Sheryl Crow sounds right at home on her latest album, the 2010 pop- blues tribute “100 Miles From Memphis.” And she should.
Not only did Crow grow up in a small Missouri town roughly (yep) 100 miles from Memphis, but she was raised on the soul, R&B and blues that inspired her latest CD.
You might say Sheryl got her groove back, and this new material — along with the reworked older material — has the nine-time Grammy winner’s voice sounding better than ever.
“We’ve spent most of last year playing the record, playing 10 of the 12 songs, and people are on their feet the whole time,” Crow said from a tour stop north of Chicago. “A lot of people know the music already, and we’ve also worked up a lot of the hits in the tradition of what the new record is. I’m really enjoying myself.”
Crow, who closes out the Boulder Blues and Roots Summit tonight at the Boulder Theater, made her name on enjoying herself. “All I wanna do is have some fun,” she famously sang on her 1997 debut that sold 7 million copies in the U.S. alone. And fans have watched her mature and evolve — into the rocker chick, the pop-country crooner, the pensive folkie, and back into the pop-princess persona that broke her career wide open.
While this lastest transformation wasn’t a surprise, it was her most drastic. The new CD includes a couple of covers — Citizen Cope’s “Sideways” and Terence Trent D’Arby’s “Sign Your Name,” the latter of which features the vocals of Justin Timberlake. And her original jam, “Our Love Is Fading,” has been a big hit as her concert opener, she said.
Just as the music is different, Crow is also changed. She still has her fun, but now it’s oriented around a healthy lifestyle for her and her two sons.
“I have my kids out (on tour) with me, and we go out every morning — to museums and aquariums,” she said. “And then there’s lunch and naps and sound check and dinner and then they go to bed so Mommy can go to work. I’m very lucky that my real work starts after they go to bed.”
Touring with the kids keeps Crow happy, and touring with a personal chef keeps her healthy. After being diagnosed with breast cancer five years ago, Crow became a student of nutrition and wellness. She became friends with her tour chef, Chuck White, who was already incorporating what she was learning in his cooking.
“More than that,” Crow said of White’s food, “you wouldn’t even know you were eating healthy when he was cooking.”
The natural extension of Crow and White’s friendship is the month-old cookbook “If It Makes You Healthy,” a play off her hit ballad “If It Makes You Happy.” The book includes 125 seasonal recipes that are road-tested and Crow-approved. And the new diet — combined with the music, the kids and everything else — is working for Crow.
“I’m five years out,” she said, “and that’s a pretty good indicator that I’m done with the cancer. . . . I feel great.”
Ricardo Baca: 303-954-1394 or rbaca@denverpost.com; @RVRB on Twitter
SHERYL CROW.
Pop-blues. Boulder Theater, 2032 14th St., Boulder. 8 p.m. today. $78.25-$94.50
