sheryl crow on michael jackson tour

Sheryl Crow on touring with Michael Jackson: I saw 'really strange' things

Sheryl Crow's early career included a stint as a backup vocalist for Michael Jackson on his Bad tour in the late '80s and an appearance in his "Dirty Diana" video, making the late singer – and his complicated past – an essential part of her origin story.

As Crow told the Telegraph in an interview published Saturday, although she hasn't watched the 2019 documentary "Leaving Neverland" that alleged new abuses against Jackson, she did see some questionable behavior in her time with him. 

“I haven’t seen the documentary and I don’t want to see it,” she said. “I was around for some things that I thought were really strange, and I had a lot of questions about.”

Crow's new album "Threads," which she has previously claimed to be her last studio album, comes out Aug. 30, featuring collaborations with Stevie Nicks, Keith Richards (on a song co-written by Mick Jagger), Joe Walsh, Don Henley, James Taylor, Bonnie Raitt, Emmylou Harris, Chris Stapleton and the late Johnny Cash. 

More: 10 most anticipated albums of fall 2019: Taylor Swift, Tool, Luke Combs and more

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In a previous chat with the Guardian earlier this month, Crow expanded on her relationship with James Safechuck, who toured with her and Jackson and was one of the men at the center of "Leaving Neverland," along with Wade Robson.

“It’s like a death in the family, you know? It’s sad. (Safechuck) was a great kid and the whole time he was with us – which was the better half of an 18-month tour – I always wondered: 'What in the world are his parents doing,' you know?” she said. 

Crow claimed that "there were a lot of exceptions made" for Jackson, and that his strange behavior "was part of his aura – this almost being untouchable and almost alien-like (figure)."

"And, yeah, I mean, I’m sad, and I’m mad at a lot of people," she added. "I feel like there was just a huge network of people that allowed all that to go on. It’s just tragic.”

The most recent updates in the dramas surrounding the "Leaving Neverland" release involve three Michael Jackson fan clubs in France suing Robson and Safechuck, under a French law that prohibits the public denunciation of a dead person.

More: French Michael Jackson fans sue 'Leaving Neverland' accusers Wade Robson, James Safechuck

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Sheryl Crow speaks out on being sexually harassed while touring with Michael Jackson

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Sheryl Crow has endured a lot throughout her multi-decade career in the music industry. But the singer-songwriter, 59, will never forget the sexual harassment she experienced while on tour with Michael Jackson .

Just 25 when she joined the iconic performer's tour in 1987, Crow is tremendously grateful for the experience. However, she isn't holding back about its downsides.

“Naiveté is such a beautiful thing," Crow told the Independent   in a revealing new interview. "It was incredible in every way, shape and form for a young person from a really small town to see the world and to work with arguably the greatest pop star. But I also got a crash course in the music industry.”

Crow said she faced repeated incidents of sexual harassment by Jackson's manager, Frank DiLeo, who promised to make her famous and threatened that if she said no or reported him, he would destroy her career. During the tour, tabloids began reporting that Jackson was romantically involved with his “sexy backing singer” and that he had offered her $2 million to have his child. In her audiobook memoir Words + Music, Crow shared that she now believes these stories were intentionally planted by DiLeo, who died in 2011, “to make Mike look like he was interested in women.”

Looking back on the experience, Crow says it's “really interesting" to revisit this history, and see how much things have changed (or not) since then. “To be able to play that stuff about the long bout of sexual harassment I endured during the Michael Jackson tour and to talk about it in the midst of the #MeToo movement... it feels like we’ve come a long way, but it doesn’t feel like we’re quite there yet," the singer mused.

After the tour, Crow sunk into a depression, but ultimately fought her way into the industry as a solo artist, and her debut album Tuesday Night Music Club went on to sell eight million copies across the globe. But even at that level of success, Crow experienced sexism as disputes were raised over who had written her hit songs. Some alleged that Crow was a front for talented men, a charge she now calls “beyond insulting.” But the attacks only drove her to work harder, and Crow channeled that into her next album.

Discussing the harassment she's experienced was "really uncomfortable," but Crow found it "so much more empowering to be able to talk about it and then play the music that was inspired by it," she said. "Isn’t that what music is really for? To help us work through whatever our experiences are, and hopefully for the collective to find their own situations in your music too?”

Crow has also faced health struggles over the years. In 2006, she discovered she had breast cancer just six days after splitting from then-fiancé Lance Armstrong.

“I was 44 years old, no cancer in my history, was very healthy, ate well, very athletic. It was just a random mammogram, and I wound up being diagnosed with stage one breast cancer," Crow previously told Yahoo Entertainment . "And so, I wound up being a sort of a spokesperson for it, because I think it really does matter. I think part of that was laying on that radiation table and having to sort of meet myself.”

Crow went on to recover from cancer and became a single mom, adopting two boys, Wyatt and Levi, on her own. She's raising her 11- and 14-year-old sons, whom she calls "the most incredible, perfect boys in the world,” in Nashville to avoid the spotlight.

“It wouldn’t have been my first choice to do it by myself,” Crow previously told Yahoo about her path to motherhood. “But to be perfectly honest, I feel like the way that my life has — I keep saying the way that it rolled out, but it really is true — the way things have happened for me have not been conventional.”

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Sheryl Crow's 'Strange' Time Touring With Michael Jackson: What to Know

Sheryl Crow has opened up about her time with Michael Jackson, when she toured with him from 1987 [...]

By Gayle Thompson - August 22, 2019 08:39 am EDT

Sheryl Crow has opened up about her time with Michael Jackson , when she toured with him from 1987 to 1989, on his Bad Tour, before her own superstar career took off. Crow has been speaking out about her time with the King of Pop, revealing after the release of the Leaving Neverland documentary about Jackson's life that she believed something was amiss , even back then, especially regarding James Safechuck, a 9-year-old boy who spent large amounts of time on the road with Jackson.

"I happened to turn on CNN the morning after the first half [of the documentary] aired, and they showed clips of the young man who was on the Jackson tour with us and it made me … I mean, I still feel really … It's like a death in the family, you know? It's sad," Crow told The Guardian . "[James Safechuck] was a great kid and the whole time he was with us – which was the better half of an 18-month tour – I always wondered, 'What in the world are his parents doing?'"

Crow acknowledged that there are plenty more people than Jackson to blame for the alleged mistreatment of Safechuck.

"I think that there were a lot of exceptions made because of the damage that [Jackson] … I mean, he didn't intentionally project it, but it was part of his aura – this almost being untouchable and almost alien-like [figure]," Crow conceded. "And, yeah, I mean, I'm sad, and I'm mad at a lot of people. I feel like there was just a huge network of people that allowed all that to go on. It's just tragic."

Crow was dismayed by the stories behind Leaving Neverland, even though she admits she never watched it.

"I haven't seen the documentary and I don't want to see it," Crow told The Telegraph . "I was around for some things that I thought were really strange and I had a lot of questions about."

The Jackson family has refuted the claims in Leaving Neverland , saying that the documentary, which alleges that both Safechuck and another boy, Wade Robson, were both sexually abused by Jackson, is false.

"The film takes uncorroborated allegations that supposedly happened 20 years ago and treats them as fact," the family said in a statement . "Michael always turned the other cheek, and we have always turned the other cheek when people have gone after members of our family — that is the Jackson way. But we can't just stand by while this public lynching goes on. … Michael is not here to defend himself, otherwise these allegations would not have been made."

The film is streaming now on HBO Go and HBO Now.

Photo Credit: Pete Still/Redferns

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Sheryl Crow reveals what she saw on Michael Jackson tour: ‘It’s tragic’

Sheryl Crow was just a backup singer when Michael Jackson toured the world with a young boy by his side — now she’s speaking up.

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Sheryl Crow’s early career included a stint as a backup singer on Michael Jackson‘s Bad tour from 1987-1989, and she’s still reckoning with it.

In a new interview with the Guardian , Crow discussed the allegations of sexual abuse against Jackson in light of her time in the singer’s orbit.

“I happened to turn on CNN the morning after the first half [of the documentary Leaving Neverland ] aired, and they showed clips of the young man who was on the Jackson tour with us …”

Crow is referring to James Safechuck, one of two accusers featured in the documentary and a near-constant companion to Jackson during the Bad tour.

“It’s like a death in the family, you know? It’s sad,” Crow continued. “(James Safechuck) was a great kid and the whole time he was with us — which was the better half of an 18-month tour — I always wondered: ‘What in the world are his parents doing?’

“I think that there were a lot of exceptions made because of the damage that (Jackson) … I mean, he didn’t intentionally project it, but it was part of his aura — this almost being untouchable and almost alien-like (figure). And, yeah, I mean, I’m sad, and I’m mad at a lot of people. I feel like there was just a huge network of people that allowed all that to go on. It’s just tragic.”

Though Crow duetted with Jackson every night of the tour on I Just Can’t Stop Loving You, she describes Jackson as isolated and removed.

“I think he actually did not know my name for quite a long while,” she stated.

He “never” contacted her after she established herself as a solo star in the ’90s: “I saw him at the Grammys and I don’t think he ever put together (who I was).”

JACKSON’S BEHAVIOUR ‘DEEPLY SUSPICIOUS’ DURING BAD TOUR

A journalist has revealed he was so concerned about Jackson’s “deeply suspicious” relationship with Safechuck he reached out to the boy, asking if he was being held against his will.

In an article for the Irish Mail on Sunday earlier this year, reporter Sam Smyth recalled how he became concerned about Jackson’s behaviour while covering one of the singer’s concerts in 1988.

Accompanying Jackson was Safechuck, or “Little Jimmy” as he was known by Jackson.

Staying at the same hotel as Jackson and his entourage as he performed in Ireland, Smyth and another journalist noted it was “very odd” the 10-year-old boy was accompanying the singer.

Making things even more strange, staff reported Safechuck, who was staying next to Jackson, remained in his room the whole time the singer was out performing with a “do not disturb” sign hanging on the doorknob and sheeting on the windows to block the view in.

Growing concerned, Smyth and the other journalist decided to send a letter to Safechuck’s room.

Using hotel stationary, the pair wrote: “Dear Little Jimmy Safechuck, we are in the residents’ lounge … and if you are being held against your will or if you need rescuing contact us.”

Smyth said they gave the note to a hotel porter with instructions to take it to Safechuck’s room, however they never heard from the boy.

This article originally appeared on the New York Post and was reproduced with permission

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Her songs may evoke a sunny, laid-back LA vibe, but singer-songwriter Sheryl Crow, 60, has had her share of turbulence in her three-decade, nine-Grammy-award-winning career. In a new Showtime documentary, “Sheryl,” she chronicles the highs and lows of becoming one of the world’s top-selling female musicians.

And although Crow never spectacularly crashed to rock bottom like some rockers have, she illuminates how tenuous mental health can become in the harsh light of fame, and what it was like to be an ambitious woman in music in the decades before the MeToo movement.

Below, some of the most compelling aspects of the documentary, directed by Amy Scott (“Hal”), out May 6.

Before she was famous, she was a Missouri music teacher

Crow, a Missouri native, took a job teaching grade school music after she graduated from the University of Missouri, and sang in cover bands at night. Through a musician friend, she eventually got a gig singing in a McDonald’s commercial, which she says paid more than her first two years of teaching — and convinced her to move out to LA to chase her dreams.

She was once linked with Michael Jackson in the press

One of Crow’s first music industry jobs was as a backup performer on Michael Jackson’s “Bad” tour in the late 1980s, during which she would duet with Jackson on the song “I Just Can’t Stop Loving You.” She became somewhat friendly with Jackson, and he invited her to his hotel room to watch old movies. Jackson would have Bubbles the chimp with him, she says: “It was crazy.” Photos of the two onstage were used in the press with headlines suggesting they were an item — which they never were. “I was pretty naive, but I still thought it was so weird that Michael had a couple little boys with him on the road at different times,” she says. “Now knowing what is alleged, it makes me sad for the life he had. Obviously, it makes us all sad for the children. It’s just devastating to even think about.”

Jackson’s manager allegedly sexually harassed her

Frank DiLeo, Jackson’s manager, took a liking to Crow and her singing voice and wanted to work with her, she says. But his help came with conditions; he would allegedly frequently make unwanted advances, a pattern she documented not-so-subtly in her song “What Can I Do For You”: “I have so much to offer/If you just be nice/If you do what I say/And don’t make me say it twice.” It ended up on her 1993 debut album, “Tuesday Night Music Club.” 

When she tried to get legal help, she was turned away

Crow says she reached out to a high-powered attorney in LA with her concerns about DiLeo, telling him that the manager had threatened she would never work in the industry again if she spoke out against him. “I’d been told I needed to watch my back,” she says she told the attorney. “And at the end of our meeting, he said, ‘Look, you’ll come out ahead if you just stick it out. There are people that would die to be in this situation.’ ” Crow says the dismissal sent her into a tailspin. “I just sunk into the darkest, most depressed place. Just disappointment at the way the real world worked.”

She appeared on the short-lived musical series ‘Cop Rock’

Before it folded after only 11 episodes, Crow snagged a role in the finale of this ill-conceived 1990 musical police procedural; “Sheryl” shows a clip of a big-haired, cardigan-wearing Crow singing and dancing down a hallway.

She was accused of driving an author to suicide

When her first album took off, Crow was invited to appear on “Late Show With David Letterman” in 1994. It was her first talk-show appearance, and Letterman invited her to sit and chat after she performed. He asked her if her song “Leaving Las Vegas” was autobiographical and, she says, she became flustered and told him it was. In reality, she’d co-written the song with collaborators and got the title from the novel “Leaving Las Vegas,” by John O’Brien. A few weeks later, the troubled O’Brien killed himself, and his death was linked to Crow’s misstatement. It’s the one time in the documentary she’s overcome with emotion and breaks down.

She stood up to a Walmart ban of her album

In the song “Love Is a Good Thing” on her eponymous 1996 sophomore album, Crow’s lyrics included: “Watch out sister, watch out brother/Watch our children while they kill each other/With a gun they bought at Walmart discount stores.” She says in “Sheryl” that she was told by Walmart to change the lyrics or leave off the song, or they’d refuse to sell it. She kept it on, saying that their insistence made her feel more strongly about making an anti-gun statement — even if it made it harder for people in places like Kennett, her Missouri hometown, to buy the album.

Lance Armstrong proposed to her after he was busted for doping

Crow dated pro cyclist Lance Armstrong for three years, starting in 2003. When doping allegations began to swirl around Armstrong, Crow says they had a major blow-up — which he followed by dramatically proposing to her with a huge diamond ring. “It was what I wanted,” she admits in the documentary, “but not like that.” The two subsequently broke up.

She turned to Bob Dylan for help with writer’s block

When she was going through a period when she couldn’t seem to get any songs finished, Crow turned to Bob Dylan, who had become a friend, thinking that the veteran musician must have gone through some similar bouts. She called him and told him she had spent eight months unsuccessfully trying to finish an album. “That’s not good,” he told her, she relays in the doc. Had he had experience with this, she asked? His answer, to her chagrin: “No, never!”

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Inside Sheryl Crow's Little-Known History With Michael Jackson

This article includes allegations of sexual harassment .

With a career spanning three-plus decades, nine Grammy Awards , and a long list of achievements, singer Sheryl Crow has created a legacy that will very well outlive her. Originally from Memphis, Crow grew up listening to sounds from artists like Al Green and Otis Redding, both of whom would influence her earliest style of music. "So when I first started singing, when I moved to L.A., what I was doing was, you know, basically soul music and really could not get arrested by a record label," she told NPR in 2010. "So I just felt like it was really time to get back to doing — to making a record that was solidly committed to my earliest influences."

Over the years, not only has Crow recorded impressive success and achievements, but she had proven herself versatile, swinging from rock to pop and of course most recently, country music. Crow is simply not one to be undermined. And even though the singer has hurdled through a fair share of challenges in her career, she refuses to back down. "There have been moments where I've felt like I've really been not taken seriously, that I've been overlooked, that I've been an outsider into the cool club," she said in an interview with CBS News . "And maybe that's why I'm still going, you know?"

Outside of her impressive career, however, Crow has a history with some of the industry's biggest stars including all-time King of Pop, Michael Jackson.

Sheryl Crow once worked with Michael Jackson

Long before she became a Grammy Award-winning singer, Sheryl Crow worked with Michael Jackson back in the '80s. Per the  New York Post , during Jackson's "Bad" tour in the late 1980s, Crow served as a backup performer for the King of Pop. Famously, during the tour, Crow joined Jackson on stage for a duet of his 1987 track "I Just Can't Stop Loving You." Crow did not just work with Jackson, however, they became friends at some point during the tour.

In " Sheryl " a 2022 documentary chronicling her life, Crow commented on the pop singer's child sexual abuse allegations, while also recalling her time with him offstage. "I was pretty naive, but I still thought it was weird that there were a couple of little boys on the tour with him," Crow admitted, per the  New York Post . "Now knowing what is alleged, it makes me sad for the life he had. Obviously, it makes us all sad for the children. It's just devastating to even think about."

But despite what might have gone down on that tour, Crow remains grateful for the experience. "It was incredible in every way, shape, and form for a young person from a really small town to see the world and to work with arguably the greatest pop star," she told The Independent.

Sheryl accused Jackson's manager of abusing her

While gracing the stage with arguably the biggest music star in the world at the time, an upcoming Sheryl Crow was facing a big problem behind the scenes, something that apparently posed a threat to her career which was only just starting. Michael Jackson's manager Frank DiLeo was interested in her. In an interview with The Independent, Crow shared her terrible ordeal, explaining that DiLeo sexually harassed her with the promise of a successful career if she gave into his advances. On the flip side, if she refused, DiLeo threatened to make sure Crow never went far in the industry. A scared and confused Crow later reached out to a lawyer, who, according to Page Six , encouraged her to accept the advances. This unpleasant experience, it appears, would end up inspiring her 1993 track "What Can I Do for You."

And while she would rather put the memories behind her, Crow is determined to share her story however possible. "It felt really uncomfortable, but it felt, to me, so much more empowering to be able to talk about it and then play the music that was inspired by it," she said in her 2021 audio memoir . "Isn't that what music is really for? To help us work through whatever our experiences are, and hopefully for the collective to find their own situations in your music too?"

If you or anyone you know has been a victim of sexual assault, help is available. Visit the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network website or contact RAINN's National Helpline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673).

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Sheryl Crow: ‘We’ve come a long way since the sexual harassment I endured during the Michael Jackson tour’

As she prepares for a live-stream concert from her home in nashville, having retired from making albums, the singer-songwriter tells kevin e g perry about her difficult memories of touring with michael jackson, sexism in the studio, and why she almost didn’t release ‘all i wanna do’.

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I n 1987, a 25-year-old backing singer and aspiring songwriter from Missouri gatecrashed her way into the Los Angeles auditions for Michael Jackson’s first ever solo world tour. “Hi Michael, my name is Sheryl Crow and I just moved here,” she announced. “I’m a former music teacher and I would love to go on the road with you.”

A month later Crow was onstage at the Korakuen stadium in Tokyo, her ears filled with the deafening roar of 75,000 fans. It was the first of 123 concerts over the next 16 months, during which she performed in front of a staggering 4.4 million people. Each night Crow, wearing a bustier and voluminous Eighties curls, harmonised with Jackson and shared the limelight on songs like “I Just Can’t Stop Loving You” and “Man in the Mirror”. It should have been a dream come true.

“Naiveté is such a beautiful thing,” says Crow, now 59, a nine-time Grammy winner and one of the most successful artists of her generation. She is speaking on a video call from her home in Nashville, her bedroom walls behind her filled with the art and arcane curios she collects from around the American south. An acoustic guitar lies at rest on the antique couch by her bed. “It was incredible in every way, shape and form for a young person from a really small town to see the world and to work with arguably the greatest pop star,” she says. “But I also got a crash course in the music industry.”

As the tour progressed, tabloids around the world reported rumours that Jackson was falling for his “sexy backing singer” and even that he had offered her $2m to have his child. In Crow’s audiobook memoir Words + Music, released last September, she states her belief that these stories were most likely to have been planted by Jackson’s manager, Frank DiLeo, “to make Mike look like he was interested in women”.

In truth, it was DiLeo who was interested in Crow. He subjected her to sustained sexual harassment throughout the tour, promising to make her a star while threatening that if she refused, or told anyone, he would ensure her career was over before it had really begun. She had never spoken in detail about her experiences with DiLeo prior to Words + Music, but two songs on her 1993 debut album made reference to him: “What I Can Do for You”, written from the perspective of a powerful abuser, and the stream-of-consciousness “The Na-Na Song”, which includes the defiant couplet: “Frank DiLeo’s dong / Maybe if I’d have let him I’d have had a hit song”.

Having announced that her eleventh album, 2019’s Threads, would be her last, Crow has spent the pandemic at her 50-acre home – which includes a full-scale recording studio over the stable where she keeps her horses – reacquainting herself with these songs and with the rest of her formidable back catalogue. On Friday 18 June, she will perform an intimate solo show titled The Songs & The Stories, live-streamed to the world from the church she built in her backyard, during which she will play her music and offer insights into how and why it was written.

“It’s really interesting to go back and revisit some of this old stuff and the experiences that went along with it, and then to compare it with where we are now,” says Crow. “To be able to play that stuff about the long bout of sexual harassment I endured during the Michael Jackson tour and to talk about it in the midst of the MeToo movement... it feels like we’ve come a long way, but it doesn’t feel like we’re quite there yet.”

Words + Music , she adds, “ was the first time I’ve ever talked about it and it felt really uncomfortable, but it felt, to me, so much more empowering to be able to talk about it and then play the music that was inspired by it. Isn’t that what music is really for? To help us work through whatever our experiences are, and hopefully for the collective to find their own situations in your music too?”

When the Michael Jackson tour ended in 1989, Crow returned home to her tiny LA apartment and fell into a lengthy period of depression. A high-powered attorney she’d hired told her she should have put up with DiLeo’s advances given what he could offer her. From the inside, the music industry didn’t look anything like she’d expected.

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“You move to LA thinking you’ve done all your homework,” says Crow, counting off the steps of her journey on her fingertips. “You’ve practised your whole life, you’ve listened to the greatest artists, you’ve played in coffee bars, and then you get out there and you learn: ‘Okay, this is how the music industry works: a corporation buys so many records. It puts you in the top 10. We take your publishing.’ It was disillusioning. I think when your dream bubble is burst you either go: ‘Okay, well, I’m going to forget that dream,’ or you do what I did, which was wallow in it for about a year, and then you pull your bootstraps up and you get back to work.”

I wish I knew what made for a hit song because I would just do that every day

In 1993, Crow’s then boyfriend Kevin Gilbert introduced her to a group of musicians who met every Tuesday at producer Bill Bottrell’s studio in Pasadena. After some productive early sessions, Bottrell agreed to produce a solo record for Crow, Tuesday Night Music Club, which was released in August that year with songwriting credits split among the group. The record received little fanfare until the release of its third single in April 1994, the irresistible “All I Wanna Do”. Surprisingly, it was a song Crow hadn’t initially wanted on the album. “Aren’t all the best songs the ones you go: ‘Nah, this one will never…’?” asks Crow with a self-effacing laugh. “I wish I knew what made for a hit song because I would just do that every day and buy big houses everywhere, but I didn’t know!”

It was Crow’s younger brother Steve who convinced her to put “All I Wanna Do” on the record, reasoning that it was his and his friends’ favourite. Crow’s reticence stemmed in part from the fact that she didn’t write the lyrics, which are taken almost verbatim from a 1987 poem called “Fun”. “It was a strange coming-together of a song,” she remembers. “We jammed up this track and I had a book of poetry in front of me by this guy Wyn Cooper. I started reading it and created the chorus and then thought: ‘Well, I’ll go back and I’ll rewrite the words,’ which I did like five times and nothing ever felt the same. I thought: ‘I’ve had to work too hard on this thing, it can’t be that good!’ Then lo and behold… You just never know what’s gonna resonate with people, and that was definitely the anthem of the moment. What a gift!”

“All I Wanna Do” changed everything for Crow. A massive international hit, it propelled Tuesday Night Music Club to sell 8 million copies worldwide, won her a trio of Grammy awards in 1995, and made her one of the most recognisable artists in rock. Still, even this monumental success was soon soured by the men involved. Acrimonious disputes about who had written what devolved into sexist rumours that Crow was merely the front for the men’s talents, stories she now calls “beyond insulting”.

She decamped to Kingsway Studio in New Orleans with Bottrell to work on the follow-up record, but after a boozy 48 hours the producer disappeared, never to return (“I guess for personal reasons,” offers Crow). She called on an old songwriting buddy, Jeff Trott, and when they started writing together he suggested a chorus to her. It went: “If it makes you happy / Then why the hell are you so sad?”

“I loved it,” remembers Crow. “I’d just come off the heels of a very successful first record and had a lot of people who were betting against me, including the people that had contributed to the record. It was such a celebration of just taking the weight off of having to follow up that record. We just closed the door and said ‘F-you’ to everything and everybody. We were like kids in the basement: ‘We’re gonna do what we want to do and we may never put this out.’ It was really sheer joy making that record.”

Her 1996 album Sheryl Crow, eponymously named as a deliberate reintroduction, spawned the hits “If it Makes You Happy”, “Everyday is a Winding Road” and “A Change Would Do You Good”, proving beyond any doubt that Crow is very much her own talent. In Bottrell’s absence she produced the record herself, assisted by Kingsway engineer Trina Shoemaker. In 1998, Shoemaker became the first woman ever to win the Grammy for Best Engineered Album, for her work on Crow’s next record, The Globe Sessions. “I can unequivocally say that had Trina not been there, I wouldn’t have made the records that I made,” says Crow. “I mean, it really came in handy that the album did well because it certainly bolstered our argument that women can do as well in the studio as men can.”

The album also showcased the fearless political streak that runs through Crow’s music. It was banned from sale in Walmart stores across America because of a lyric on the song “Love is a Good Thing”, which she refused to change: “Watch our children as they kill each other / With a gun they bought at the Walmart discount stores”. Another track, the scathing protest song “Redemption Day”, was written after Crow played a USO (United Service Organisations) show to American peacekeepers in war-torn Bosnia and was struck that there had been no equivalent intervention by the US in the Rwandan genocide. “At the time it was pretty graphic to see dead bodies in Rwanda on TV and to know that no one was stepping in to defend these people,” she says. “That was the impetus for writing the song.”

It took on a life of its own. Years later, in early 2003, Crow received a call from Johnny Cash to ask if he could record his own version of “Redemption Day”. He quizzed her at length about why she’d written each line before recording his version, shortly before his death. For Crow, having Cash want to record her song and invest himself in it so deeply was the highest accolade she could imagine.

But the song wasn’t done with her yet. In 2019, Crow came to the decision that she no longer wanted to make albums, figuring that listeners to streaming sites cherry-pick tracks anyway, and preferring the immediacy of putting out punchy singles like last year’s anti-Trump broadside, “In the End”. To mark her final record, Threads, she rounded up friends and heroes to collaborate with, including Stevie Nicks, Keith Richards, and even ex-boyfriend Eric Clapton. The album’s centrepiece, however, is her hair-raising reworking of “Redemption Day” as a duet between herself and the late Cash’s inimitable vocals. “I think that to be able to sing that song posthumously with Johnny Cash has been the biggest gift of my entire career,” she says.

Crow, like Cash, is a child of the Mississippi Delta. She was born and raised in Kennett, Missouri, a city of just 10,000 people that lies – as she reflected in the title of her 2010 rhythm and blues album – 100 Miles from Memphis. She grew up surrounded by music. Her parents, Wendell and Bernice, were in a swing band together and would often play late into the night while Crow and her siblings slept on the stairs so they could eavesdrop on the party. Their house contained no fewer than six pianos.

“My mom was a piano teacher and she was very forward-thinking,” explains Crow. “She had group lessons where she’d have four kids at a time in the music room, and then there’d be the piano in the living room that we practised on. It would all be going on all the time. I attribute some of my ability to hear myself in the world to just being able to pick myself out of all that random chaos.”

Chaotic it may have been, but that maelstrom of sound and passion forged in Crow a belief in the power of music strong enough to withstand the realities of how cruel, corrupt and abusive she learned the business could be. It’s why she’s so excited this week to be going down to the little church she built for herself as a place of inspiration and meditation, to play her songs for as many people as want to hear them.

“Whether 10 people see it or 10,000 people see it, for me it’s essential that I connect to something bigger, to remind myself of what music is and what art is, and why I’ve built my whole life around it,” she says. “There’s something baptismal about it for me, to connect to something that is not definable but that definitely changes the molecules for all of us.”

Crow moves her hand over her heart as she sets out the tenets of her faith. “Music and art: it’s what will get us through all of these really strange times,” she says with conviction. “Something that penetrates and resonates in that same spot in all of us.”

Sheryl Crow: The Songs and the Stories global live-stream takes place on 18 June. For viewing times and tickets visit http://driift.link/SherylCrow . Crow’s new live album ‘Live From The Ryman And More’ is released 13 August

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Sheryl Crow speaks out on the 'long bout of sexual harassment' she says she faced from Michael Jackson's manager

• Sheryl Crow was featured in a new interview with The Independent on Saturday. 
• Crow said she was sexually harassed by Frank DiLeo, Michael Jackson's manager.
• Crow, 59, toured with Michael Jackson in the late 1980s as a backup singer. 

Sheryl Crow opened up about the sexual harassment she said she faced from Michael Jackson's late manager in the late 1980s. 

On Saturday, The Independent published an interview with Crow that explored sexism in the music industry and the early days of her career. Crow, 59, recalled when she auditioned as a backup singer for Michael Jackson's 1987 "Bad" world tour.

"Naiveté is such a beautiful thing," Crow told the publication. "It was incredible in every way, shape and form for a young person from a really small town to see the world and to work with arguably the greatest pop star. But I also got a crash course in the music industry." 

Crow said that tabloids at the time pushed rumors that Jackson had fallen for his "sexy backing singer" and had offered her $2 million to have his child. But Crow said that Jackson's manager, Frank DiLeo, was the one who was interested in her. 

Crow told The Independent that DiLeo sexually harassed her throughout the tour, promising to make her a star while threatening to end her career if she refused or told anyone.

Crow has never given explicit details about the incidents, but she referenced DiLeo on two songs from her debut 1993 album, "Tuesday Night Music Club." "What I Can Do for You" was written from the perspective of an abuser, and "The Na-Na Song" mentions DiLeo by name. 

"Frank DiLeo's dong / Maybe if I'd have let him I'd have had a hit song," Crow sang. 

Related stories

Crow told The Indepent that her 2020 Audible Original " Words + Music" was the "first time I've ever talked about it and it felt really uncomfortable, but it felt, to me, so much more empowering to be able to talk about it and then play the music that was inspired by it."

Crow told Billboard in 2019 that DiLeo filed a lawsuit against her for the references in the two songs, but he died in August 2011 before it could get far.

"Frank DiLeo ... filed a lawsuit against me. Then he died of a massive coronary," she said. Crow also told Yahoo News in September 2020: "At the time when I spoke about it, yeah, I got myself into some trouble. And then I wouldn't say luckily, certainly not for him, but Frank passed away. So whatever legal ramifications died when he passed away." 

Representatives for Crow did not respond to Insider's request for comment in time for publication.

Crow said she returned to her Los Angeles apartment after Jackson's tour ended in 1989 and fell into a "lengthy period" of depression.

"You move to LA thinking you've done all your homework," said Crow. "You've practiced your whole life, you've listened to the greatest artists, you've played in coffee bars, and then you get out there and you learn: 'Okay, this is how the music industry works: a corporation buys so many records. It puts you in the top 10. We take your publishing.' It was disillusioning."

Crow added: "I think when your dream bubble is burst you either go: 'Okay, well, I'm going to forget that dream,' or you do what I did, which was wallow in it for about a year, and then you pull your bootstraps up and you get back to work." 

Crow later emerged as a successful musician with nine Grammy awards. 

More than three decades after the tour ended, Crow said it was "really interesting" to look at those early experiences through the lens of the MeToo movement. 

"To be able to play that stuff about the long bout of sexual harassment I endured during the Michael Jackson tour and to talk about it in the midst of the MeToo movement ... it feels like we've come a long way, but it doesn't feel like we're quite there yet," said Crow. 

• Main content

Sheryl Crow On Michael Jackson's Death: ‘It Just Makes My Heart Sick'

Published june 26, 2009 • updated on june 26, 2009 at 2:00 pm.

Sheryl Crow toured with Michael Jackson for nearly two years in the late 1980s on the singer's "Bad" world tour and also appeared in the video for "Dirty Diana."

In looking back at her "surreal" time with the King of Pop, Sheryl said it would have been difficult to imagine Jackson becoming an old man.

VIEW THE PHOTOS: Michael Jackson & His Superstar Friends

"For a moment there, I kind hoped that he'd staged his own getaway," Sheryl told CNN's Anderson Cooper during a phone interview Thursday night after news broke that Jackson died at age 50. "He's got a lot of gigs coming up and the pressure of that, and I thought maybe he'd just staged a getaway. And when the news really started trickling in…it's just, it's makes my heart sick."

Sheryl explained that she found it hard to foresee Jackson aging into his golden years.

VIEW THE PHOTOS: The World Remembers Michael Jackson

"It's tragic at 50 he's gone," Sheryl said. "But did we ever think he was going to grow to be an old man before our eyes? It would have almost been too surreal."

Though Sheryl's heart aches with his passing, she said she looks back on her time spent with the pop star with great joy.

"I can't explain to you how much of a life [changing experience] it was for me to sing with him. There's no way to express how amazingly talented this person was, because, not only had he been doing that quality of work his whole life, but he created dance moves that nobody had ever seen before, and to create something that no one has ever imagined is quite a gift," she continued, adding, "He has literally inspired Usher and Justin Timberlake and every young artist who has come along."

VIEW THE PHOTOS: Michael Jackson: The King Of Pop

She describes her time spent on Jackson's "Bad" tour as unlike anything she'd ever experienced, especially the time spent alone with the pop star.

"It was really surreal. I was lucky in that I got to hang out with him on a number of occasions by myself," she recalled, "He invited me to his hotel room in Tokyo and we watched 'Amos & Andy' videos and the movie 'Shane,' just completely unexpected. He was funny, he had a big laugh, he loved practical joking and I can remember vividly going to Disneyland and going on a ride with him and he wouldn't let the ride stop and by the end of it I was just absolutely ill. And he thought that was the funniest things he'd ever seen."

Sheryl said that she worried about the pressure mounting on Jackson surrounding his 50 sold-out shows at London's O2 Arena, which were to begin in July.

"I think he felt pressure in every way. He had been under real scrutiny for the last 10 to 15 years. He'd been in real financial trouble. This was sort of a comeback for him. And that's got to be an immense amount of pressure," she told Anderson, adding, "I'm going to mourn his loss just like millions and millions of other fans out there, and I'm grateful for a brief moment in my life that I got to stand on stage nightly and watch him sing 'Human Nature' and 'Billie Jean' and do those moves and sing those incredible melodies, that were original to him… I'm sad and grateful at the same time."

Related Content from AccessHollywood.com : PLAY IT NOW: Jermaine Jackson Press Conference On Michael Jackson's Death (June 25, 2009) PLAY IT NOW: Remembering Michael Jackson (1959 - 2009)

MORE ACCESS ON THESE TOPICS: Michael Jackson - Sheryl Crow - Pop - Usher - Anderson Cooper

"When I say it was a shit gig, they were literally throwing faecal matter from the porta-potties they'd turned over": Sheryl Crow on a lifetime of battles, triumphs, hardships and hopes

As Sheryl Crow airs her most socially charged songs yet on new album Evolution, she looks back on her long and winding road

It’s difficult to believe we’ve had the pleasure of Sheryl Crow’s company for three decades now – not least to the singer-songwriter herself. “I’ll be honest with you, I don’t know if anybody ever really feels their age,” she considers. “I mean, I’m sixty-two and I need to get my lips done, I need to get a little facelift. But unless I’m looking in a mirror, mentally I feel like I’m about thirty-six.” 

Talking in the music room of her home in rural Nashville, sitting in front of a rack of vintage acoustic guitars befitting the queen of heartland roots rock, Crow is everything we need right now from our rock stars. Witty, articulate, informed and inquisitive, she is nobody’s vacuous pin-up. She has opinions: on gun control, climate change, military conflict, the Presidential election, the insidious rise of AI and what it might mean for her two teenage sons. 

Ask her and she’ll talk about all of it (the only subjects we’re told are off the table today are her shift in the 80s singing backing vocals for Michael Jackson’s Bad tour, and her much-raked-over split from disgraced cyclist Lance Armstrong). That readiness to stand up and be counted came from her formative years, she says, still talking with a Midwest drawl. 

Sheryl Crow was born on February 11, 1962 in Kennett, the largest city of the so-called Missouri Bootheel. A classic overachieving middle child, her prolific contribution to life at Kennett High School saw her compete as an all-state track athlete and join the National Honor Society. But it was the combination of her parents’ politics and her musical talents that set her path.

Your biog makes you sound like the dream teenager – sporty, clever, popular… 

Oh, I was perfect [laughs]. No, I was a people pleaser. I think I wanted my parents to really like me. It was all about making good grades, being in student council and the Honor Society. I felt like love was attached to being good, being smart, being liked. Years of therapy had to un-ingrain [the idea] that love is not attached to anything. That everybody deserves to be loved, whether or not you get Fs in school and smoke weed. That love is not something you earn. 

And I don’t fault my parents for that. I took on that persona and I ran with it until I was famous. At a certain point, you realise: “Wait a minute, I can stand up here in front of a hundred and eighty thousand people at a festival and walk away not feeling loved. What’s wrong with me? Do I not feel like I’m deserving?” So I was a good kid. But then when I hit my thirties I let it all hang out. I’d been a pretty good girl up until then – then the partying started.

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Looking back now, how would you describe your parents?  

They were musical and they played together in a swing band on the weekends. I think my dad really would have liked to have been a professional musician, but he got his degree in law and he was a very Atticus Finch [figure], very much about the judicial system. My mom was always an activist. When I was growing up in the late sixties there was a lot of racial and social unrest, and she’d be active in church and taking care of older people. 

I think you model to your kids how you see the world, and that was so much in my DNA. My dad was a conservative and my mom was a liberal, so I grew up with them having strong debates about politics. That also informed me about the way the world should look. 

As a kid, when did it become obvious that music would be your road? 

I have vivid memories of my mom and dad having friends over. They’d be drinking and they’d be like: “Come here and play that James Taylor song for everybody!” And I’d be like: “Ah, I don’t wanna do that!” I can actually remember playing My Love by Paul McCartney – and my dad being so angry. That was my first bit of censorship. He’s like: “Do you know what that song means, young lady?” And I was like: “No, I don’t know what it means, dad – I’m twelve.” I remember being the sort of party trick as a kid. Y’know, bring her out and have her play something on piano.

When did the wider world realise that you had a talent? 

When I got to the University Of Missouri and started playing keyboards in bands, I started getting noticed more. But I did not ever want to be Crow a frontperson. I remember my college professor saying that I was never going to be a great classical pianist, because I could play pieces by ear. He said: “You will be a great pop player, but you will never make it in the classical world.” And I knew that. I knew the dedication it took to be a concert pianist was definitely squashed by the fact I could play the piece relatively okay after hearing it a few times.

Even after graduating college, there was no indication of the heights to come, with Crow working as a music teacher, gigging on the weekends and recording a string of sometimes banal but often lucrative advertising jingles. By 1987, it seemed her best hope might be fame by association, with Michael Jackson’s Bad tour seeing her duet with him on I Just Can’t Stop Loving You . 

But, as she remembers today, Crow craved a career on her own terms. She moved to Los Angeles in her late twenties to shop her material around, before falling in with the West Coast songwriting collective who performed on (and inspired the name of) her 1993 solo debut Tuesday Night Music Club .

You worked on some advertising jingles. Which was the strangest one you did?  

One of the very first things [jingles] I did was for McDonald’s, and I had to impersonate a singing cow. I had to do several different voices, singing ‘ Ee-i-ee-i-o ’. It was for a campaign where you’d get a toy farm animal with the Happy Meal. 

Why do you think you weren’t satisfied just being a jobbing musician? 

I don’t know if I was dissatisfied. I think I just always had a burning desire to be [more]. And I’m sure it has to do with my upbringing. I grew up listening to artists who for me were important. I remember listening to great songwriters and rock stars, from Fleetwood Mac to Stevie Wonder, James Taylor, Carole King, Elton John , Bob Dylan , Joni Mitchell . That’s what I wanted to be. I wanted to write important things, and I wanted to be important. I didn’t want to just be good – I wanted to write music that mattered. Everything else was just something that led up to that. 

How did you feel as a newcomer in Los Angeles when you moved there? 

The first thing I did was pick up a Thomas Guide map and get a book of all the studios in the greater Los Angeles area. Then I took my demo tape to every single one and said will you please ask whoever to listen to this. I was very naïve. The city looked giant to me. I’d only been there once before. Suddenly I’m there, driving my own car, I don’t know where anything is, I don’t know anybody. 

It felt huge and glamorous and full of rich people. I’d never seen Rolls Royces and Mercedes before. I’d see these huge homes everywhere, then I went and crawled into my tiny studio apartment. Once you’re there for a while, the chasm between the wealthy and very-not-wealthy becomes not only overwhelming but really depressing. But I mean, I just figured it out. 

Every artist has horror stories of being rejected by record labels. Did that happen to you, and what reasons did they give? 

Oh, after I came off the Michael Jackson tour I played for everybody. I think, because of the notoriety of that tour, everybody was hoping I was going to be Madonna or Paula Abdul. And I didn’t want to be those. I wanted to be more like Stevie Nicks or Linda Ronstadt, and that wasn’t what was ‘it’. So I got a lot of development deal offers, but everybody turned me down.

Finally you got signed to A&M Records. But in 1992 your debut album was shelved. How devastating was that for a young artist?

Well it wasn’t devastating, because I didn’t want them to put it out. I was the one who went to them and said: “I feel like this isn’t the right record. I have one shot, and if this comes out, then I’ll be done.” To A&M’s credit, they did not put it out – they ate the four hundred thousand dollars. But I sat around for quite a long time, and started hearing that I was about to be dropped.

And at that time I fell in with Bill Bottrell, and started making the Tuesday Night Music Club record. By the time I made that first record I was twenty-eight. Y’know, I can remember the Rolling Stones saying to me: “If you’re thirty-five in rock’n’roll, you’re not in rock’n’roll any more”.

Do you remember the first time you performed live under your own name?  

It was at this club just south of LA. I was opening for John Hiatt, who was pretty big at the time. Even though I had a band, and I’d been playing some gigs, this was the first full-length gig. I invited the guys from the Tuesday Night Music Club to come sit in. And we were terrible – and John Hiatt was so mad. It was like a party. Everybody was drinking and talking on stage, when I was supposed to be opening up for this other artist. After that I was like: “Okay, I gotta get my shit together.”

We think of Tuesday Night Music Club now as a smash hit, but it wasn’t an immediate success. It took the All I Wanna Do single to light the fuse . 

It was fantastic when that record exploded, but it was very arduous up to that point. Because we had been touring in a van, and we had travelled everywhere. The first two places that ever played the record were Colorado and France, so it seemed like we were either in Colorado or France at all times. 

Then when we had a full-fledged hit on our hands we had to go out and tour it again. So we had two years on that record. And by the end of touring a record for two years, you really want to shoot yourself in the foot and say: “I’m done.” So when I went in to make the second record [1996’s Sheryl Crow ], I was very over the first one. 

At the time, I was like: “If I never play these songs again, I’ll be happy.” Nevertheless, the gift of that first record was [incredible]. I’m playing that music still, and very grateful for it. I think about a song like All I Wanna Do – which for years I just dreaded playing – and in hindsight there was a moment where I could look at that song as being attached to the infinite opportunities it brought me. When that thing took off, we toured in Japan, Singapore, Russia, Israel – and they knew every word, even if they didn’t speak English. And what can do that? A song can.

From the mid-90s into the early millennium, Crow was a stone-cold superstar, releasing a stream of multiplatinum records including Sheryl Crow (1996), The Globe Sessions (1998) and C’mon, C’mon (2002). A lesser artist might have kept their head down and enjoyed the success, but Crow was already airing her political views – and suffering the fallout, while struggling with an unregulated tabloid press.

That second album caused controversy because of a line from Love Is A Good Thing : ‘Watch our children while they kill each other, with a gun they bought at Walmart discount stores.’ Do you think artists have a duty to speak up politically? 

I don’t think they have a duty. I do miss that you can’t do it any more because you have to be concerned about your following. Certainly, when I was coming up in the business, I didn’t have a physical documentation of losing fans, or hearing how much they hated me. And there was a gift in that, certainly. But I grew up listening to great writers who wrote songs that got played on the radio that were about stuff. From Buffalo Springfield to Marvin Gaye, I mean, these were big hits and they were antiwar, they were about race relationships. I miss that. 

Almost any song I hear on the radio now is about sex, at least in the pop world. And then in country you hear this false narrative about America. I’m just like: “Where are the truthtellers?” Well, they’re probably not gonna get played on the radio, and I don’t know if they’re gonna ‘trend’ anywhere. I don’t know how any of that works any more. But to me, writing is my safe place, it’s my therapy, it’s my love, it’s my release. 

Your performance at the ill-fated Woodstock 1999 festival was soured by sexist cat-calls from the crowd. What do you remember about that day? 

I have jarring memories of it. It’s funny, you can have an amazing gig and remember very little about it. And when I say it was a shit gig, they were literally throwing faecal matter from the porta-potties they’d turned over. And it was a very sexist atmosphere. It was a debacle. 

Watching the documentary [ Trainwreck: Woodstock ’99 ], you realise: “Okay, all things that are money-driven are going to wind up being a shit-show.” Everything is about intention. If you start out with the intention being bringing people together in the spirit of Woodstock, it would have been a completely different scenario. They got what they got.

Which tracks from your first few albums would you put on a jukebox?  

Oh gosh. Maybe the obscure songs. I think every artist wants to play the song that tells the tale of their parts – and those are generally not the hits. I mean, I’d say that My Favourite Mistake , from The Globe Sessions , would be on the jukebox, because I still enjoy playing that song and hearing it when it comes on the radio. 

There’s also a song on that record called Riverwide that is very Appalachian-meets-Zeppelin. I love playing it. But people in the audience kinda look at me like: “What is she doing right now? I’m gonna grab a beer…” 

Yeah, I mean, there’s a song on every record where I feel like: “Okay, this is the summation of my existence” – and those are generally the songs where people go to the loo.

Every young band and artist thinks attaining massive success will make all their dreams come true. Is that how you found it?  

Oh no, I didn’t find it that way. I found it to be very confusing. Because one day you’re struggling to get on top, then within what feels like a week you’re on top, and then there’s this crazy hysteria to rip you apart. I think if you’re an artist – which already dictates that you’re a pretty sensitive person, at least in my case – I could read a review and it might be glowing, but there might be two negative comments, and those would stick with me far more than any of the accolades. 

I think kids now are more able to navigate the fame thing, because they go in to become famous, and then everything serves that purpose. But for me, like I said, I wanted to be great. I wanted to write great music, I wanted to be the best musician I could be, I wanted to be important. And at the end of the day, you realise: “Wait a minute, I need to reassess what this means to me.” 

I remember Chrissie Hynde talking to me when I was making the C’mon C’mon record, which was killing me – I’d spent a ton of money on it and just couldn’t seem to finish it. She was like: “Music is not your life, it’s something that you do.” And she told me about taking time off to raise her kids and then coming back. She’s like: “This is something that should give you joy”. It took that moment – and struggling up to that moment – for that to have meaning for me.

You’ve been open about struggling with depression around the turn of the millennium. How bad did things get?  

It was pretty bad. For me, there were maybe three occasions where I had to get very tangible, like, stop everything and get help. I’m not ashamed to say it, and I’ve been lucky that I had people around me who were not afraid to ask how they could help, my manager being one of them. 

Are you glad social media wasn’t around to document those times? 

Honestly, if I had to live in a fish bowl like people do now… I wouldn’t be able to. 

Did you experience those kind of intrusive moments that haunt the biggest stars – fans hammering on the car windows and so on? 

Yeah. I think the one that illustrates it best, though, was when my high-profile engagement [to Lance Armstrong] broke off in 2006, and six days later I was diagnosed with breast cancer. And the paparazzi were outside, shooting into the house, trying to get me looking forlornly out the window or something. I couldn’t go for a jog in the neighbourhood without them running after me. 

At a certain point, it did make me feel like: “Who are we as humans if what sells these magazines that everybody is buying is seeing somebody at their lowest moment?” And it wasn’t long after that that I wound up moving to Nashville. I felt like I could protect myself better there and I could feel better about what life is supposed to hold. 

Your collaborators from that period include Prince, Keith Richards, even Johnny Cash. What are your favourite memories? 

That would have been the one argument for having a cell phone – all the selfies. Prince was everything you hoped he would be. Larger-than-life. A great hang. A smart guy. Perhaps the finest musician I’ve been around. Y’know, the guy has a basketball court next to his studio – he’s shooting in high heels. We recorded in his studio, and then he’s like: “Let’s go downtown.” We go to First Avenue, and we kick the band off and we play. He was that guy. He was unpredictable. And if he picked you, that was like the height of a compliment. I still listen to his music and get off on it. I’ll still go out and jog to Sign O’ The Times. The guy’s a genius.

Even now, you get the sense that Sheryl Crow is still questing. As a Nashville resident and lifelong fan of artists like Gram Parsons, Emmylou Harris and the Flying Burrito Brothers, her swerve into country music with 2013’s Feels Like Home felt more honest than calculated. But she grew frustrated with country radio’s gatekeepers, and has seemed more comfortable since returning to her roots with 2017’s Be Myself , setting in motion a late-period run that includes this year’s Evolution . It’s a record with heavy themes that you can dance to, we suggest, and Crow doesn’t disagree.

What was the thinking behind having your country period?  

I wanted to stretch myself. I also loved the idea of only playing on the weekends, because I had two little baby boys. And that’s what country artists do. But you can’t break into that world, even if your music was inspired by country artists that these young people don’t even know. So it was a great exercise, and I do feel like some of the songs on those records are really well crafted. But it’s not completely authentic to what I do. I think my reaction to that experience was making Be Myself – and literally writing and recording it in three weeks. 

You’ve won nine Grammy awards. How much does receiving awards mean to you? 

My thirteen-year-old came into the piano room the other day, and on the top shelf are my Grammys. He said: “Mom, you should have a trophy case.” And I was like: “Nah.” Let’s face it, I’ve gotten to stand on stage with Eric Clapton and sing with Johnny Cash . That could not be moulded into a piece of bronze and have as much meaning as being there. At the end of your life, I think it’s the people and the moments, not the awards. 

You said that 2019’s Threads would be your last album. How come you’ve just released Evolution ? 

You can’t believe anything that comes out of my mouth. Everything I’ve said in this interview has been a lie. No, I did say that, and for good reason, in that I do think making an album is, I would say, an overindulgence. But really what I mean is a complete and total waste of time and money. Because people don’t listen to a full body of work, with a beginning, middle and end. This record, though, I had seven songs I sent to Mike [Elizondo, producer], and in the course of that we wrote a couple more, and it was like: “Well, we have an album.” It just felt like a collection. 

‘Evolution’ is a fascinating album title. But it doesn’t seem like you’re necessarily happy with the direction that human evolution has taken? 

Well, I guess I’m asking the question: where are we going? I’m the mom of two teenagers, and I ask the hard questions. Like, why are we in this position? The planet, environmentally, is in grave danger. We’re in all of these wars. And people seem to hate each other in this country. And then you plop in the middle of all that, the advent of AI. Y’know, that is going to be a part of our every waking moment. And for artists it’s terrifying. So I guess it just asks the question: at what point are we going to return to soul, spirit and truth from lies?

Why do you distrust AI so much?  

It’s interesting, because years ago [theoretical physicist] Stephen Hawking predicted that it wouldn’t be the climate that would be the demise of mankind, it would be AI. Well, at the time, I was testifying before Congress about stopping global warming and working on climate change and blah-blah-blah, and I was, like: “AI? I don’t even know what that is.” And we’re here now. 

I started reading about it, and thinking this is dangerous territory for artists. Because if you have AI programmes that can write lyrics for you – or you pay five dollars and have John Mayer sing your demo, and you won’t be able to tell the difference – then where are we going? 

Obviously, we’ve seen what happened with Taylor Swift. You have to ask at what point are we going to stand up, as a people – fuck politics, our government is not going to do anything about anything. Will we stand up and say: “Wait a minute, this is dangerous?” I mean, it’s one thing to find a cure for cancer using AI, but it’s a different thing to start bringing people back from the dead, like George Carlin, and having Taylor Swift looking like she’s a porn star.

Tom Morello plays the guitar solo on the title track. What was it like working with him?  

I love Tom. I’ve known him for years. He is a person who stands up for what he believes in and shows up to causes. He’s just a good dude. We were both inducted at the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame this year, so I got to give him a big hug and tell him how much it meant to me. The way he played was his interpretation of what AI looks and feels like. He nailed it. He gave a complete visual and physical feeling of the chaos that will ensue, through his guitar solo. I will be very curious to see if anybody I ever play that song with can nail his guitar solo. I don’t think so! 

Which other themes came up for you when making this album? 

Well, one of the early things I sent Mike was a song called Broken Record . Right down the street is where the school shooting happened here in Nashville, and I was quite vocal about how it’s time for [stricter] gun legislation. And just the hate, and the death threats, and the vitriol that I received on social media, it was shocking. And that song is a response. 

I had reached out to a bunch of country artists and said can we get in a room and talk about where we meet. And I got nothing. So that’s what Broken Record is about. It’s like, people who are sending out Christmas cards with their family holding guns. Why would you want to do that? I feel like the whole record is full of questions. Like: who are we? 

It’s election year in the US. Do you have hope? 

Errrr… I’m scared. Honestly, there’s just so much to fix. My feeling about where we’re at – and it’s probably true of every country – is that there’s too few making too much money. And that’s what’s running everything. That’s what’s running the narrative. That’s what’s keeping people down, making people believe in a tyrannical candidate. It’s a strange time. It’s almost like we don’t see the fact that the people that are making money – that are doing anything to keep the power – are keeping everybody else down.

The intro to Alarm Clock almost sounds like a teenage garage-punk band. Why do you think you still haven’t mellowed?  

That was a fun day. I said: “I want to write about how I hate my alarm clock, because when it goes off, all that beautiful dreaming about floating on a yacht, y’know, it all stops.” Mike banged out this groove and it just fit the song. 

One of the beautiful things about making this record was I kinda treated it like a gift that I was giving myself. I didn’t have the grinding of teeth that I usually have when I’m producing or tracking myself. This was like a kid in a garage with a bunch of motorcycles, and: “What shall we throw together to make this thing run?” 

I’ve always said that I feel my best work is still in front of me. You have to be able to let go of wanting it to be successful. You reach a certain age, and in this climate, with streaming and everything, you doubt you’ll be heard, and then all the parameters are off. But also, you’ve got all this fire in your belly, and all these things you want to write about, because you’re watching how it affects your kids.

Despite those heavy themes, it doesn’t feel like a doomy record. 

Subconsciously I love being able to talk about the reality of being alive – but not make you want to jump out of a window. Even a song like All I Wanna Do , which was dressed up with the most fun Stealers-Wheel-meets-Marvin-Gaye [sound], is pretty sardonic. And that’s good. It’s good to have all things be a part of the trip through the lyric. 

Could you have been anything else, in a parallel universe? 

I’m not built that way. I love the idea of parallel universes, I’m open to any crazy, cosmic, mind-blowing theory. But I guess one of the reasons I don’t think in that context is because I don’t feel like I’m very good at anything else. I’m not a great cook. I don’t think I’d be a great wife… I get bored too easy. 

Who do you think is a great model for a late-period career?  

Well, Bonnie Raitt won the biggest award at the Grammys last year. That’s a great career. Emmylou Harris, when she did that Daniel Lanois record [Wrecking Ball] and the two records after that, I was just like: “Woman! Your writing now is just incredible.” I was like: “Y’all give me hope that there’s no reason to stop just because you’re over forty, over fifty, or even over sixty.” Touring-wise I’m gonna keep going as long as I can. There is the pitfall of who wants to come see a seventy-year-old woman perform. But people want to see Madonna. So I don’t know. I just try not to limit my thinking. 

When you look back on your career, have you had some fun? 

I’ve had the most fun. I’ve had some of the funnest evenings, the funnest early mornings. All of it. I feel like I’ve had several different lives. Y’know, there was the Hollywood period where I would have tons of parties at my house, with people like Warren Beatty, Jack Nicholson, the Rolling Stones and John Travolta. I look back at that and I go: “Who was that person?” And now I’m raising two boys, and we laugh and play disco music while we’re cooking. That is what I call the infinite possibility of life. 

Evolution is available now via Big Machine.

Freelance writer for Classic Rock since 2008, and sister title Prog since its inception in 2009. Regular contributor to Uncut magazine for over 20 years. Other clients include Word magazine, Record Collector, The Guardian, Sunday Times, The Telegraph and When Saturday Comes . Alongside Marc Riley, co-presenter of long-running A-Z Of David Bowie podcast. Also appears twice a week on Riley’s BBC6 radio show, rifling through old copies of the NME and Melody Maker in the Parallel Universe slot. Designed Aston Villa’s kit during a previous life as a sportswear designer. Geezer Butler told him he loved the all-black away strip.

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Sheryl Crow saw “really strange” things during her time as Michael Jackson’s backing singer

"It was a crazy experience. "

Sheryl Crow has recalled how she saw “really strange” things during her years working as one of Michael Jackson’s backing singers.

The country legend, 57, says that while she’s not planning to watch the documentary Leaving Neverland , which details multiple allegations of Jackson’s sexual abuse of children, she has “lots of questions” about the star’s apparent behaviour.

Crow scored an early career milestone as she worked as a backing singer during Jackson’s 18-month Bad tour in the 1980s before subsequently starring in his music video for ‘Dirty Diana’.

In a new interview with The Telegraph the singer said: “I haven’t seen the documentary and I don’t want to see it. I was around for some things that I thought were really strange and I had a lot of questions about.”

While Crow failed to elaborate on the comments, she also admitted to feeling “starstruck” for the first time while she performed alongside Jackson in huge venues across the globe.

“It was a crazy experience. I mean, he the biggest star of a generation and I got to sing a duet [I Just Can’t Stop Loving You] with him every night for 18 months.”

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This comes after Jackson’s accuser Wade Robson criticised MTV’s decision to keep an award named after the late popstar in the wake of resurfaced allegations.

Robson was one of the figures who spoke out against Jackson in the controversial film  Leaving Neverland  earlier this year. The documentary, which  split opinion when part one aired in the UK earlier this year , focuses on testimony by Wade Robson, 36, and James Safechuck, 41, who both claim that Jackson sexually abused them when they were children.

“I don’t personally need MTV to do one thing or the other, but as child abuse survivors all over the world watch to see whether society will support them or not if they have the courage to come forward, in that regard, it’s an unfortunate choice,” Robson told TheWrap .

Jackson denied any wrongdoing before his death in 2009, while  his family and estate continue to fight against the allegations . Last month, fans filed a lawsuit against the alleged victims in Leaving Neverland .

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• Michael Jackson
• Sheryl Crow

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Sheryl Crow says Michael Jackson's manager sexually harassed her

For the first time, crow opens up about her experiences on tour with jackson.

Sheryl Crow was 25 when she auditioned to open for Michael Jackson ’s first solo tour. Opening for the King of Pop on his 1987 Bad world tour , she performed before tens of thousands of fans every night, sharing the stage with the biggest star in the world. But in her new memoir, Words + Music , Crow divulges the harassment she experienced from Jackson’s manager Frank DiLeo, who died in 2011 at age 63.

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In an interview with the Independent , Crow says that she sustained near-constant sexual harassment with DiLeo, who attempted to bully her into sexual situations through threats of career sabotage. In the press, Crow says, DiLeo planted stories about her, enacting revenge for denying his advances. Crow didn’t speak out publicly at the time but worked her experiences into her music. Two songs on 1993 debut feature allusions to DiLeo. “What I Can Do For You” is written from an abuser’s perspective, and “ The Na-Na Song ” mentions him by name with the lines: “Frank DiLeo’s dong / Maybe if I’d have let him I’d have had a hit song.”

“It’s really interesting to go back and revisit some of this old stuff and the experiences that went along with it, and then to compare it with where we are now,” Crow told Independent. “To be able to play that stuff about the long bout of sexual harassment I endured during the Michael Jackson tour and to talk about it in the midst of the MeToo movement... it feels like we’ve come a long way, but it doesn’t feel like we’re quite there yet.”

Things didn’t improve when the tour ended. At every turn, Crow’s accusations were dismissed. One instance, she recalls, involved a high-powered lawyer telling her that she should have given in to DiLeo’s demands. She was depressed and disillusioned, down but not out. She says:

You move to LA thinking you’ve done all your homework. You’ve practiced your whole life, you’ve listened to the greatest artists, you’ve played in coffee bars, and then you get out there and you learn: ‘Okay, this is how the music industry works: a corporation buys so many records. It puts you in the top 10. We take your publishing.’ It was disillusioning. I think when your dream bubble is burst you either go: ‘Okay, well, I’m going to forget that dream,’ or you do what I did, which was wallow in it for about a year, and then you pull your bootstraps up and you get back to work.

The interview tracks numerous instances of the blatant sexism that Crow experienced throughout her career, including fighting over the writing credits to “All I Wanna Do, ” which Crow called “beyond insulting.”

[via Independent ]

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Sheryl Crow talks about alleged sexual harassment on Michael Jackson’s tour: 'Come a long way'

Grammy-winning singer-songwriter opens up about sexual harassment she faced early in her career.

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When Sheryl Crow toured with Michael Jackson in 1987, she reportedly experienced harassment from the pop star’s manager.

Crow was only 25 years old at the time when she took on the backup singing gig, according to The Independent – a British online newspaper.

The singer and songwriter told the news outlet she experienced sexual harassment from Jackson’s manager Frank DiLeo, who would have been 39 years old at the start of the " Bad World Tour " in September 1987.

SHERYL CROW ADDRESSES MICHAEL JACKSON SEX ABUSE ALLEGATIONS: 'I'M MAD AT A LOT OF PEOPLE'  

Crow’s allegation comes nearly a decade after DiLeo passed away at age 63, and nearly 12 years after Jackson passed away at age 50.

"Naiveté is such a beautiful thing. It was incredible in every way, shape and form for a young person from a really small town to see the world and to work with arguably the greatest pop star," Crow told The Independent. "But I also got a crash course in the music industry."

Before Sheryl Crow (left) was famous, she was a backup singer for Michael Jackson (right) during his Bad World Tour in the late 1980s. (Pete Still/Redferns)

Crow, 59, claims DiLeo repeatedly approached her with quid pro quo offers to make her a star. She also says he threatened to ruin her career if she reported him or spoke out about his advances.

SHERYL CROW TALKS BEING A SINGLE MOM: 'IT WOULDN'T HAVE BEEN MY FIRST CHOICE'  

However, this isn’t the first time Crow has opened up about the harassment she faced early on in her career.

In 1993, Crow namedropped DiLeo in the sixth song from her 1993 album "Tuesday Night Music Club." The 3-minute and 12-secone tune " The Na-Na Song " mentions Jackson’s former manager near the end of her third verse. 

"Clarence Thomas organ grinder Frank DiLeo's dong," Crow sings as a dig to DiLeo. "Maybe if I'd him I'd have had a hit song."

SHERYL CROW ON TRUMP'S PRESIDENCY: 'I FEEL SAD FOR THE PEOPLE THAT VOTED FOR HIM'  

The singer also talked about the alleged harassment in 2017 as a way to support the #MeToo Movement .

"A manager on my first big tour as a backup singer. When I went to a lawyer he told me to suck it up bc the guy could do a lot for me," Crow wrote at the time. "...so I wrote songs about it on my first record."

In her interview with The Independent, Crow says she thinks sexual harassment is taken more seriously in recent decades, but there is still room for improvement.

"To be able to play that stuff about the long bout of sexual harassment I endured during the Michael Jackson tour and to talk about it in the midst of the #MeToo movement... it feels like we’ve come a long way, but it doesn’t feel like we’re quite there yet," she told the news outlet.

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Jackson and DiLeo parted ways in February 1989, according to the Los Angeles Times . 

The pop star isn’t the only big name DiLeo has worked with. Other stars who collaborated with the talent manager include Prince, Jodeci, Cyndi Lauper, Ozzy Osbourne, Gloria Estefan and Bon Jovi guitarist Richie Sambora.

By 2007, DiLeo had founded DiLeo Entertainment Group in Nashville, which was a talent management company that was meant to launch the careers of young artists, according to Music Row .

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Despite the hardships Crow has faced, she grew to become a global star in her own time. She’s won nine Grammy Awards out of 31 nominations, and has sold more than 50 million albums worldwide.

Cortney Danielle Moore is a writer on the lifestyle team at Fox News Digital and FOX Business.

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Safechuck recalled in the disturbing documentary being groomed and abused by Jackson as a little boy. Robson made similar allegations.

Jackson’s family members have been adamant that the star was innocent of all claims. In 2005, Jackson was acquitted on all charges related to the alleged sexual abuse of a 13-year-old boy.

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