As The Crow Flies: Beloved Singer-Songwriter Sheryl Crow Looks Back and Tells All in The Fascinating Feature-Length Documentary SHERYL

By BILL HARRIS Special to The Lede Singing on a McDonald's commercial. Being part of a massive Michael Jackson tour. Dealing with sexual harrasment from Jackson's manager. And a one-word answer while being interviewed by David Letterman that had devastating consequences. These are just some of the things that are revealed and discussed in only the first 30 minutes of the feature-length SHOWTIME documentary SHERYL, chronicling the life and career of singer, songwriter, and musician Sheryl Crow, that debuts Friday, May 6, only on Crave. "I've been asked over the years about doing a documentary, but I always felt like documentaries were told after someone has already gone on, after a fiery plane crash - I just didn't feel like it was time for me," said Crow during a virtual panel interview. "But it was my manager, who has been with me from the very beginning, which is 30 years now, who said, 'Look, you have a powerful story. You have seen your business change. You have grown up most of your life in the world of music. You have a story to tell and it's time for you to tell that story.' " But Crow, who is 60 years old and a breast cancer survivor, is the first one to admit that she has experienced the highest highs and the lowest lows, so the making of SHERYL was not always easy or fun for her. "It was difficult - I was sitting there for hours on end, and remembering and reflecting and revisiting was extremely emotional," Crow said. "And there were some experiences that obviously are not just my own experience in this business. I'm a woman. I've seen a lot of things change. I've also seen a lot of things not change very much at all. There's no handbook for running your career, for running a business, for being a woman in what ostensibly is a business run by men. There is no handbook for becoming famous when you're a really private, smalltown person. So yeah, it was emotional, it was exhausting, but ultimately, it was really gratifying." Following her inclusion on the Jackson tour in the late 1980s (for which she crashed a private audition to get hired), Crow shot to worldwide fame in 1993-94 with her debut album Tuesday Night Music Club, which included the hit songs Leaving Las Vegas, All I Wanna Do, and Strong Enough. The big hits continued through the 1990s and early 2000s, with If It Makes You Happy, Everyday is a Winding Road, Soak Up The Sun, and more. Interestingly, once Crow moved past her reservations and agreed to make SHERYL, she found it surprisingly difficult keeping it to a reasonable length. "You can't have an eight-hour documentary," Crow said. "You have to sort of figure out what the story is. So there were things I had to let go of, when I had to say, 'okay, maybe all the political work isn't going to make it into this - but is that what this story is about?' There were conversations about it. But anything that I felt was missing, I went to Amy (Scott, director) and to her people, and they said, 'Let's try and put it in.' As far as what we wound up with, I watched it once, and I gave a couple of notes, and then I was like, 'okay, that's great, it's all there.' " Every day has certainly been a winding road for Sheryl Crow. But does she remember the first time she ever heard one of her songs on the radio? "I was driving back from the dentist in my old Volkswagen convertible through Beverly Hills when I heard Leaving Las Vegas," Crow recalled. "Now, if you can imagine, I'm still living in a studio apartment. My manager's storage closet is his office. I'm driving an old banged-up convertible past Rolls-Royces and Bentleys through these mansions. And it was literally like a bad John Hughes moment, where I'm screaming, 'this is me on the radio,' trying to get people's attention, just right out of a script. I can't even explain how it felt. But I remember it vividly." [email protected] @billharris_tv

Public link

Please use the above public link if you want to share this noodl on another website.