Were this the 1970s — when the Nashville sound leaned heavily on polished productions dense with orchestration — “Waterproof Mascara” would be the lead track on side two of Sheryl Crow’s new album. And, for that matter, it probably wouldn’t be Crow singing this tale of heartbreak. The singer expressing sorrow for a son who has been abandoned by his father would be Tammy Wynette or Loretta Lynn or Bobbie Gentry.
Instead it’s Crow, stepping deep within a genre that has always been on the fringes of her work. Her first album for Warner Bros. is her first to specifically target the country marketplace, and “Waterproof Mascara,” the first song Crow wrote with the two crucial advocates behind her attempt to crack country playlists, Chris DuBois and Brad Paisley, is a bold step in “classic country.” It’s thick on strings, twang, swelling vocals and emotional despondency.
“Once we wrote ‘Waterproof Mascara,’ that was the springboard and what I held everything up to,” Crow says of the dozen songs on “Feels Like Home.” “I still feel it’s the cornerstone of the record-it directed what the record was going to be.”
Crow took the plunge into writing and recording at a time when she was no longer under contract with Universal Music’s A&M, which released her seven studio albums and two live records during the last two decades.
“There wasn’t any pressure,” she says from Minneapolis before taking the stage for a breast cancer awareness benefit. “I wanted to make a record that I loved and then see if I could get a record deal.”
Once finished, she says, “we took the temperature of the labels and got great feedback. It was exciting to play for people in the business who really love songs and songwriting. The country format is really all about that, and it has been a really long time since I have had that experience.”
Warner Nashville president/CEO John Esposito, who spends the summer running the label out of his home on Nantucket, Mass., became aware of Crow’s new work in late July 2012 thanks to a phone call from DuBois and Paisley. Once Esposito returned to Nashville, Crow and her producing partner Justin Niebank brought a half-dozen songs to him and Warner Nashville senior VP of A&R Scott Hendricks.
“I’m looking over at Scott and I’m trying to stay cool,” Esposito recalls. “We walked out the door and we both said, ‘Oh, my God. We’ve got to have her on our label.’ It was absolutely better than we imagined it would be.”
And for Crow, country was the one genre that could get her back on the radio. “The kind of music I make does not fit in at pop or whatever other formats there are now. Country is where you hear traditional songwriting, which has always been my go-to.”
In talking to Crow and Esposito, it becomes clear that Crow is about six steps deep into a smart and thorough transformation into a bona fide Nashville player.
Here’s what she’s done:
1. Move into the community. Crow made Nashville her home about six years ago. “She has been embraced by the community,” says Esposito, himself a New York transplant. “When Blake Shelton and Miranda Lambert heard we were considering signing her, they both offered to write with her and record with her. If the artists in this town embrace her, then we have to take that to country radio and explain there is no carpetbagger here.”
2. Find creative individuals ensconced in Nashville. It started with Paisley, who urged her to try country at the 2010 Country Music Assn. Awards, and continued with DuBois. Besides Paisley, she wrote with Al Anderson, Chris Stapleton, Luke Laird and Natalie Hemby, and recorded two songs she didn’t write. “People write in threes,” Crow says of another part of the process new to her, “and you have a much better shot at getting something recorded if it’s completed rather than just hanging around incomplete. I had never done that before. It was hard for me. It was hard for me to feel inspired by something I hadn’t come up with. I guess part of my training was just to learn how to redirect and not spend time on anything that wasn’t what I wanted to say.”
3. Work within the rules of Nashville. While Crow continued to co-write with longtime collaborator Jeff Trott, she expanded her world by bringing in multiple writers for the first time in her career. “One of the things Brad said when we first started talking about how to do this was, ‘Look, you already write songs that belong in the format. Now you need to turn the vocals up and write more direct, more specific stories. It’s got to be to the point.’ That’s one of the things that has been a real learning process for me as I write with other writers. They know how to craft a song so you get to the point. It’s been intimidating and, at the same time, made me a better writer.”
4. Find a traditional country model. Simply put, ’70s country. “It was part of the original discussion of what we wanted the record to sound like and feel like,” she says, citing Jessi Colter, Jimmy Webb and Billy Sherrill. “We wanted to stay true to the initial inspiration. One of the things about making this record was that it wasn’t that big of a departure from what I have done, but just being committed to the textures that exist traditionally in country music.”
5. Make friends at country radio. Crow has already completed one radio tour. “Bottom line, my record company was really surprised when I said, ‘I’ll do all the radio visits you want,'” she says. “I’m the new kid, and I do have to introduce myself. I don’t mind that. It’s great to do that after all these years.” Esposito adds, “She has been a pro and is out there like a woman who has never sold a record in her life. She is out there making friends and [it’s testimony to] her level of sincerity.”
6. Release a single that appeals to new and old fan bases. Esposito says that the song “Easy” was comfortable for both Crow’s fans and country radio. “We didn’t want to go and say, ‘Oh my, she’s taken a sharp left turn.’ It’s by no means safe, but it is a comfortable entry point. It’s gratifying to say we have four or five contenders for singles to follow it with. Right now the question is, ‘What’s the next one?'”
“Easy,” a pop-country confection about “staycations” that Crow wrote with DuBois and Trott, has sold 252,000 copies since its release on March 12, according to Nielsen SoundScan. It’s No. 19 on Billboard’s Country Airplay chart after 26 weeks on the tally, and found early adopters at WWKA Orlando, Fla.; KFRG San Bernardino, Calif.; KKBQ Houston; and KNCI Sacramento, Calif.
At the time it was released, Crow’s agents were booking her summer tour, which has only a handful of dates following the Sept. 20 release of the album. For Nederlander Concerts VP of booking Paola Palazzo, the country angle was added appeal.
“I was excited by her passion for this,” Palazzo says, noting that Crow’s management has smartly timed her tours through the years. “It’s her courage and willingness to cross over.
“I’m very much an optimist,” Palazzo says, “and when it’s something new for an artist, I ask, ‘What can we do with them?’ When we reached out to country radio they were open to it, so we were able to cross-market this show. That’s exciting when you can broaden your reach with an artist.”
In May, Crow began a tour of the East, South and Midwest, hitting such country music hotbeds as Nashville, Oklahoma, Texas and Virginia. Naturally, Crow wanted to gradually incorporate the new songs into her sets and shows this month, and next will include four or five songs from Feels Like Home.
Taking a pedal steel guitarist and mandolinist on the road, for example, is affecting the older material as well. “If It Makes You Happy,” she says, has lost its Rolling Stones flair in favor of a Flying Burrito Brothers feel. “Weather Channel,” “No One Said It Would Be Easy” and “Home” are among the lesser-known pieces from her catalog that have found spots in her set lists.
“Certain songs that would only turn on die-hard fans work well in this format,” she says. “‘Home’ is one that I think, in this configuration, is just transported. It’s been really inspiring to do.”
Esposito and Crow often refer back to her debut, 1993’s “Tuesday Night Music Club,” as they talk about the experiences surrounding the creation and promotion of the new album. That release, the result of Crow being able to discard a more pop-oriented record for a collection that grew out of weekly sessions with David Baerwald, Bill Bottrell, Kevin Gilbert and others, was a rare story of label tenacity.
The album was out for four months before it ever topped 1,000 sales in a week. It hit its chart peak, No. 3 on the Billboard 200, 19 months after its release. With 4.6 million copies sold in the United States, it is her biggest seller and contains her biggest Billboard Hot 100 hit, “All I Wanna Do,” which sat at No. 2 for six weeks.
Around the time Crow was cracking the top 10, Esposito was making the transition to PolyGram, which would merge with Universal, from retail chain the Wiz. Her song “Strong Enough” made him a fan at that time, and he feels it formed a benchmark for the new album’s material.
“It’s hard not to feel emotional when you hear the totality of that work,” he says. “The guitar playing, the vocal performance, the great songwriting-melodic with a very hooky chorus. And at the same time, she’s telling a compelling story. I thought that if she’s going to continue in that vein, storytelling with wonderful melodies and choruses, I need to hear the record.
“Sheryl and Justin had a pretty clear idea of what they wanted to hear on this record. I can’t tell you that we did much to help shape it at all. We made suggestions about an edit for a single and weighed in on the final song list — she recorded 17 songs and it has 12 — but Sheryl and Justin had done such masterful work, we were happy we didn’t have to influence it.”