Tuesday Night Music Club

by

Sheryl Crow

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After learning that Sheryl Crow sang back-up on Michael Jackson's "Bad" tour, joined a choir of singers for a Nancy Wilson record, performed a duet with Kenny Loggins on his "Leap of Faith" album, you might come to her debut with a certain set of expectations. And those expectations might have been met if her label had released the ultra-slick debut album she originally recorded with producer Hugh Pagdham. (To give you an idea of that record's slickness and ill-fit to Sheryl's personality, songs from it were later recorded by Celine Dion, Tina Turner, and Wynonna Judd.) But Sheryl scrapped the pop sheen and instead opted for this rough-around-the-edges, downhome collection of country-tinged rock, and we're all the luckier for it.

"Leaving Las Vegas" and "All I Wanna Do" are songs so strong and catchy that they will no doubt live a long and healthy life on various FM stations everywhere; "Strong Enough" is a gorgeously simple ballad that brings to mind early Stevie Nicks, "Can't Cry Anymore" is Southern rock on a par with the Eagles, and "Solidify" rocks with a dark funkiness that must be heard to be believed.

Elsewhere it's her sheer lack of inhibition that's impressive: music lore has it that Michael Jackson's manager, Frank Dileo, came on to Sheryl pretty hard during the tour...and thus "What I Can Do for You" is born, a song sung from the standpoint of a sexual harrasser ("there's no one else on God's green earth can do/what I can do for you"). Then on "The Na-Na Song" she flat out calls him on it, name-dropping him then singing, "maybe if I let him, I'd-a had a hit song." Clearly, any woman who can scrap a completed album and call her sexual harrasser by name is a force to be reckoned with, and the writing and musical chops on this record confirm that fact.

The best thing about this re-issue in my opinion is the liner notes...

the bonus songs on CD2 only prove that they didn't belong in the front line of her work as most are languid and without direction. The DVD is a HUGE disappointment to me as most all the videos were previously available on her greatest hits DVD..and aside from a couple of minor videos for songs that weren't hits I was looking forward to "VALUABLE STUFF a documentary featuring on-the-road, backstage soundcheck and live footage recorded during the tuesday night music club tour 1993-1995"...which almost takes longer to read than watch! Most of these re-issues (see Depeche Mode as a prime example or Genesis) feature the artists discussing the making of the record and I figured we'd be getting that along with the extra footage described when ALL we get is a few minutes of b roll footage strung together for 12 minutes...to call THAT a documentary is an insult to documentaries. I think this is horribly overpriced at $30 for 15 minutes of extra video and 10 left over songs. In today's economy getting people to shell out $30 for something they already own ...should be done with more value in mind.