Griping about who the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame left out is almost as entertaining as watching who goes in. If Sheryl Crow wasn’t already on your wish list, she will be after watching a new documentary about her arduous journey to stardom.
The nine-time Grammy winner celebrates a career that is still going strong in “Sheryl,” which premieres this weekend on Showtime and is available on the channel’s app. The Ledge Amphitheater in Waite Park, Minnesota, will host her current tour on July 5.
“I’ve always felt like documentaries were told after someone has already gone on after a fiery plane crash,” Crow, 60, told TV critics during a virtual news conference in February. “It was my manager who has been with me from the very, very beginning who said, ‘You’ve got a powerful story. It’s time for you to tell it.'”
If the film had been longer than 90 minutes, the story would have been more compelling.
Crow claims to have been sexually harassed by a manager, but gives little details. Some of her best work is neglected, such as “Good Is Good,” “Steve McQueen,” and her cover of Cat Stevens’ “The First Cut Is the Deepest.”
Her relationship with disgraced cyclist Lance Armstrong receives nearly as much attention as a montage of her two adopted children. Her relationship with Eric Clapton isn’t mentioned. (Did her hit “Favorite Mistake” have anything to do with him? It’s possible we’ll never know.)
However, filmmaker Amy Scott devotes a significant amount of time to a handful of her subject’s more difficult moments, such as her appearance on “The Late Show With David Letterman” in 1994, in which she appeared to take entire credit for penning “Leaving Las Vegas.” Her collaborators were annoyed by the interview. The song’s title was given by novelist John O’Brien, who died three weeks later.
“I knew the Letterman sequence was going to be challenging. How are we going to handle this in a way that is honest?” asked Scott, who joined Crow in the virtual conference. “But when we got there, it felt honest because she was so vulnerable. If she hadn’t been, that would have changed the story and that would have changed my perspective on who she was.”
“It was difficult. I was sitting there for hours on end, and remembering and reflecting and revisiting was extremely emotional,” she said about the interview process. “I’m a woman. I’ve seen a lot of things change. I’ve also seen a lot of things not change very much at all. So, yeah, it was emotional. It was exhausting, and ultimately, it was really gratifying.”-Sheryl Crow said.
