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Sheryl Crow takes a good detour to Jones Beach

BY GLENN GAMBOA | glenn.gamboa@newsday.com

July 27, 2008

Singer Sheryl Crow speaks at a press conference before the 79th MLB All-Star Game at Yankee Stadium. (Getty Images Photo / July 16, 2008)

Sheryl Crow is a bit distracted.

The new man in her life - no, not Alex Rodriguez after the All-Star Game, you rumormongers, her 14-month-old son, Wyatt - is trying to get her attention.

"Thank you, sweetheart," she says, taking the book he hands her.

Crow has plenty to say and even more on her mind, but one thing she has learned from her recent upheavals is that life's everyday detours are OK.

"It's been an interesting couple of years and everything that happened then led to this record, so it's all on there," she says. "Interestingly enough for me, what revealed itself to me in the end is that no matter what you think your course in life is or how much you think you have everything under control, it's the detours that really inform who you are and what your life is gonna look like."

All her well-publicized twists led her to "Detours," arguably her strongest album since her Grammy-winning 1993 breakthrough, "Tuesday Night Music Club," as well as an early contender for this year's album of the year honors. "There were a lot of things that really informed this record," she says. "One of those being the experience I had the year before with having my public relationship fall apart at the same moment of being diagnosed with breast cancer. Then, of course, having a 3-month-old there, which I think rendered me completely openhearted.

"It would've been hard for me to go from being Mom to intellectual artist," Crow adds. "I was just an open book the whole time I was making the record. That really served me well."On "Detours," Crow focuses on her emotions, revealing them without the traditional rock star artifice or the songwriter techniques that makes them seem more distant. When she belts out "Diamond ring, should not mean a thing," she's clearly speaking for herself. Same goes for the pointed folk protest song "God Bless This Mess," where she accuses President George W. Bush of using the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks to lead the country "into a war all based on lies."

Singing out for truth

It's a new way of writing for her that she outlines on the sing-along "Out of Our Heads," with its hopeful chorus of "If we could only get out of our heads, out of our heads and into our hearts."

"I knew that 'Out of Our Heads' would mean a lot to me," she says. "I think that one in a real impactful way has kind of risen beyond the occasion, particularly with going through three years of primaries and listening to all these people talk and all the political pundits rant. You realize that with all that noise, that unless we turn off our brains and really start acting from our hearts, we're --, man.

"We've got to stop listening to all the noise and invest in ourselves and try to experience emotion and see where that takes us. I guarantee you if we were all investing in any way, shape or form in an emotional experience, we would not be in a war. We would not be allowing all the incredible incriminations that have happened with this administration. We would be fired up and we would be angry and we'd be alive and awake."

Crow says she recognizes her outspokenness may hurt sales and radio airplay of her album, which, despite critical raves, has only sold about 350,000 copies in the five months since its release. "People know the truth and they don't want to face it and there's a lot of fear about it," she says. "It would be harder for me not to put my political views out there, especially right now. And it would be hard for me not to put my personal experiences out there. I feel like having gone through breast cancer and having really redirected my life, has made me feel like it's the truth or bust."

Her 'little prince'

Crow is also open about her touring prospects, which may soon have to take a quick detour for a while because of Wyatt. "I know I can only do this for a couple of years," she says. "He's just turned 1 and he's into everything. We have the bus side popped out and the awning out and the baby pool filled and the lawn chairs out and right now he's the star of the show. Everybody in the band and the crew carries him around like he's a little prince and he's got like 39 surrogate dads. It's fantastic. We don't go to hotels. We just basically pull up to the gig and spend the day outside. It's idyllic.

"Will it be like this when he's 3 or 4? I doubt it," she continues. "And then he'll start going to school and stuff. But right now, it's great and I'm loving this experience. I'm loving having passionate music to play. ... It's just a big party."

WHEN&WHERE

Sheryl Crow plays Nikon at Jones Beach Theater, Wantagh, 516-221-1000, at 7 p.m. Monday. Tickets are $57.50-$77.50 through Ticketmaster, 631-888-9000.