Sheryl Crow: Home to the Heartland

The title of one of Sheryl Crow’s most popular songs is “Every Day Is a Winding Road.” In many ways the title describes Crow’s nineteen-year journey on the way to becoming one of America’s most honored female pop artists. Now, after seven gold and platinum studio albums, collaborations with some of music’s most celebrated artists, and nine Grammy awards from thirty-two nominations, the pride of Kennett, Missouri is coming home to the Heartland. Crow will bring her driving pop/rock/country Friday, June 22 to Walker’s Bluff along with special guest Brandy Clark.

Crow celebrates the journey of her life in her latest studio album, One-hundred Miles From Memphis, released in 2010. The album is as diverse and eclectic as Crow, celebrating her roots in the earth along the backroads that stretch the distance to Memphis that lie between Crow's sleepy midsouth birthplace and the home of the blues.

Crow starting to write songs and play in her own band by the time she graduated from Kennett High School in 1980. She attended Southeast Missouri State University in Cape Girardeau, graduating in 1984 with degrees in music and education, all the while playing with the band she founded, Cashmere, in Saint Louis.

Crow moved to Los Angeles in 1986 and quickly found work as a writer and singer of advertising jingles. During that time she began recording demos of her own songs and landing jobs as a backup vocalist-- including, in 1987, for Michael Jackson’s Bad world tour. By the end of the 1980s she had backed up Sting, Rod Stewart, and Don Henley.

In 1991, Crow signed to A and M records. That same year, she joined the popular L.A.-based Tuesday Music Club. With help from that collective, Crow released her first CD, Tuesday Night Music Club, in 1993. On the strength of Crow's first million-selling single, "All I Wanna Do," the album shot to number one and achieved platinum album status.

In addition to music, Crow, who celebrates her fiftieth birthday in 2012, wrote If It Makes You Healthy, a vegetarian cookbook named after one of her hit songs, "If It Makes You Happy." She also teamed with Oscar-winning writer/director Barry Levinson to bring his classic 1982 coming-of-age dramady Diner to Broadway; the show, which features a score crafted by Crow, will open in New York this fall. A breast cancer survivor, Crow recently was diagnosed with a benign brain tumor.

Now, as she celebrates a two-decade journey that has taken her around the world, Crow brings it back to where it started: the Heartland.

Tickets start in price at $55. For tickets, visit <http://SouthernTicketsOnline.com>, call (618) 453-6000, or stop by any Southern Tickets Online walkup location, including Shryock Auditorium, McLeod Theater, and Walker's Bluff General Store. There are no service charges for in-person purchases, though phone and online purchases will carry charges ranging from $1 to $1.50.

For more about Sheryl Crow, visit her website at <http://www.SherylCrow.com>.

who: Sheryl Crow / Brandy Clark

what: original rock / country-western

where: Walker's Bluff

when: Friday, June 22