Sheryl Crow's new album, Pick You Up, is a deeply personal work centered on human connection and offering support during difficult times. The 64-year-old musician hopes the songs convey the hope she feels when performing them.
Speaking about the album's title, Crow explained: "It's called Pick You Up because one of the things that's happening to us is that we're feeling so isolated, even though we are overly connected with ourselves. But I think just the mere act of asking someone you love how they're doing. Just knowing that you have someone in your life that's always there for you. That it's not all doom and gloom, us against them."
A Personal Journey Through Music
Crow, who has been open about her lifelong battle with depression, said: "I've been someone who's been pretty outspoken about the journey that I've been on throughout my life, even from a young age, of battling depression, but also having this beautiful outlet, which is music."
The album's opening track, "Freight Train," is a slow ballad about loneliness and quiet connections. Crow, who grew up in Kennett, Missouri, where trains ran through the town, released the track as a single ahead of the album.
Reflecting on the song's inspiration, she said: "There is something beautiful about the sound of a train. It does take us back to when trains ran through our small town. But in the middle of the night, when you would hear one and you would know that you were in your bed in a safe place and every other kid in your town is in bed, and you may feel lonely, but you're not alone."
From Small Town to Global Stardom
Born on 11 February 1962, Crow is the daughter of Bernice, a piano teacher, and Wendell, a lawyer and trumpet player. She studied music education at the University of Missouri, graduating in 1984, then taught music at a primary school while singing in weekend bands.
A producer hired her to sing on a McDonald's advert worth two years' teaching salary, prompting her to quit and move to Los Angeles. After eight months in the city, without a passport, she was hired for Michael Jackson's Bad tour, which ran from September 1987 to January 1989. A month after rehearsals began, she was performing to 65,000 people in Tokyo. When the tour reached Wembley Stadium in 1988, Jackson played seven sold-out nights to 504,000 fans, a world record at the time.
After a 1991 solo album was shelved for sounding too slick, Crow joined a weekly songwriting group at producer Bill Bottrell's Pasadena studio, which became the Tuesday Night Music Club. Their album, released in August 1993, was slow to take off until "All I Wanna Do" became a hit in October 1994.
Collaborations and Milestones
At the 1995 Grammys, Crow won Record of the Year, Best New Artist, and Best Female Pop Vocal Performance. She now has nine Grammys from 32 nominations. The following year, she sang a Mozart duet with tenor Luciano Pavarotti at his charity concert in Modena, Italy, benefiting young survivors of the Bosnian war.
Crow said: "I'm so grateful. All those early hits, they took me to Europe, to South America, to Russia, places I would never have envisioned getting to go." Eric Clapton, Keith Richards, and Stevie Nicks joined her at her 1999 Central Park concert.
Her song "Redemption Day," written in 1996 after visiting Bosnia, was recorded by Johnny Cash in 2003, weeks before his death. "Real Gone" opened Pixar's 2006 film Cars, becoming her biggest streamed song.
Personal Challenges and Family Life
Diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer in February 2006, Crow had a lumpectomy and seven weeks of radiation therapy. She said: "If my story helps someone else, I feel blessed." In November 2023, she was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, introduced by Laura Dern as a "legendary artist, poet, activist, friend, mother, daughter and all-around badass goddess rock star."
Crow, who adopted sons Wyatt in 2007 and Levi in 2010, moved to Nashville, where the boys grew up on a 50-acre plot. She said: "I'll keep writing, because it's part of my DNA. I'll keep recording, because I love the process. I just want to keep being inspired."
