Multi-platinum-selling singer, songwriter, and musician Sheryl Crow will release a new album, entitled Be Myself, on April 21st via Warner Bros. Records. Be Myself, her ninth studio album and the first album for the label is available for pre-order beginning today. Fans who pre-order the digital format of the album will receive an instant download of the first single, “Halfway There” featuring Gary Clark Jr. on guitar.
A video for “Halfway There” has been created utilizing cut-out animation style which presents the songs lyrical questions through a whimsical Monty Python-esque satirical imagery.
Crow celebrated the announcement of her new album by playing to an absolutely packed house at a rare, surprise club show at West Hollywood’s intimate Troubadour last night where the lucky crowd was treated to a handful of new tracks from Be Myself, along with several fan favorites. She also announced her upcoming tour dates for early summer.
For this album, Crow worked again with producer, musician, and songwriter Jeff Trott, a long-time collaborator throughout her career. Trott co-wrote many of Crow’s classic hits including “If It Makes You Happy” and “My Favorite Mistake.” Crow says her main goal was “to investigate what made my early songs strike people as being authentic and original. So for the first time in my life, I made it a point to sit down and really listen to my old records. I’d drive my kids to school and play the old stuff as I came back home. That helped me remember what it felt like when I was just beginning as an artist. But it wasn’t about repeating myself. It was about revisiting where I came from and seeing where that would take me now.”
“The other thing that makes Be Myself special to me is that it’s really topical,” Crow continues. “This past summer, because of what was going on in the world and particularly in the United States; I began to feel a sense of urgency about writing.” Crow and Trott agreed to enlist their old friend Tchad Blake to engineer and mix the sessions with whom they hadn’t worked with for 18 years, “and we turned out some good old-school Sheryl Crow tunes,” she adds.
Be Myself is like each of her preceding releases: thoughtful and candid. It’s unlike them too, mainly in that it represents contradictory movement — a look at the world today powered in part by a return to the energy that first lofted Crow and her music into the limelight.
An American music icon, Crow has released eight studio albums, which have sold 35 million copies worldwide. Seven of them charted in the Top 10 and five were certified for multi-platinum sales. In addition to such No. 1 hits as “All I Wanna Do,” “Soak Up the Sun,” and “The First Cut Is the Deepest,” Crow has notched 40 singles on the Billboard Hot 100, Adult Top 40, Adult Contemporary, Mainstream Top 40 and Hot Country Songs charts, with more No. 1 singles in the Triple A listings than any other female artist.
The track-listing for Be Myself is as follows:
1.“Alone In The Dark”
2. “Halfway There”
3. “Long Way Back”
4. “Be Myself”
5. “Roller Skate”
6. “Love Will Save The Day”
7. “Strangers Again”
8. “Rest Of Me”
9. “Heartbeat Away”
10. “Grow Up”
11. “Woo Woo”
Sheryl Crow will tour this spring and summer in support of Be Myself. The following dates have been confirmed:
Apr 22 Tropicana Showroom Atlantic City, NJ
Apr 28 Pepsi Spring Jam Panama City Beach, FL
Apr 29 Walt Disney Theater Orlando, FL
Apr 30 Ruth Eckerd Hall Clearwater, FL
June 8 Greek Theater Los Angeles, CA
June 10 The Mountain Winery Saratoga, CA
June 11 The Mountain Winery Saratoga, CA
June 21 Wolf Trap – Filene Center Vienna, VA
June 24 North Carolina Museum of Art Raleigh, NC
June 25 Chastain Park Amphitheater Atlanta, GA
June 28 Beacon Theatre New York, NY
June 29 Rochester Internat’l Jazz Fest Rochester, NY
