Sheryl Suzanne Crow
Sheryl Crow was born February 11, 1962 in Kennett, Missouri. Sheryl is the 3rd of 4 children of Cousin Wendell and his wife Bernice Crow. Sheryl has 2 older sisters Kathy and Karen. Kathy is currently working in the Nashville, Tennessee office of a major music publishing company and is a song writer, Karen the most classically geared pianist of the family lives in Perryville, Missouri. Her sister Kathy made an appearance in Sheryl’s “Globe Sessions” album as a back up singer for the song “The Difficult Kind”. Sheryl has a younger brother Steve, who is a building contactor; she says he can always predict which songs in her albums will make good singles. Sheryl says she still calls him up to see what songs will do better on the radio.
Wendell is an attorney and amateur trumpeter, her mom Bernice is a piano teacher who made sure all her girls learned to play the piano. Both Wendell and Bernice grew up in Caruthersville and have called Kennett home since 1959. Wendell and Bernice had a good friend called Leo, who played bass in Wendell’s swing band. Sheryl mentions him in her song “We Do What We Can”, the same song in which Wendell plays the trumpet. Sheryl and her sisters were always expected to do the best they could. There were 3 pianos in their home, so all three girls practiced together. Wendell and Bernice listened to a lot of big band and swing bands. As a child, she really related to that music. Her parents loved books and read to them all the time. They raised them to be excited about writing and reading. Instead of letting them watch a lot of TV, they would read to them.
Sheryl attended Kennett High School from 1977-1980, and her yearbook shows her actively involved in the following high school activities: drum majorette, member of the Pep Club, Future Farmers of America, Cheerleader, Track Team and a member of the National Honor Society. After Sheryl left Kennett High School, she enrolled in the University of Missouri, in Columbia. While at the University she became a member of the Kappa Alpha Theta sorority, she majored in music composition, performance and teaching. After graduating college, she was hired in St. Louis as an elementary school music teacher. She taught children with special needs and autistic children.
During this time Sheryl played nights and weekends with various bands. She eventually contacted a famous local producer in the area named Oliver. They worked together for a period of time putting out advertisement jingles for Toyota and McDonalds. During a visit to a friend’s house in L.A she fell in love with California and decided this was the place she wanted to live. Once back in Missouri she asked Oliver for advice, whether she should leave for L.A. and pursue her musical career, Oliver told her she should try it,he helped her put a demo tape together with all the jingles she’d made while with him.
Sheryl went back to her parent’s house on a Tuesday and told them she would leave on Sunday for California. Sheryl was 24 when she took off for Los Angeles with little money and few prospects, the day she left her car broke down and she thought itwas a sign that she should turn back, butshe was certain that this would be her only chance, to see if she could make it in the music industry and kept going. In L.A. she did songwriting for various artists such as Wynonna Judd and Celine Dion, and worked with such people as Rod Stewart. She also did some jingles and was a waitress. It was in one of those jingle sessions that she overheard Michael Jackson was having auditions for back up singers. She got the job and was soon on stage with Michael dueting with him in his “Bad” tour. The tour that had Sheryl on stage around the world came to an end in 1989.
Sheryl struggled for the next eight years and finally teamed up with a bunch of guys, calling themselves the Tuesday Night Music Club. The group met every Tuesday night in a little studio in Pasadena and wrote songs until the late hours. From these songs she produced her first album the Tuesday Night Music Club and the rest is Grammy History. This album sold more than nine million copies and led to three Grammy’s including one for best female rock vocal performance for “If It Make’s You Happy.”
Her second album “Sheryl Crow” was very successful. In this album, there’s a song called “Love Is A Good Thing” in which she sings that Wal-mart sells guns to children, apparently Wal-mart made a big deal out of it and refused to sell the album unless she changed the lyrics. Sheryl decided to stay loyal to her thoughts and perspective and didn’t change the lyrics, thus Wal-mart banned the album. That was hard on her, not for the sales she lost, but for the fact that Wal-mart is the only place where her family and fans can get her albums in Kennett, Missouri.
A couple of years later Sheryl went on a goodwill tour to visit Bosnia. She performed in all types of places from mud holes to mess halls. She ate ready-to-eat food with the troops. Traveling with the First Lady, Chelsea and Sinbad, Sheryl was without a doubt, the headliner of the USO shows. She had lots of personal interaction with everyone there, and even brought a few up on stage with her. Mrs. Clinton remarked how well she represented America, just like Bob Hope and the many other celebrities that have gone before her. She has also made her break onto the big screen playing in the film “The Minus Man” and sang the theme song for the James Bond movie (Tomorrow Never Dies).