With her almost casual reading and seductive timbre, Sheryl Crow evokes memories of tough yet sweet blues rockers like Bonnie Raitt, Lou Ann Barton and Angela Strehli. But Sheryl Crow is far too talented to be so easily pigeonholed. Tuesday Night Music Club is a successful debut, teeming with the musical curiosities you see far too little in contemporary pop, weighted by Crowe's talent to tell a
… story. From the Beatles influences in her ode to the freedom Run Baby Run, to the pedal steel in the gospel-like I Shall Believe: Sheryl Crow always brings her country influences in a post-modern way, for example in the moving No One Said It Would Be Easy. This sentiment never dominates, it is just one of the many flavors. Her stories are always layered, she uses metaphors from the world of gambling to describe a relationship, using themes such as duty and renunciation that also resonate in the jazzy We Do What We Can. Her protagonists have their ups and downs, but when songs like the surreal The Na-Na Song and What I Can Do For You make something clear, it is that the confrontation with evil can be confronted without perishing.more
