25 Years Ago: Tragedy Surrounds Sheryl Crow’s Self-Titled Second Album.
Sheryl Crow’s discography has run the gamut. From country ballads to Stones-y rock to Dylan-esque folk, the singer-songwriter’s multiple genre-bending hits took her from small-town music teacher to the world’s biggest stages.
She first introduced herself via 1993’s Tuesday Night Music Club, with an ad hoc band of musicians including Bill Bottrell, Kevin Gilbert, Brian MacLeod, David Baerwald and others. Her debut spawned the smash hit “All I Wanna Do,” showcasing Crow as clever songwriter, but its collaborative nature meant that Crow still had some proving to do.
In the two years that followed, Crow and the rest of her initial collaborators fell away from one another.
She performed “Leaving Las Vegas” from Tuesday Night Music Club during a 1994 appearance on the Late Show with David Letterman and, in a moment of carelessness, said it was autobiographical. (The song was primarily written by Baerwald.) A grueling tour and a make-or-break appearance at the 1994 Woodstock festival brought Crow to the forefront of the ’90s, but the slip up on Letterman seemed to trigger a series of tragic events.
