Even before her own breast cancer diagnosis a decade ago, Sheryl Crow had been an advocate for awareness and research — and that advocacy has only grown since she was personally affected in 2006. With the start of Breast Cancer Awareness Month, Crow is getting personal for the cause again, this time inviting eBay for Charity into her own closet to auction off more than 100 items of clothing, with 100 percent of the proceeds going to Stand Up 2 Cancer.
“I live in Nashville now, so there’s not a great reason for me to have a lot of fancy clothes,” Crow tells Billboard about picking out which items to auction off. “I’ve got clothes that I’ve had through the years from different events and just different occasions overall. eBay has been very generous about working with us at the charity level, so this year, we decided we would do it for breast cancer awareness and we would team up with Stand Up 2 Cancer, which is a fantastic organization.”
Sheryl Crow’s Next Album Will Include Stevie Nicks, Keith Richards & More
Fans can head over to eBay.com/SherylCrow to find all the items, which — in addition to all those fancy clothes — includes a signed Fender Telecaster guitar. But hurry up: The auction will only run through Oct. 13.
Below, find highlights from our chat with Crow, where we talked about other ways fans can help in the fight against cancer, when we might hear new music (including her upcoming all-star collaborative album), and how she’d like to change the way our politicians campaign for president.
Aside from the eBay for Charity auction, how can fans help fight cancer?
“The first thing I do is I encourage women over the age of 40 to make sure and be diligent about getting their mammograms. … For women over 40 I can’t stress enough to just go in. It doesn’t matter what your family history is. Only 10 percent of women with a family history wind up with a diagnosis, whereas 90 percent of diagnoses are not related to family history. That’s the first thing that’s at the top of my list. And secondly, there’s just a multitude of charities that work on behalf of research, as well as awareness, and I try to align myself with organizations that do research mainly because the dollars are tight now and the government doesn’t fund as generously as they used to, so every little bit helps.”
How life has changed since the diagnosis:
“Well, I can safely say in every way. Mainly because 10 years ago, I would have been the last person that I would have imagined having a life-threatening illness. It really stopped me in my tracks and I really re-evaluated and redefined my life in so many ways. It informed everything about my life. It informed my decisions, it informed my choices, my art, and the way I live. I don’t take anything for granted. I feel like I am much more aware of not sweating the small stuff. My decision-making is so much easier than it would have been before. I don’t try to take care of the world like I used to. I absolutely learned how to say no and to put myself first, and that was really my big lesson with my diagnosis.”
You have to see this list of collaborators on her next album…
“I’ve just been calling friends that I’ve known forever — people I’ve loved and admired and have been an inspiration to me since I was young — and asked them if they would collaborate with me on this record. I co-wrote a song with Joe Walsh, I sang with Stevie Nicks, I recorded one of my favorite Keith Richards songs with Keith. I recorded with Neil Young. I even recorded a song with Johnny Cash that he’d recorded of mine before he passed away [‘Redemption Day’]. I recorded the song I wrote for Willie Nelson, recorded it with him. So there’s just many things on this record that I am excited about, and the whole record started with my recording with Kris Kristofferson, who is someone I love and admire. It’s been a real project of love. … When I read off those names I can’t believe those people even know who I am. I’m such a small-town girl from Missouri still, but what a treat, you know? What a treat.”
But wait — she has another album in the works too!
“I don’t know when either one of them is going to come out. I don’t know which one is going to come out first; I imagine probably the collaborative one. … For the other record, I got together with my old writing buddy Jeff Trott and we made a record over the course of three or four weeks and it’s just totally kick-ass. I’m totally proud of it. … Yesterday, [Jeff and I] were celebrating 20 years to the day that ‘If It Makes You Happy’ came out. Jeff is like my — and I know his wife would not mind my saying this — he’s like my musical husband. It’s like he answers all of my sentences like an old married couple. He plays the things that I want to hear. We have a great collaborative relationship. It’s very free-flowing, and we just really enjoy working together. We had a few years in there that were pretty dry, we weren’t completing anything, and we got together this time — Jeff just moved here; he lives three minutes from my house and he had a family — we just, we couldn’t write fast enough. We’re back on a roll.”
Her takeaway from the 2016 presidential election? We need shorter campaigns.
“I feel that our nation deserves better than what we’ve been dragged through the last two years. And it’s my mission as soon as this election is done to have a petition up — I’m going to try to have a petition up as many places as I can — for people to sign to limit the campaign season. Other countries limit their campaigns to three months or six weeks, and I think we’ve been hijacked by the ugliness of this election. So that is where I’m at. I’m going to vote, I’m going to vote for Hillary, and then I’m going to move on with this mission of trying to stand up for limiting the amount of time we get dragged through this mud-slinging.”
Visit eBay.com/SherylCrow now through Oct. 13 to bid on Sheryl’s items and raise money for Stand Up 2 Cancer.