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YANG: Even in an age of remarkable female artists, Sheryl Crow stands out. A former teacher, her own musical education included duties as a backup singer for Bob Dylan and Michael Jackson. In 1994, she took center stage herself and won a Grammy for best new artist. Her third multiplatinum album, "The Globe Sessions," took home this year's Grammy for best rock album. And she wins this week's WORLD BEAT award for the "Inside Track."
SHERYL CROW: I started on piano when I was about five. I don't think there was any moment of reckoning where I realized this is where I'm going and this is the life I want to lead, because I just was always in music and was around musicians; that was the thing that I was gravitated to. I just loved it, and I just pursued, you know, all the avenues that I could to continue to become better at it.
CROW: I am always looking for things to do, like producing and like playing other instruments I've never played, and writing is always challenging. Just to kind of continue the growthprocess, that's sort of what I'm more interested in than anything else.
CROW: I grew up not very far from Mississippi, and I grew up with a dad who used to read books out loud, you know; at the dinner table, he'd read excerpts. And my earliest influence was really Mark Twain and Steinbeck and people like that. So when I started writing, like when I got turned on to Dylan, it kind of all made sense that you are writing a song -- you're writing a story in three or four minutes. And you -- for me, I approach it that way, with a beginning, a
middle, and an end.
CROW: I think the key element for songwriting is to have tow things, to have some perspective and to have your own voice. And I don't mean your physical voice, but I mean your own -- your writing voice, that thing that you write through. As a writer, you formulate who the writer is, and then it's not specifically, you know, Sheryl Crow singing or (INAUDIBLE) writing, it's this thing that's larger than that. And that's kind how I approach writing. There are no boundaries, there are no rules, and so the thing that's challenging is to get away from anything that's even stock and formulaic. So you can always do something different, and the way I approach it is literally and then musically, mostly.
CROW: I didn't want the reviewers to read the lyrics and determine what the album was about, and I didn't want the fans to do that. I remember when I was a kid and I got a Beatles record, or a Stones record. They never had the lyrics on their albums. And you sat down and you listened to it top to bottom, Pink Floyd, whatever. And it was an experience. And the music carried the lyrics, and the ebbs and flows were built in to mean something. And as a songwriter and as a musician, even as a producer, all those things get wasted sometimes, and I just wanted people to be absorbed by it. Even when I sing "Mississippi," which Dylan wrote, which is on my album, every once in a while I'll hear myself say a line, and I'll think, That's just the best line I've ever heard, you know, and how does he do it? And that's fun, you know, it's fun. That's what makes it personal for you. It's what makes it -- that's why people make songs of their own.
CROW: I have a lot of freedom because I play a lot of instruments, and although I'm not the most accomplished on every instrument, every instrument that I play has my voice to it. And so I've gotten to where now I don't go and replace myself on my albums because I think somebody can do it better than me. I just leave it the way it is. And there's great freedom in being able to go in and not having A&R people around you second-guessing this particular part of this song or that song in general, whatever. I just go in and kind of let it all hang out and then look at it when I get some perspective.
CROW: So much of what I listen to I use as my markers. I mean, I'm never going to be Bob Dylan, I'm never going to be Joni Mitchell, but those are the people that for me set, like, this high precedence. I never got into this to be famous; I got into it to be great. You know, that was the thing, I wanted to be great. And there's a lot of responsibility in that.