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

What do you get when you combine nice vocals, great material, and Central Park full of excited fans? Well, there are several answers for this one, but I ll just focus on Sheryl Crow for now. Sheryl Crow may not have the world s best voice, but that doesn t mean it isn t pleasant. Not only that, she can write like nobody s business. Her lyrics mean more to most people because she writes about life, love, and actual feelings. Personally, I think that Sheryl is one of the most important and influential artists of our time. Many might disagree, but to me, it seems as though she writes not only for herself, but also for her fans. I won t make this into a praise Sheryl Crow epinion though, so you can breathe a sigh of relief :)

Since I plan on reviewing all of Sheryl s albums, I won t go into each and every song (thereby repeating myself), I ll simply point out the main highlights on this live album (and there are several). In this CD, Sheryl sings 10 of her top hits (and faves from her albums), and includes 4 songs from her guests. Joining her on several tracks are the following: The Dixie Chicks (Strong Enough), Stevie Nicks (Gold Dust Woman), Chrissie Hynde (If It Makes You Happy), Keith Richards (Happy), Sarah McLachlan (The Difficult Kind), and Eric Clapton (White Room). Unfortunately, I did not care for the non-Sheryl songs on the album, but you can just skip them (there s only 4 :)).

Even though Everyday Is A Winding Road and All I Wanna Do got a bit too much airplay, they seemed fresh and somehow new. She adds so much when singing live that you can tell she is enjoying herself singing just as much as you are listening. She plays around with the way she says the words and adds a little sass.

The songs that ended up sounding pretty much the same live as they did recorded are My Favorite Mistake, The Difficult Kind, Leaving Las Vegas. This doesn t mean that they are boring or anything, she just didn t elaborate or change the songs around. And for most of them, they were perfect just as they were: If it ain t broke, don t fix it. Then comes along a country song well, they are the Dixie Chicks. The change in music for Strong Enough was not at all drastic, just some different instruments used, they didn t make it into a hoe-down and square dance their way through the song. To me, the original was not as great as it could have been and the Dixie Chicks and Sheryl s live vocals really helped out the song a lot, in my opinion.

One song that I had already gotten tired of was A Change, not because it s a bad song, it s an excellent song, it s just that I had had it on repeat for a lot of days (I loved the song) and it was just bound happen. However, Sheryl made it so much better. She rocked that song out! She upped the tempo, had fun and just sang those lyrics and meant them. What surprised me the most about this live album is that with all of the songs I loved, she somehow made them better! This was something that just made me wonder what kind of talent she is blessed with. I LOVE: It Don t Hurt, If It Makes You Happy, There Goes The Neighborhood, A Change, and All I Wanna Do just the way they are. I saw that she included them and the first thing that popped into my head was, Oh yay, she picked these songs! Then it became, Oh no, she s not going to sing them as well as on the CD. Boy was I wrong! She made these songs a lot more fun and emotional and blew my socks off. He introduction for It Don t Hurt made me smile and then she voice made me listen VERY intently. She truly does not get enough recognition for her music talents. For If It Makes You Happy, she made me feel these lyrics just as I did when I first heard this song. I mean, sure the same emotion from her voice wasn t there, but just the fact that I was listening to sing her wonderful lyrics live made me shudder.

This ain t no country club
This ain t no disco
This is New York City

All I Wanna Do made me love it again and I would have given almost anything just to have seen her sing this song live. The end of the album, however, squeezed the guests songs too close to each other making it a bit irritating when trying to listen to JUST Sheryl s stuff. I thought it was a bit humorous to hear her say bye to the audience after each of the last 3 songs she kept on going and going. There Goes The Neighborhood was a perfect last song of hers to play, she rocked out Central Park and I could almost see her with her guitar putting her all into this second to the last performance. She ended with all her guests in Tombstone Blues, which is a good song, but I saw it as very out of place in a Sheryl album. By itself, it is an awesome song because they all pretty much get their own little part to sing and sing with their own style and make the song a lot of fun :).

I won't review the other non-Sheryl songs since this is a review ABOUT Sheryl and including them would only bring down the album, so I'll just leave that alone for now :)

In the end, you end up with a great live album with very few less great points. Sheryl shows us that you don t have to sing like Mariah or dance like Janet to put on a good show. I have a live Mariah album and as much as I love her, Sheryl s live album is superior. Sheryl s album is a lot of fun to listen to and makes you wish you could be there watching everything while screaming at the top of your lungs. Well, until then, I will just have to settle with this enjoyable album. Grade: A (a solid A)


Tracklisting:
1. Everyday Is A Winding Road
2. My Favorite Mistake
3. Leaving Las Vegas
4. Strong Enough
5. It Don't Hurt
6. A Change
7. Gold Dust Woman
8. If It Makes You Happy
9. All I Wanna Do
10. Happy
11. The Difficult Kind
12. White Room
13. There Goes The Neighborhood
14. Tombstone Blues