,
Keith Keith Richards also one of the first people give
(37:13):
me a gig. Neil Young, it's a great record. When
when might we see that or hear that? I don't know,
I mean, I just I think it'll be out early
next year. Great. I have to ask you about about
one other artists, and you've talked about this artist, and
I think this is someone who is criminally underappreciated. Bobby Gentry. Yeah. Actually,
(37:34):
you know, it's kind of funny because we looked her
up the other day. Um, because she really only had
the two hits, and then she just evaporated into obscurity.
And I think by her own choice. I think she
felt like it was just it was a world that
she she couldn't relate to it at all. But one
of the very few female artists at the time who
(37:56):
produced her own records, who wrote her own songs, who
I mean, she was truly an independent artist. Of a type,
particularly for women at the time, that was very yeah.
And you know, it's really interesting because my second record,
I was slighted to work with the producer that did
my first record, and he didn't wind up doing it,
and I wound up just being in the studio. And
(38:17):
my manager, who's still with me, said, you just make
your demos and just see what you wind up with.
You know how to record, just do it. And you know, really,
up into that time, there wasn't any record labels that
would say, we'll just produce yourself. You're a woman, you
can do it, or let's get a female producer. There
weren't any, and there's still are very few. In fact,
(38:38):
I'm not sure I can even name any. You know,
it's an odd thing, and I'm always encouraging women, particularly
women who are musicians, um, to just go in and
if you know what you want for your music and
you can verbalize it um and not even in a
technical way, then you know you're ahead of the game. Well,
(38:59):
and this is a good place to kind of put
the button on the conversation. So now you're at a
point in your career where there are other young artists,
particularly women who are citing you as an influence in
their career. I wrote down a couple Um, Kelsey Ballerini
has talked about you. Cam has particularly talked about you,
(39:22):
and she said she's a great example of being strong,
being so easy going and sweet, but also completely ready
to speak her mind. And I'm wondering when you, when
you hear young artists speak of you that way, what
do you think? I don't know. I mean, I get squeamish,
you know. I love the work part of it. Um.
(39:42):
One of the really truly big blessings in my wife
was moving out of l A. I have to say it,
I um, and I'm sorry, no offense anybody, No offense.
It's not the people. But I was raised in such
a small town and I grew up when my musician
were brought to me in um rolling Stone and Cream
(40:06):
and Team Beats in sixteen, you know, I mean, I
grew up um watching Friday Night Special, and I only
got glimpses of who the people were, and so there
were so much larger than life for me than what
they are now. Like what what our young artists sy
of other generations of artists is the same tabloid stuff
(40:27):
that is just you know, it's all floating around in cyberspace.
And but I grew up wanting to just I wanted
to be great, you know, and I wanted to be
I wanted to make a difference, and I wanted to
make music that mattered and that held some place in history.
So when I hear people talking about me, I just
love you know, it's I get squeamish, but um, it's
(40:47):
really flattering. You know. I want young women and young men.
I want artists to know that there is not only
a room for everyone, but be it's important, um, to
get out there and write your truth, you know, speak
it well. Speaking of speaking the truth, we we could
(41:10):
not be more pleased that you took the time to
come down here and and have a little chat. No,
this is pretty good, So ladies and gentlemen, Chryl Throw.
(41:31):
It's always great to hear songwriters talk about the process.
For Cheryl, it's that conversation she'd have in the morning
with her collaborator Jeff Trott, using that as the tool
to begin songwriting. And I love the way she described
the almost magical work of the engineer Chad Blake. And
to that end, I would encourage you to find some
of the work he's done with Mitchell Froun, with artists
(41:54):
such as the Latin Playboys or Richard Thompson. So that's
your required listening for today. We've got fresh episodes coming
to you every Thursday. Let's keep the conversation going where
on all the social platforms at Grammy Museum. If you
plan to be in Los Angeles, I hope you'll visit
us at the Grammy Museum. All the information is at
(42:15):
our website Grammy museum dot org. Finally, shout out to
our required listening team, Jason James, Justin Joseph, Jim Cannella,
Lynn Sheridan, Miranda Moore, Jason Hope, Chandler Mays, Nick Stump,
Lynn Brown, Ghost and Sean and the entire team at
How Stuff Works. We'll see you next time. I'm Scott Goldman.
Welcome to Required Listening. I'm your host, Scott Goldman, Executive
director of the Grammy Museum. Each week in the Clive
Davis Theater, I have the unique opportunity to speak to
artists from across the musical spectrum about their career, their inspiration,
and their creative process with Required Listening. I'm thrilled that
I can bring these conversations to you. On today's episode,
(00:26):
my interview with Cheryl Crowe. We talked just after she
released her latest album, Be Myself. Cheryl Crowe is one
of the most successful singer songwriters of the last two decades.
Her multi platinum album Tuesday Night Music Club ties together
a loose, eclectic sound with truly polished and personal songwriting.
(00:46):
She won three Grammys for that work and went to
write and release hits such as if It makes You
Happy every Day, as a Winding Road and a Change
would Do You Good. She survived about with breast cancer,
adopted two young boys, and continue you making her personal
brand of rock and roll, and we talked quite a
bit about being an artist decades into her career and
(01:07):
what that means. We also spent some time talking about
the current political and social climate and how that effects
her thinking about songwriting and the things that are important
to her. This is an artist who is eager to
continue her creative journey. So let's go to the Clive
Davis Theater and listen to my conversation with Cheryl Crowe.
(01:31):
Would you please welcome Sheryl Crowe professional moderation here and
know what to do with the microphone. First, Hi there,
Thank you for being here. I can't believe I've never
(01:53):
been to this museum. Well, better late than never, right,
I don't live here anymore so, and you're getting ready
to have your team at the anniversary coming next and
I moved eleven years ago, So alright, alright, so you
missed us, You missed the window a little where. Yes,
we're very happy about that. But I want to talk
about the new record. We'll wind the way back machine,
you know, we'll get that going a little bit later.
(02:13):
But the new record. I suspect that there's a little
bit of a hint of what's going on Hardy in
the title. Yeah, it was the most joyful experience I've
ever had making a record. We made the whole record.
I worked with my old buddy Jeff Trot, and we
called in Chad Blake, who worked on my early records.
So the three of us have this thing and we
(02:36):
made the whole album in about a month, and there
was just so much in the ether, and that particular song,
you know, it kind of makes fun of the absurdity
of what's happening today and what what gets talking about hips? Yeah,
what kind of gets um earmarked as being valid and important,
you know, with followers and nine million followers and hanging
(02:57):
out and juice bars and all that, and just this
idea that if you can't be someone else, that I
guess we'll just be yourself with like that's a constellation prize.
So and then it wound up being the title track,
and I think, really, truth be told, it really is
where I'm at. I mean, I feel like, hey, I'm
my age and I love it, and I don't want
to be anybody else. I don't want to be younger. Um,
(03:18):
I want to look younger, but I don't want to
do anything about it. I don't want to do what
it takes a little younger. So you know, it's just
about acceptance and it's really brought me a lot of
too well. And and I want to talk about being
you know, kind of an artist who's had a thirty
year career. Well well, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm gonna let
you describe it, because anyway that I describe it, I
(03:40):
will get pillaried for. But before we get there, you mentioned,
and you've talked about this in interviews about kind of
you know, the sense of that there's a lot of
fear in the ether and we're in this very strange
time in our country, and I'm wondering, despite all of that,
and how you could get really negative about that? Is
that a good climate for a songwriter. I think ears, open, eyes, open,
(04:05):
heart open is um. If you approach your life like that,
then your art will really reflect that. And I have
two small boys, so everything I do right now in
my life is I'm experiencing everything for the first time.
And also there's a sense of urgency with regard to
the world and the environment and the truth and the
life that I set up for them and what I
model to them. That has everything to do with everything,
(04:29):
and it definitely is reflected on this record. And I
also have this other belief that music, it really represents
who we are. Art is the thing that catalogs who
we are in our evolution all the way back to hieroglyphics.
Our paintings are writings are music. It tells us who
we have been throughout our history. And there's always been
(04:51):
you know, prefab pop, there's always been singer songwriter, There's
always been like the outsiders, you know, documenting what's going
on socio politically, and I feel like right now it's important,
at least for me and for artists like me, to
to use this forum or this idiom to really give
(05:11):
voice to what we're all experiencing and what people my
age are discussing. And there's something really liberating about being
my age and not writing songs for pop radio, which
is geared towards the thirteen year olds, you know, So
it was either going to be be myself or music
for grown ups the title, But we are, I mean,
we are in this point and this is something that
(05:33):
I would imagine you react to as an artist. We
are at this point where we've never been more connected
than any time in our history, and yet one man's opinion,
we are more disconnected than I don't think that that's
one man's opinion, and that is all over this record,
from the very first song all the way to the end.
(05:54):
The fact that we're so addicted to just the overload
that our our iPhones give us, that we crave it.
When we turn it off, there's like a little bit
of a detox. And but yet the thing that's supposed
to be connecting us is the thing that's creating the
chasm between us. And it's all over the record. Um.
You know, there's a song called roller Skate, which actually
(06:16):
wrote for my kids, and I sing on the song,
and it's about wanting human contact, like sitting in a
room with someone, and yet we're all on our iPhones
and we're not actually in the room together, and the
lyric is put your phone away, let's roller skate. But yeah,
it's all over. I was. I was literally I was
in Austin, Texas yesterday and I got up in the
(06:36):
morning and I went to at breakfast at the hotel
and I see these three very nice people walk in,
clearly having a casual breakfast, probably tourists enjoying, you know, Austin, Texas,
and the three of them sit down, they pull out
their phones and they proceed to look at their phones
and in the entire time, and I was there for
at least an hour. I didn't see them say one
word to each other. It's actually really um well, I'll
(07:00):
tell you something funny about this record. Two things. We
made the record in school hours, Like I took my
kids to school, dropped him off, came home, and we
did We recorded between eight thirty in the morning and
five thirty at not and it was great. It is
a great schedule and it I think it did not
at all undermined my creativity or my inspiration. In fact,
I felt like as soon as I got in there,
(07:20):
it was just like, you know, vomiting out songs. It
was just like I couldn't write fast. When you have
you have talked about, you know, kind of now that
you're a parent, the need to schedule inspiration. Yeah, but
this was a really inspired record for a number of reasons.
But it was undeniable what was going on socio politically
in our country and what it was doing to me.
(07:42):
And I actually did go through a detox period and
I do not I keep my phone on me, but
it's always unsilent. When I'm with my kids, I don't
have my phone on me. And um, I will never
regret missing phone calls or text or any of that
to be present and to model that from my children,
because they're will be a point in our evolution as
people on this planet where it is going to cause
(08:05):
some major, major problems. And it's really had me thinking,
I mean, as an artist and as a human being,
about what we're becoming. One of the things that you know,
I laughed in reading about you and preparing for this interview,
that that you did not want to become a parent dinosaur.
I am a dinosaur. I am a total and I
am proud of it. Yeah. I mean, I'm just not technological.
(08:29):
Like in the studio, I know how to you know,
I know how to get my stuff on tape. I know,
you know vaguely how to work protols, but if it
comes to Facebook and twittering and all twittering tweeting, um,
it's just not my world. You know, that's not what
I grew up. I get that. In the preparation for
this record, I read that you went back and listened
(08:52):
which is not something I think you're inclined to do
to the second your second and third albums, And I'm wondering,
as you doing that, what did you hear? Did you
learn something from listening back to those? Yeah? I mean,
I had made the Feels Like Home record, which was
a really great experience, and I set out to I
(09:12):
was living in Nashville, and I wanted to experiment with
writing with Nashville songwriters because I think some of the
greatest songwriters that are out there right now are in Nashville,
and they write in threes. And it was really a
stretch for me because I've only ever co written with
like one or two people. And but I think what
wound up happening was I learned a lot, I stretched
a lot. But by the time I got to making
(09:33):
this record, my buddy Jeff had just moved it down
and I said, I just want to go in and
feel like that young artist again, closed the door and
just throw stuff into this steo and see what kind
of concoction we can come up with, and kind of
like a laboratory. And so we went back and we
(09:54):
listened to some of it really mainly to get to
refresh ourselves on the spirit of it. And the second
record was the result of the first record becoming so massive.
I think it's old eight or nine million records, and
we were really overexposed and I went from being like
the Golden Child to being the most hated person in music.
And then the third record was the result of, you know,
(10:16):
coming to terms with all of it and going in
and having had a bad breakup, and it always on
the record right there. And the thing that was that
created the continuity of all of it, though, was our
writing process. When I would write with Jeff was me
always on the base and singing and him playing guitar,
great guitar riffs and lines, and a drummer or a
drum programmer. So he said, let's just do that again.
(10:38):
Let's just do that. And what is it about him
that makes the collaboration work so well? I think we
were imprisoned together in a past life. Um, I don't know.
I mean, I think part of it is that, I mean,
he's really a true artist in his own right, like
the way he looks at life. And he's also one
(10:58):
of the most exceptional human beings I've ever known, as
far as his generous, compassionate spirit. But the other thing
is he plays in a way that is strangely kind
of unschooled. And although he's he's a great guitar playering,
he writes great riffs, but they're not like technically bombastic.
They're just it's what I relate to, you know, there's
(11:19):
something kind of ignorant about it and something sort of
rough around the edges, and it just it's like a
it's a musical compliment to my weird way of writing
lyrics and things. So I read that you guys spend
some time before you actually get into the studio and
really work on songs, kind of talking things down and
(11:41):
and talking about what you're doing. What what are those
conversations like, what are they about? Well, I'm sure that
my conversations with him, although what ultimately came out of
our conversations was the song. My conversations with him would
be like the conversations you would have with your wife
or your best friend, or your parents or whoever about
(12:02):
what was happening. And the things I was seeing, particularly
as a mom mom mom of young kids, was just
this idea of how do we navigate or how do
we help our kids navigate how hard it is to
grow up? I mean, growing up is hard anyway, without
all the trappings of likes and dislikes and bullying and
being embarrassed online and just all all the information that's
(12:26):
thrust on them that dictates, they make decisions that we
wouldn't have made it at that early age. And so,
you know, those were the conversations, the conversations about how
ugly we were becoming during the election campaign, the fear
of the mistrust. I mean, all these things that were
sort of hanging in the ether would just wind up
(12:46):
being our conversation in the morning, and we'd go in
in the morning and fire up a drum groove, and
the next thing you knew, there were like three songs
about what we discussed. You know. I read an interview
with him with Jeff and and he said the following
I kept thinking, if I was a Ryl Crow fan,
(13:09):
this is Jeff talking, what would I like. It's not
too shiny, but it has enough brilliance in it, and that,
ladies and gentlemen, is why Jeff Trot is my musical husband.
But as I read that, I kind of read into
that that there's a certain amount of raw quality to
(13:31):
the music that you want to retain him. I right, Well,
one of the funny and we we do this every record.
We write and we get something together and then we
start overdubbing to it, and we're like, we're just gonna
make a really great demo of it, and then we
try to redo it so that we make it great,
and then it never holds up to the initial spontaneous
(13:52):
feel of the demo. And so the records aren't perfect,
and they are rough around the edges and all the
most authentic places. And that's what I love, you know.
I feel like there's a lot of skin left on
the pavement that way. Yeah. He also used the phrase
and I particularly love this and irreverence toward recording technique. Yes,
(14:15):
we are reversed elitists. What does that mean to you?
What what does that mean? Yeah, I mean part of
it is just not going back and making everything perfect.
I mean you have the option with pro tools to
make everything so perfect that literally good way through it,
you know, quantities and considered. And I was, I'm sure,
(14:37):
either on my way to school or on my way
home from school listening to NPR, and there was a
thing about I think it was the Swedish production groups
that do a lot of the big hits for a
lot of different people, and from Katie Perry to Rihanna,
and I think they started with Brittany and they were
talking about how they had actually mapped out the success
(14:58):
of a commercial pop hit, and that is the six minute, no,
the six second attention span. And if you don't hold
their attention for six seconds, and they'll change the channel.
And that's why you have to have a hook or
repetitive line every six seconds. And I was listening to
that thinking, Holy, I'm retiring. I'm retiring. I am a dinosaur.
(15:22):
So you know, yeah, part of our AMMO is to
just never head towards the vortex of mediocrity by following
anybody's rule about how records are supposed to be made.
You also, you also, in addition to working with Jeff,
you had this other kind of secret weapon. You mentioned
his name, Chad Blake. Yes, the great engineer. We could
(15:45):
we could go on and on about the records that
he's he's worked on. First of all, the dude lives
in Wales. How did you get how did this record?
It was crazy? We um we had a whole bunch
of songs and I looked at him, I was like,
what so we should record these even though we'd already
recorded him. And we're like, what's our dream? What would
be like the perfect scenario? And we're both like, Chad
(16:08):
Chad Blake, and I hadn't seen him in actually almost
maybe sixteen or seventeen years. I emailed him. I said,
I don't know what you're doing or where you're doing,
whatever it is you're doing, but have these songs, and
I can't imagine doing them without you and or or
having anyone else mix it. Is there even a chance
that you would come come to America? And I got
(16:31):
an email right back saying when and yes, and he did.
And the interesting thing too about it was that I
hadn't realized when I got him on the phone. He
was talking, you know, very softly, and he had had
throat cancer the year before. He was doing great. But
I think the two of us in the time that
we had not worked together, both of us having had cancer,
(16:53):
both of us having had kids and I having adopted kids,
both of us having lived some real yeah, some real stuff,
some challenging, hey remember who you are moments. We came
back together and it was really you for it. It It
was really a celebration of life and of art and
how much music still matters and how much we believe
(17:13):
it still changes the molecules, and and it was just
a great time. Every day at four thirty, we stopped
and had a Guinness on tapes. Can I come to
the next session? Yes, you describe the way he works,
and I love this word. You referred to the way
he does his thing as he tampers with the music,
(17:38):
and I'm wondering if you can describe that. Yeah. Um,
you know, we throw our demos up and it would
be like, okay, let's try to recut this, and then
we wouldn't beat it, and then we'd say, okay, well,
what is this good enough? And he'd be like, just
leave me for a moment, and then we come back
and he would have just like, I don't know, it's
(17:58):
like he poured special sauce all over it, you know
what I mean. And he's just good that way. I mean,
I don't know what the heck he does. He's you know,
everything is in a computer now. I'm really like, I'm
not kidding you when I say I'm a dinosaur. I'm
always like looked into the screen, going wow, that music
looks really cool, you know, I know, charts and graphics
(18:19):
and that. But he'd like have knobs and be twiddling
with sound waves changing and I would listen back to
it and it would just be just like a party
going on in the drum track, you know, And I
already knew what the drum tracks dound like, but then
he would make it sound like a party. So he's
just he's an artist, you know. That's the gift I've
given myself, is just being surrounded by artists in there
(18:42):
in their domain and and in his world, in that
engineering world. It can really make the difference in terms
of achieving your vision. Yeah, and there's a certain amount
of letting go that goes along with that for all
of you artists that are out there in Cyberland. I
think part of the thing about inviting people other artists
in is to let them bring to it what they
(19:06):
do and not having attachment to what you already have.
And sometimes you will really be surprised by how much
your art is enhanced by just allowing people to show
up and put a little bit of them into your art.
You talk a little bit about Jeff and his you know,
(19:26):
his ability to take the guitar and create something cool.
It strikes me that listening to the record, this is
a very guitar forward record, and it's mostly it's mostly
groove and bass and guitar. Is it important for you
to kind of have that riff, that guitar sound to
(19:47):
work against as as a songwriter or vocalist. It has
been off and on. I mean sometimes it hasn't been.
This record, I felt really itchy, just really in fact,
we're getting ready to go in and do an EP
I still and feeling like I'm not done yet. I
think part of it I don't actually I don't know
what part of it is. I just feel I feel
(20:09):
I do. I feel like I feel a sense of
urgency to be writing and recording right now because I
feel like what we're going through is not even just
even as a nation. I mean, we played in Manchester
the night before the Ariana Grande a concert and the
world is different, and I feel like that music is
(20:32):
the thing that people come into a room they don't
know each other. And this is the old days I'm
talking about, before before this and um, but it was
where you came to want your body to experience something
and you wanted to have a connection with people that
you would probably never see again. And that's what we're
this is what's destroying our humanity? Is this this lack
(20:56):
of being able to be together and feel a connection
and feel empathy and compassion and rhythm together and an
EBB and a flow and spirit. So I just feel
like I gotta I need give me a base and
put a mike up. I feel like, you know, there're
more of us that are feeling this way. So it's
it's for me. It's a great time to be an artist.
(21:17):
And I know that music, you know, it finds its way,
no matter how that is. In the old days, you
make a record and you know how many people own
it because they buy it, So you don't know how
many people are hearing it, but it does, it does
fund its way well. And and and also, I mean
this has been proven over time. Every time there is
some social disruption where some natural disaster or something that
(21:41):
affects millions of people, who are the first artists to
step up musicians. And I believe that, you know, and
I would like to see radio play more of the
songs that I think are really reflecting. But then there's
there is the aspect that people are they entertainment. I mean,
we've seen that people want entertainment, they love reality, they
(22:04):
love celebrity, they love so maybe they don't want to
hear it, but I think there will be a moment
where our starvation for it will become more And I'm
convinced that all things go, you know, in cycles, that
at some point that this will come back. And speaking
of cycles, and you mentioned this earlier, and and I'm
going to be delicate here. Um, as as an artist
(22:25):
who has had a thirty plus year career, there is
a certain there, there is there, there is there is
a certave. Okay, my math is terrible. Um, there is
a certain liberation in not worrying about the next radio
(22:45):
hit and being able to do the art that you
feel is important. To take a while to come to that. No, Um, well, no,
I mean there's a certain point where you put your
ego down and you say, you know what, I'm not
going to be I'm not gonna get played on the
radio all the time anymore. I'm I'm mold. And that's okay.
(23:07):
But but also at the same time that I'm saying
that in one year, I'm also saying, but your best
stuff is yet to come, your best stuffs in front
of you. You have more to say now, you know.
So I'm more making music for myself and I'm loving
playing more than I've ever played in my life. I've
never had so much fun playing music as I am now.
And you know, you just have to be where and
(23:30):
who you are, and um, that's where the liberation is.
I mean, if you're fighting that, then you're you're stuck
in a moment. When I was listening to you know,
to Be Myself and and and both that track and
a number of others, I mean, it just so instantly
strikes me as my gosh, this is Sheryl Crowe music.
And I'm wondering if as you listen back to it
(23:52):
when you were finished recording, it's like, yep, that's me,
I write. So I mean, well, so I feel like
all my records are definitely me and I I never
listened to my own music, nor do I watch myself
on TV, nor do I ever read any of the
reviews or any of it, because I'm just that's just
(24:14):
my makeup. I can't enjoy it. But you know that
being said, I feel like there there are frustrations on
different records, and I hear them because I lived them
and for me, for this record and the Globe Sessions
and the Sheryl crow record, and um, those records were experiences.
(24:35):
I came in and I walked out with the record.
The other records were more. There was more gnashing of teeth,
more trying to figure out what am I what? What
kind of record am I making? What am I saying?
You know, not nearly as fun as this record was. Well,
and you've called this effortless. It literally was like Margraphine outlerits.
(24:55):
I just could, like, you know, like full the mental
image here, hold on full chunks of lyrics out carrots
and all. Sorry, that's gross. I have two young boys.
These are the things we talk about, barfing, pooping. You
know how many of you have boys? So you know
(25:18):
the drill, right, Okay? You know, as as you progress
through your career, and as we said, you know, being
an artist who's head a long career and as you
start to you know, to think about kind of where
you're at. Are there either things that you still want
to do or things at your point that you want
(25:38):
to avoid. Um I don't know about the avoiding thing.
I'm the person that walks up to the cliff and goes, well,
look that thin I think I can do it, and
then I jump off. And then it's later on when
I hit the rocks. I was like, well, maybe that
wouldn't been better if I hadn't done that, But there
are things I still want to do. I just want
to keep making music. I feel, you know, I know
(26:00):
I have a finite amount of time because who wants
to see a seventy five year old lady squeezing herself
into leather jeans and you know, kicking high kicks. But
I do I feel I'm going to hold judgment on I. Well,
you know, if I can do it, I'm going to
do it. But I love my work. I love my
(26:21):
my I love my job. You know, my kids, for
the first time on this record, came in and got
to see me doing work, and they finally realized that
it's it isn't just fun. That there were lots of
years of sitting in front of a piano practicing, and
lots of years of watching people playing and listening and
trying to pick out songs and all that. There was
(26:42):
a lot of leg work that went into it. And
my ten year old asked me recently, so, well, you're famous, right,
And I said, well, I'm well known because I've done
this job for a long time and I've had some success. Well,
if you're famous, then we're famous, right, So we're going
through that right now. Yeah. Well, yeah, it's like by osmosis.
(27:03):
So yeah, just the idea that you know, I'm really
fortunate and I have been around for a long time,
but there was a lot longer that was before that,
and so right now, it's just it's such a gift
to be able to go and just make records the
way I want to do, and I want to keep
doing it. Yeah, and I'm wondering. You talked about your
son's how has parenthood kind of changed your I'm exhausted,
(27:26):
tired all the time. Um well, I made the Detours
record three months after I adopted Wyatt, and and i'd
also just completed I think I waited for a long
time after I had breast cancer to sit down and
right had a really bad breakup and breast cancer all
the same time, and I thought, you know what, I'm
not going to use music to save myself or to
(27:48):
distract myself. I'm gonna sit with this. I'm gonna hold
the emotions and i'm gonna digest it. I'm gonna process it,
and then I'm going to write a record. And in
the meantime, this little boy came along, I adopted him
and he was three months old. And what that created
in me was I just looked at life a lot differently,
compounded with all these other things, but it did create
(28:09):
a sense of urgency in me to write the truth
and the reality of what it means to be alive
and present, and that has stuck with me. And um,
I do probably care more about my words now than
I ever have because I want to leave on something
that matters, and that's great, and that documents who we
(28:30):
are in a you know, in a truthful way, um,
warts and all. So it's great. You know, it's informing
everything for me. I want to go back a little bit.
And and You've talked often about your influences, whether it's exile,
Erara Stones or or Graham Parsons, or the Burritos or
(28:52):
Emmy Lou Harris, whatever. But I'm wondering when when you
were growing up and your mother was a piano teacher,
what music do you remember hearing around the house. Well,
first of all, my parents were in a swing band
and now lived in a really small town, so they
were not in a big swing band, but they were
in a popular swing band that played a lot, and
they would come home with their friends and like they
(29:13):
play local towns and they play events or whatever, and
they would come home and we had a giant magnavox
and um, they would play music and dance and sometimes
some of them would jam along. Said but it was
a lot of stankin um, a lot of Buddy Rich,
a lot of a lot of swing band music, a
lot of uh, the great crooners. But they also played
(29:35):
a lot of popular music too, Like we had Tapestry
and James Taylor, and we had Chicago, we had Stevie Wonder,
we had Mahelee Jackson. I mean they were really they
were great about subconsciously exposing us to all kinds of
different lots of different kinds of music, as well as classical.
I mean we, my sisters and I are all three
(29:56):
trained in classicals. Was there an artist that you heard
either at home were on the radio when when you
were young, maybe you know the first time that you
went that's what I want to do. UM. Well, I
will definitely say that. UM. Three artists in particular, Elton
John was a big one for me because I played
piano and I could pick out those songs on the piano,
(30:17):
and I felt like that's what I could do. You know,
I wasn't playing guitar yet. I did want to rock,
but that was my thing. Um But Tapestry and Mudslide Slim,
those those two records, I knew every word and I
saw myself in that music. I saw my troubadour self
in that music. That's my earliest recollection. We um, we
(30:41):
were talking earlier, and you were telling me, and we've
emailed about a teacher that that you had when when
you were young. So just parenthetically, the Grammy Museum, in
partnership with the Academy, every year gives out a Grammy
Music Educator Award, and Sheryl had emailed me about a
teacher that she had when you were how old. Well,
I up in the church choir and she was the
(31:01):
choir director. And then she later went on to she
talked at the college level, not very far from my hometown,
and then she came back and she started teaching. And
I don't know how many of you guys thought anybody
in here follow country music. So I'm from a really
small town called Kennett, Missouri. And she had David Nail,
who has had a lot of success Trent Thomlinson who
(31:24):
had some success but was also a fantastic songwriter black
Jack Billy. But not only that, State winning like national
winning choirs really has taught kids all along myself included
not only how to sing correctly, how to make the
most of your voice, but just a broad appreciation for
(31:45):
music and for blending and for being a part of
a collective musical sound. And um, I've just I've never
known anyone like her who has turned out so many
students who probably ignored what their parents said about getting
a real job and went on because they just wanted
(32:05):
more music. But also the larger interest in music education
and keeping music education and keeping teachers like Verretta in schools.
Why is why is that important to Well? I don't
have any of you guys know I was an elementary
school teacher. I taught music in St. Louis kindergarten through
sixth and I think it was within three or four
years after I moved to l A they discontinued music
(32:28):
in that school district. And I've seen that happening a lot.
It would sort of get handed off to, you know,
ten minutes, three days a week, and the school the
classroom teacher would teach it and for me, and I
think most school districts are a lot of school districts
are bringing them back. And certainly say the music has
been tantum out with getting programs that weren't state provided
(32:52):
or at least even locally subsidized. They've been really helpful
in getting instruments in and implementing programs. But I just
feel like, um, that our creativity is getting squashed, you know,
smaller and smaller and smaller, and it has so much
to do with what the future looks like. You know,
kids need a creative outlet. It's great for you know,
(33:14):
really both sides of the brain. It's great for expression,
particularly at a time when there's a lot of chaos.
Theres a lot of pressure. Every kids supposed to go
to the greatest college. Music is that place where you
go and you're moved, you know, you're And I feel
the same way about sports, you know, um, I feel
the same way about recess. Our brains need a break
(33:35):
from learning exactly what we're supposed to know for a test,
and it's it's vital, I think. And a break from
those smartphones. Yes, yeah, I have to ask you in
the time we have remaining, I have to ask you.
If you're working on a duets project, and this is
duets with a bunch of great artists and we can
(33:56):
talk about whoever, but you do a duet with Johnny Cash.
Tell me a little bit about that. Well. I had
a good fortune, um of knowing Johnny and June. In fact,
June was one of the first people I met. In
nine three, I got to do Idiots to Light, which
is a Sunday night radio show that Vince Kelsey used
(34:18):
to host. And it would just go on. It wasn't
even like, wasn't an hour show. It could just go
on and on, like three or four hours. And I
was on with June Carter and my first record to
come out, it wasn't really even making a dent yet,
and I got to sit there and just absorb her storytelling.
I knew a lot of the Carter family material. I
got to play along. Um. It was just fascinating. And
(34:39):
then after that we were friends, and then for years
we kept in touch, and I knew Johnny and when
June passed, he asked me to sing at her funeral.
And then after about a month after she passed, I
think his His son in law gave him a copy
of this song that I had written, called Redemption Day.
And we were entering the goal war and he got
(35:00):
a hold of this song, which is kind of about war,
and he wanted to record it. And he called me
and asked me about almost every line in the song,
just so that before he sang it, he would know
what the impetus was or what the meaning of it was,
so that he could I mean, he was Johnny Cash.
He wasn't just going to sing something, you know, which
is why we which shows you what kind of great
what an artist. Yeah, exactly, and that's why we believed
(35:22):
him when he's saying something. And so he um. He
recorded it and and then he passed away about three
months later. Cut too recently, and I'm making this collaborative
record with people that I've loved and known and worked
with for years, and yet I've never asked to come
collaborate with me. I called his family and said could
we use the demo vocal because it had come out
(35:44):
on a Rick Rubin record, a Rick Reuben produced record
at some point when we asked, could we do the demo?
So we combined our voices and re cut it and
it's it's really special. I I gotta ask you that.
So the first time you hear his voice coming through
your really like, I mean, it made me cry. In fact,
we were doing it on stage when we were opening
(36:05):
up for Rascal Flats. We had we were doing this
song and we had his voice coming halfway through and
you would feel a gasp. And we had images also
up there. We had war images and images of American
in the desk bowl and just amazing beautiful images. And
then you would see some images of Johnny Cash and
you hear his voice singing, and you would feel an
(36:26):
audible gasp in the audience and people you was just
see them starting to like get really choked up. And
that's I know. I can speak for my band when
I say we we all felt the same. Who else
who else is on the record, Well, Chris Kristoffer is
one of the Chris Christofferson is one of the reasons
that I decided to make this record. And he was
having um, you know, vast memory loss, and we went
(36:49):
and recorded a bunch of his songs. So I asked
me if he come record with me, And then I
just started calling people that I've loved and known like
Stevie Nicks and Don Henley, who was one of the
first people to give me a gig, and Joe Walsh,
and Vince Gill who was practically my neighbor, and gosh,
who else. It's a pretty good list right there. Oh,
Keith Keith Richards also one of the first people give
(37:13):
me a gig. Neil Young, it's a great record. When
when might we see that or hear that? I don't know,
I mean, I just I think it'll be out early
next year. Great. I have to ask you about about
one other artists, and you've talked about this artist, and
I think this is someone who is criminally underappreciated. Bobby Gentry. Yeah. Actually,
(37:34):
you know, it's kind of funny because we looked her
up the other day. Um, because she really only had
the two hits, and then she just evaporated into obscurity.
And I think by her own choice. I think she
felt like it was just it was a world that
she she couldn't relate to it at all. But one
of the very few female artists at the time who
(37:56):
produced her own records, who wrote her own songs, who
I mean, she was truly an independent artist. Of a type,
particularly for women at the time, that was very yeah.
And you know, it's really interesting because my second record,
I was slighted to work with the producer that did
my first record, and he didn't wind up doing it,
and I wound up just being in the studio. And
(38:17):
my manager, who's still with me, said, you just make
your demos and just see what you wind up with.
You know how to record, just do it. And you know, really,
up into that time, there wasn't any record labels that
would say, we'll just produce yourself. You're a woman, you
can do it, or let's get a female producer. There
weren't any, and there's still are very few. In fact,
(38:38):
I'm not sure I can even name any. You know,
it's an odd thing, and I'm always encouraging women, particularly
women who are musicians, um, to just go in and
if you know what you want for your music and
you can verbalize it um and not even in a
technical way, then you know you're ahead of the game. Well,
(38:59):
and this is a good place to kind of put
the button on the conversation. So now you're at a
point in your career where there are other young artists,
particularly women who are citing you as an influence in
their career. I wrote down a couple Um, Kelsey Ballerini
has talked about you. Cam has particularly talked about you,
(39:22):
and she said she's a great example of being strong,
being so easy going and sweet, but also completely ready
to speak her mind. And I'm wondering when you, when
you hear young artists speak of you that way, what
do you think? I don't know. I mean, I get squeamish,
you know. I love the work part of it. Um.
(39:42):
One of the really truly big blessings in my wife
was moving out of l A. I have to say it,
I um, and I'm sorry, no offense anybody, No offense.
It's not the people. But I was raised in such
a small town and I grew up when my musician
were brought to me in um rolling Stone and Cream
(40:06):
and Team Beats in sixteen, you know, I mean, I
grew up um watching Friday Night Special, and I only
got glimpses of who the people were, and so there
were so much larger than life for me than what
they are now. Like what what our young artists sy
of other generations of artists is the same tabloid stuff
(40:27):
that is just you know, it's all floating around in cyberspace.
And but I grew up wanting to just I wanted
to be great, you know, and I wanted to be
I wanted to make a difference, and I wanted to
make music that mattered and that held some place in history.
So when I hear people talking about me, I just
love you know, it's I get squeamish, but um, it's
(40:47):
really flattering. You know. I want young women and young men.
I want artists to know that there is not only
a room for everyone, but be it's important, um, to
get out there and write your truth, you know, speak
it well. Speaking of speaking the truth, we we could
(41:10):
not be more pleased that you took the time to
come down here and and have a little chat. No,
this is pretty good, So ladies and gentlemen, Chryl Throw.
(41:31):
It's always great to hear songwriters talk about the process.
For Cheryl, it's that conversation she'd have in the morning
with her collaborator Jeff Trott, using that as the tool
to begin songwriting. And I love the way she described
the almost magical work of the engineer Chad Blake. And
to that end, I would encourage you to find some
of the work he's done with Mitchell Froun, with artists
(41:54):
such as the Latin Playboys or Richard Thompson. So that's
your required listening for today. We've got fresh episodes coming
to you every Thursday. Let's keep the conversation going where
on all the social platforms at Grammy Museum. If you
plan to be in Los Angeles, I hope you'll visit
us at the Grammy Museum. All the information is at
(42:15):
our website Grammy museum dot org. Finally, shout out to
our required listening team, Jason James, Justin Joseph, Jim Cannella,
Lynn Sheridan, Miranda Moore, Jason Hope, Chandler Mays, Nick Stump,
Lynn Brown, Ghost and Sean and the entire team at
How Stuff Works. We'll see you next time. I'm Scott Goldman.
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