SOUNDTRACK: SHERYL CROW-Tiny Desk Concert #919/Tiny Desk Fest October 29, 2019 (December 2, 2019).
This Tiny Desk concert was part of Tiny Desk Fest, a four-night series of extended concerts performed in front of a live audience and streamed live on YouTube, Twitter and Facebook.
Back in October, NPR allowed fans to come watch some Tiny Desk Concerts live. October 29th was pop rock night featuring Sheryl Crow.
I had tried to get tickets to the Tiny Desk Fest. Possibly on this night, although really I wanted the indie rock night. If I had gotten tickets to this night I would have been a little bummed to find out it was Sheryl Crow. I did like her many years ago, but I basically grew disinterred in her after her first couple of albums.
However, this set proves to be a lot of fun. Her old songs sound great, the new songs are fun and her voice sounds fantastic.
“I heard a big thing on NPR about the shrinking of the attention span and how now, with pop songs, everything has like six seconds before you gotta change it, because the kids swipe over,” Sheryl Crow tells the crowd early in her Tiny Desk Fest concert. “I’m just gonna tell you right now: We’re dinosaurs. … And while the kids are all writing fast food — which is super-cool ’cause it tastes great, super-filling — we’re sort of still writing salmon. We’re the songwriters that are here to tax your attention span.”
She opens with “All I Wanna Do”
Twenty-five years ago this fall, Crow was in the midst of a massive career breakthrough: Her inescapable hit “All I Wanna Do” was entrenched in the Top 5 — it would later win the Grammy for Record of the Year — and her 1993 debut album, Tuesday Night Music Club, was well on its way to selling more than 7 million copies in the U.S. alone.
Gosh it seems way more than 25 years ago to me.
I get a kick that she starts the song by saying “This ain’t no country club. This ain’t no disco. This is Tiny Desk.” The songs sounds terrific. It holds up well and feels rejuvenated with some amazing pedal steel from Joshua Grange. Surprisingly, the song doesn’t finished, it just jumps right into “A Change Would Do You Good.” This song is one of several that feature nice keyboards sounds from Jen Gunderman (who also provides backing vocals). Sheryl hits some nice high notes and there’s a great slide guitar solo from Peter Stroud.
She played some songs from her new album. Introducing “Prove You Wrong,” she says this song features Stevie Nicks and Maren Morris. They’re not here but were gonna play it anyway. This song is remarkably country-sounding with some bouncy country bass from Robert Kearns. There’s also a honky tonkin’ guitar solo form Audley Freed and a more rocking guitar solo from Stroud.
She wrote some songs with Chris Stapleton, like “Tell Me When It’s Over.” This opens with a little drum fill from Frederick Eltringham. It’s got a surprisingly disco feel in the middle of the song with some real old-fashioned keyboard sounds.
Fifteen years ago she moved to Nashville to quite out the noise–you know the noise of the world. She says NPR is calming. There are tiny desks everywhere with good people sitting behind them telling the truth at their tiny desks. This is an introduction to “Cross Creek Road” an Americana song with solos from first Stroud and then Freed.
She continues saying that things are crazy these days and its hard to raise kids telling them you’re not allowed to lie, truth matters, be nice to one another, be empathetic and then having to turn off the TV if the news comes on. Her nine year old asked her if the apocalypse was real, which freaked her out until she realized he was watching a zombie movie. This
“Out Of Our Heads” proves to be a good old-fashioned campfire sing along.
The set ends with “If It Makes You Happy.” She starts it slowly in an improv way, but when everyone kicks in it sounds pretty darn nice (although maybe a little slow). I really like the keys that sound like flutes in the middle.
The blurb says she performed two unexpected encores. I assume we heard them but they just cut out the intervening clapping? Either way, it’s a really great set and shows that Crow still has it.
[READ: December 2019] Moone Boy: The Fish Detective
This second book has an introduction from the imaginary Friend just like the first one. It invites you to put your feet up (but not on the book unless you enjoy reading through your toes) and to have a snack (the red bits on the cover taste like strawberries).
The book opens with the explanation that Martin Moone doesn’t handle the calendar very well–he doesn’t like long stretches of time on between holidays, so he divides the calendar into “yections:”
- Boxing for Love: St.Stephen’s Day to Valentine’s Day
- Lovefool: Valentine’s Day to April Fools Day
- Fools’s Gold: April Fools Day to 20th May (my birthday when I always ask for gold gifts)
- Golden Days: 20th May to end of term
- Days of Wonder: summer holidays!
- Wonder What Happened to the New School: start of term to 5th November
- Why Won’t It End: 5th November to Christmas Day
We were in the last yection–it was 50 sleeps til Christmas and Martin wondered if his parents had thought of a good present for him. They said they were torn “between getting you new school trousers or fixing the sink in the bathroom. You love that sink, don’t you?”
Then Martin gives the crux of this book: For Christmas he wants a Game Boy.
That seems unlikely to happen so maybe Martin could get a job. He thinks he’d like to a be a bin man. But the actual bin man says you’re not exactly a man are you? It’s in the job title after all. (more…)
Like this:
Like Loading...
Read Full Post »
SOUNDTRACK: hiatus
