"Sheryl" (Crow) documentary

[GhostOfTomJoad 9308]

Caught about 40 minutes of it the other night. I missed the beginning and flipped over just as she was breaking with TNMC. I'd like to try and catch the start to see what detail they go to about the writing of that album.

Pretty straightforward doc with SC and several members of her team talking pretty directly about her road to stardom. I'm not a huge fan of her music by any stretch, but I'm a sucker for a decent look behind the scenes. Her recording engineer (Trina Shoemaker) stole most every scene she was in. I'd love to learn more about her. Kind of a gypsie, "the gear has to breathe in its own space before it can tell you how it wants to be used and if you can't hear it you'll never get a good sound" vibe. 

 

[Born Burnt 6147]

https://www.surlyhorns.com/board/index.php?/forum/10-music/

 

 

[Prepuce of Doom 20988]

This thread is for the birds. 

[GhostOfTomJoad 9308]

Furk. Please move, mods.

[Underdog 28457]

Fan of her music, saw her perform at the Backyard years ago. 

[DougO 5239]

She's a horrible person. I bet that won't be in the documentary.

[GhostOfTomJoad 9308]

It's definitely got a "lifelong fan" production vibe. In the bit that I saw there really weren't any shots of her being bitchy, rude towards fans, controversial, etc. A few shots of her crying due to the strains of constant touring and stress to maintain pop appeal. Briefly touched on her relationship with Lance, cancer, etc. Felt a mile wide and an inch deep.

But the producers did bring out some A-list talent to sing her bona fides. Keith Richards. Jason Isbell. Steve Jordan. Joe Walsh (touching  moment when he discusses how SC helped his wife with her own cancer battle). Emmylou Harris. Brandi Carlisle.

It was definitely a fan friendly doc and you get the feeling that the only behind the scenes moments were carefully chosen by SC and her crew. But you definitely realize how much work goes into that lifestyle. You've gotta be driven to want to stay in that arena.

[South Austin 52144]

Me trying to figure out why so many people like her music:

[Scraps 13542]

Didn't give a shit about her music, but wanted to fuck her around 1999-2002.  I mean still would, but back then would have been more fun 

[yoladu 4067]

I don't know why I have such a negative impression of her.

 

[Celery Man 20886]

did it get into the whole tuesday night music club thing at all?

[TexArcher 37519]

6 hours ago, South Austin said:

Me trying to figure out why so many people like her music:

Pretty sure there were an awful lot of CD collections that included Nickelback, Creed, and Sheryl Crow.

[Deej 76568]

56 minutes ago, TexArcher said:

Nickelback, Creed, and Sheryl Crow

Worst. Festival. Lineup. Ever. 

[GhostOfTomJoad 9308]

1 hour ago, Celery Man said:

did it get into the whole tuesday night music club thing at all?

I stumbled across a bit more of the doc again last night just as they were talking about TNMC. Sheryl and Bill Bottrell's heavily biased take is:

• Sheryl was dating Kevin Gilbert at the time (but already breaking up, per SC) and Bill hooked her up with David Baerwald and David Ricketts (formerly David + David). They were just musicians jamming on Tuesdays, drinking wine, making music, and per SC "some of the guys were dropping acid."
• They'd often go down to bookstores in search of material. This is where they found Wyn Cooper's book of poetry which was the basis for All I wanna Do. She mentions searching for him in the phone book, calling him & telling him that she wanted to give him half of the songwriting credits for using his poem
• BB knew that there was more going on than jam sessions so he started organizing things behind SC as he saw her as the real talent. He also pushed Gilbert away from recording because he didn't think he was good for the environment.
• The album gets published, David Letterman becomes a fan as he listens to it driving to and from his home in Connecticut. He invites her onto Late Night
• She performs Leaving Las Vegas. Dave interviews her, asks if the song is autobiographical. She says 'yes,' then later tries to restate that Las Vegas was a metaphor for Los Angeles
• In the doc SC goes on about how she was nervous and didn't know how to answer the question, how she wishes she was more grounded and could have taken the time on Letterman to tell the real story which was that the song was the result of working with many talented musicians. Bottrell claims Letterman asked a stupid question as if he was trying to corner her into saying something damning
• SC gets weepy at this point in the doc, mumbling something about "this is what happens when you try to always be the nice person." 
• She talks about learning after the fact that Leaving Las Vegas was named after John O'Brien's book. This is horribly unconvincing; they show a shot of the book's jacket as if it was just lying around and maybe everyone else know it was an inspiration to the song but SC wasn't even aware of it, treating the book as if it were just a coaster for someone's drink. Of course O'Brien committed suicide shortly after SC's Letterman appearance.
• This is where the doc gets really fucked up IMO. Bottrell starts to take shots at Baerwald for claiming that Baerwald blamed SC for O'Brien's suicide in the papers. What Bottrell is really referencing is that Baerwald wrote a piece for Entertainment Weekly in response to Kevin Gilbert's obituary (died of autoerotic asphyxiation in '96) where he's listed as SC's "piano player." Baerwald said that Gilbert was a talented musician in his own right, had many contributions, and that KG "hated that SC record, and that's all that he's going to be known for. Roll over, Kevin Gilbert."

No, it's not likely that SC was directly responsible for the suicides of two artists. O'Brien in particular had a history of mental health issues. But 30 years down the road she still does a shitty job a) giving credit to the musicians who helped her get her big break, and b) makes the big mistake of somehow trying to paint herself as the naive victim in the whole incident. 

Edited May 12, 2022 by GhostOfTomJoad

[South Austin 52144]

So she sucks as a singer, a songwriter, and a person.

[Deej 76568]

2 hours ago, GhostOfTomJoad said:

SC gets weepy at this point in the doc, mumbling something about "this is what happens when you try to always be the nice person." 

I know people like this. They suck, too.

[GhostOfTomJoad 9308]

So she sucks as a singer, a songwriter, and a person.

To me she's a pretty backup singer who found her niche & struck at the right time.

She's "meh" in everything she does, but in the mid-post grunge era she was anointed as the ballsy folk/rock/alt country chick while really not doing anything that great other than shooting sexy/pensive album covers.

But she's made plenty of coin & will be a RnR HOF inductee in the near future. Not a bad gig, I suppose.

[jimmyjazz 45560]

Well, let's not go overboard.  She definitely benefited from the TNMC crowd -- I know the bass player, and he is not fond of her -- but she's put out some pretty iconic music all on her own.  See, for instance, "A Change Would Do You Good", "If It Makes You Happy", "Every Day Is A Winding Road", "My Favorite Mistake", "There Goes The Neighborhood".  Those songs all have a common vibe, and it's hers.

She's a trained musician with talent, maybe not so much as a singer but as a player for sure, certainly on keys.  She's a little clumsy on bass and guitar, but I don't think she's trying to be anything but.

There was a lot of shit going on in the TNMC time period, and I don't think any one of them has a perfect bead on the situation.

[DougO 5239]

7 hours ago, GhostOfTomJoad said:

I

• SC gets weepy at this point in the doc, mumbling something about "this is what happens when you try to always be the nice person."

 

This is the kind of thing people who are pieces of shit say.

[DougO 5239]

Two things about Sheryl Crow, besides being a horrible person, burn my ass. 

First time I I think I ever heard her was on KLBJ doing a live in studio visit. She did the song "Strong Enough" with just an acoustic guitar. I don't know who was playing it, but doesn't matter, I was enthralled. Fantastic song, I wanted to buy the album. I did, and by then I had already heard the big singles. I listened to the album, it was OK. But the song I really wanted to hear was Strong Enough, based on the in studio performance. They put a goofy ass fretless bass on it and completely destroyed the feel of it. WTF?

Second thing, I recently saw her on TV doing a show, don't know how old it was, probably a few years. Audley Freed, one of the tastiest guitar players in the world, was in her band. He's got practically nothing interesting to play on her songs. It's so unnecessary for him tp be playing chords and shit even I could pull off. He did finally play a little solo on one song, but it wasn't that much, either. It just irked me what a fucking waste it was, while Audley's band Cry Of Love basically disappeared without label support, all that talent, those amazing songs barely remembered by the public, probably getting about four cents a day on Spotify for their few hundred plays, while bland shit like Crowe rakes in millions for her bland ass music. Also, seemed like every other member of her band was 7 feet tall like Audley, just to make her stand out even more as a petite little midget piece of shit bland artist. Audley has to slum with a gravy gig to scrape together a living, playing easy shit most any poster in the  Guitar Pron thread could play so Crowe can crow about having such a great band. 

She probably gave Lance ball cancer and made him cheat, too.

Edited May 13, 2022 by DougO

[DougO 5239]

Kevin Gilbert, the Shaming Of The True, or any of his other works, is far better than anything Crowe ever pulled out of her ass, or stole from somebody else. 

[Paul Wesley 3277]

I watched it because I'm a sucker for music documentaries.  Definitely learned a few things (am I the only one who didn't know she was a backup singer for Michael Jackson?).

I have two observations:

1. The filmmaker is keenly aware of the criticisms against her for being purely self-interested and (as a consequence) for passing off collaborative work as her own.  It definitely reminded me of the Robbie Robertson documentary... who faced the same charge.  Both documentaries spend almost zero time explaining the basis for the criticism, but spend extensive amounts of time defending against it.  It makes for a kind of weird protesteth-too-much movie.  

2.  The film opens with Sheryl and Brandi Carlile stating very emphatically that the music business is much harder to break into for a woman, and that women have to be more talented and harder-working than their male counterparts.  Which is a fucking silly and demonstrably wrong assertion.  It was completely impossible to break into the traditional industry (record labels) in the 90's if you were overweight, ugly, or old... regardless of gender.  If you were a hot young woman, on the other hand, then all kinds of industry doors were (and remain) wide fucking open -- doors that are hermetically sealed to the unattractive (no matter the gender, no matter how talented).  

I think the only Sheryl Crow record I ever bought was TNMC.   She's definitely got talent as a singer, writer, and performer, but she doesn't blow me away on any of those individual skills.  My wife cannot stand her vocal delivery on a lot of songs (like "All I Wanna Do") - she thinks it's just kind of an annoying affectation.  

[South Austin 52144]

28 minutes ago, Paul Wesley said:

She's definitely got talent as a singer, writer, and performer 

[GhostOfTomJoad 9308]

@Paul Wesley summed it up beautifully. In the end, it was a puff piece doc. I've got nothing against SC making a king's ransom for a living because she certainly worked her ass off. She desperately wanted to be like her heroes (Taylor, King, Nicks et. al) but being a pop queen isn't too bad in the end. She knew what she could do best, and she made her mark. 

Full disclosure, IMHO David Baerwald has shit better songs than SC has ever written. Bedtime Stories is criminally underrated. I don't know if the producers ever reached  out to him to provide insight on TNMC. I suspect they didn't given the tone of the doc, but there's no doubt that his insight on the creation of that album would have given the doc a lot more gravity.

[Harrison Bergeron 1798]

She sees like a real See You Next Tuesday. The whole TNMC bullshit soured her for me. "Voice of a Generation" comment made me spit my beer up.

[Underdog 28457]

3 hours ago, South Austin said:

GDit!  Between this take and your pecan pie take, I’m this close >< to writing you out of the Will.  

[Celery Man 20886]

On 5/12/2022 at 11:08 PM, DougO said:

This is the kind of thing people who are pieces of shit say.

[jimmyjazz 45560]

I highly doubt Baerwald would comment.  Neither would Dan Schwartz (bass player).  Gilbert is dead.  Not much left.  They generally dislike her but aren't going to raise a fuss.

[South Austin 52144]

14 hours ago, Underdog said:

GDit!  Between this take and your pecan pie take, I’m this close >< to writing you out of the Will.  

I like pecan pie more than Sheryl Crow, if that helps.

[Underdog 28457]

Can’t argue with you there.  

[oSuJeff97 3435]

On 5/12/2022 at 9:15 PM, jimmyjazz said:

Well, let's not go overboard.  She definitely benefited from the TNMC crowd -- I know the bass player, and he is not fond of her -- but she's put out some pretty iconic music all on her own.  See, for instance, "A Change Would Do You Good", "If It Makes You Happy", "Every Day Is A Winding Road", "My Favorite Mistake", "There Goes The Neighborhood".  Those songs all have a common vibe, and it's hers.

She's a trained musician with talent, maybe not so much as a singer but as a player for sure, certainly on keys.  She's a little clumsy on bass and guitar, but I don't think she's trying to be anything but.

There was a lot of shit going on in the TNMC time period, and I don't think any one of them has a perfect bead on the situation.

This.

I actually really enjoy The Globe Sessions album. I think it’s actually her best work and much better as a total album vs. TNMC.