Sheryl Crow & Friends: Live From Central Park - Crow, Sheryl (CD 1999)

I listened to my first sheryl crow song under strange
circumstances -- a friend of mine handed me a tape one
day , saying 'listen to this b[i]tch, she knows how to
rock...', the song was 'all i wanna do...'. I listened
to it and i agreed with my friend the b[i]tch did know how
to rock [sounds familiar ?? eh ... a kid knows to rock
so they call him KidRock -- maybe sheryl should be called
B[i]tchRock ??]. Soon this took over all the radio channels
and we all knew who Sheryl Crow was..., point made..
Then came out "the globe sessions .." which in my opinion
was a very good follow up...then for a while i never
heard anything about sheryl crow....
Then i saw this live album -- "Sheryl crow and friends
at central park ..." -- since i am undying fan , i had
to buy it....
There are no new songs on this album -- what is really
good about this album is we get to hear sheryl crow classics
sung by lot of other nice people. No.1 on my list would
be Stevie Nicks [ the greatest b[i]tch-rocker of them all ??].
For those who dont know about stevie nicks she just happens
to be one of the greatest singers of all time [in my books]-
who used to sing for one of the greatest friggin' groups of
all time -- Fleetwod Mac. she belts out "Gold Dust woman "
with such force , that i always do a cd-repeat on that song -
unfortunately [i feel] she has been under-used on this album.
Another song brilliantly done is by the -Dixie chicks-
[i love these gals] - who outdo sheryl crow on "Strong Enough"
Though again only Natalie maines comes through "Strongly" -
both Martie Siedel and emily robinson have been underused.
Then we have the never-aging-pilgrim-turned-driver-to-the-king
eric clapton belting out the cream classic "white room" with
sheryl crow.
From some reliable sources that i heard - the concert at
central park was actually a wash-out [it rained heavily
and the concert started late....(i do hate these pompus rockstars
..)]. the cd is a much much better deal -- even some of the
sheryl crow classics sound much better than the originals --
"Everyday is a winding road...", for one -- and of course , the
one i liked really much better than the orig. -- "All i wanna
do.." - she actually says ..."this is new york city..." instead
of "this is LA ..."on the original [God,i hate LA anyways].
Then theres this funky version of "Tombstone blues .." [the bob
dylan classic ] with all the ladies contributing their voices to
this number , with the now-on-dentures rolling stone kieth richards
contributing the guitars , many of my friends panned this version
of the song -- but i love it...
Kieth Richards contributes his shaky voice "Happy" in the most
God-Awful song on this cd.
"The globe sessions" had a slow song called "The difficult
kind.." , on this cd the same song is sung by the highly
under-publicised Sarah Mclachlan [i can never spell the 2nd name
properly ...he he] & Sheryl crow . The real surprise was "If it
makes you happy" which has been sung by somebody called Chrissie
Hynde ,i 've never heard of hear but she can sing meanly,believe me.
"It dont hurt ", "My favourite mistake" "Leaving las vegas" and
"There goes the neighbd" also feature on this and the live versions
are well worth listening to and different enough to have in a separate
CD.
All i can say sheryl crow has come a long way since being MJs
backup singer -- this cd is a must if you are a fan of sheryl crow.
And a must buy if you have never listened to sheryl crow --- BUY
IT NOW...
The production quality is excellent [thanks to good ole "scooter"
weintraub] & the album starts of appropriately enough introduced by
the live MC :
"welcome to our hostess, the Queen Of Rock N Roll -- Miss Sheryl Crow."