Musician and new mom emerges from a turbulent year with her most urgent, ambitious music yet

By Alan Light
Special to MSN Music

Sheryl Crow walks into the dressing room and laughs. She's backstage during rehearsal for "Late Night With Conan O'Brien," on the day her sixth studio album, "Detours," comes out. She was trying to bring her nine-month-old son, Wyatt, with her while she gets her hair camera-ready, but she's given up and left him in the next room with various band and crew members.

"I didn't want to tear him away from his fan base," she says. "He's just so social, such a great little dude."

That happy dude, who will soon be spotted crawling through the "Late Night" hallway, is the most visible manifestation of a period of extreme transition for Crow, who turned 46 the week after the album hit stores. She adopted Wyatt last year, after undergoing treatment for breast cancer and ending a relationship with cycling superstar Lance Armstrong. She moved her primary residence from Los Angeles to a farm outside of Nashville, Tenn. Recently, she has also thrown herself more aggressively into political activism, with a special focus on issues of environmental consciousness.

See photos of Sheryl Crow | Watch "God Bless This Mess"

All of this turmoil and activity is apparent on "Detours," which is the most diverse and ambitious project of Crow's career. Songs range from the intensely personal title track and "Make It Go Away (Radiation Song)" to the social critiques of "Gasoline" or "Out of Our Heads." Her own confused emotions are right out on the table; on the vitriolic "Diamond Ring," aimed straight at her exes, she sings "I say love is in the mind," only to follow a few minutes later with a track titled "Love Is All There Is."

The album also reunites Crow with producer Bill Bottrell, who worked on her 1993 breakthrough debut "Tuesday Night Music Club," a record that ended with bad feelings between the singer and some of the musicians, who claimed she took too much credit for the final product. Crow says that she still carries some baggage from that initial success. "When I came out with 'All I Wanna Do,' a lot of people felt I was just some pop diva," she says. "Most people still think that, but I hope they can find more depth in a record like this."

Despite -- or maybe because of -- the intimate nature of the "Detours" material, she is eager to start playing these songs live. She expresses no apprehension about taking Wyatt on the road. "He's amazingly adaptable," she says. "He's been on the tour bus, he's flown to Europe twice. And he's already learned, like I have, to get your sleep when and where you can."

MSN Music: How has having your son changed the way you do your job?

Sheryl Crow: It really informed the record in so many ways I didn't expect. You perceive everything differently, and it made the things I was writing about feel so urgent.

The environment was always an issue that was close to me, but now it becomes a personal affront -- that one-third of the species on earth won't be around when he's older, that I'll have to tell him how summer days used to be 90 degrees but now they're in the 100-teens. Even regarding the war, he's going to inherit this huge bill. So it makes it all more personal and puts a new slant on everything.

How did that come out in the songs?

I was really removed from the world when I was making this album. It was recorded at the farm, which is 40 miles away from anything, with this baby. It made it feel very missionary -- spreading the word, wanting people to wake up, like spreading the gospel. I felt really fearless writing whatever I wanted to write about.

There's such a distinction on "Detours" between the intimacy of the personal songs and the anthemic quality of the political songs. Is there a connection between the two sides, any through line that unifies the whole project?

I think it's this idea of being on a journey -- where you're very clear about who you are, and then realizing that you've gone on a detour that took you very far away from that. As a nation, too, we really are at the precipice of determining who we are and how we define ourselves.

It's so easy to stay distracted from all the things that are deeply emotionally taxing. There's so much to deal with that you just get overwhelmed and you become a small fixture in your own life. We've all spun toward this vortex of being numbed out. If we were really awake, we would be out in the street revolting, behaving very differently, with the sense that we have to share the planet with everybody else.

Is it just a coincidence that you went through all these changes in your own life at a time of such turmoil in the world?

Well, even personally, when you go through painful situations, people always advise you to distract yourself and just stay busy. It's about not wanting to experience deep wounding. I believe that from the time you're born until you pass on, there's a lot of very deep wounding that we push down without ever healing it. In the Eastern religions, there's the idea of going inside, meditating, discovery -- as Westerners, we really have perfected not doing that. All this reality TV, tabloidism, it renders us emotionally disconnected. But I feel like people are waking up and finally asking, what happened to us as a nation? I see great hope, even in this presidential campaign. There's some sense of starting to believe again that we can incite change, and it's been a while since we've been there.

Is it difficult to think about playing some of the album's really intimate songs onstage?

I haven't really done it yet, but I have no trepidation. I'm looking forward to it. It all strikes an honest chord, there's nothing I'm squeamish about. Even things like ["Make It Go Away] Radiation Song," I think those are really universal themes; I think they'll resonate with a lot of people.

There was nothing difficult about this record, and that's very unusual for me. No gnashing of teeth, no second-guessing, no crafting -- "maybe we need a B section here, this chorus doesn't have a big enough hook." There was none of that. It was really more of an exploration for me.

So these songs really came fully formed?

We did 24 songs in 40 days, in two separate hitches. Generally, Wyatt was up early, and then when he would go down for his morning nap, I would read the newspaper and sit and write. It's very quiet and serene out where I live, and I can really hear what's inside my head. And having this innocent newborn, juxtaposed with the immense chaos in the paper and on TV and on the Internet, that really made me feel vulnerable and really inspired me.

I really don't hear anybody else writing about what's going on, and that concerns me. A lot of people are kinda writing around it, but I don't hear the venom and the anger, and I really hope that becomes more commonplace.

Do you feel like you're part of the music community in Nashville?

I'm definitely still a newcomer, but I'm becoming more acclimated. I also have some old friends I always kept in contact with, and my sister lives there. All of my family is within a three-hour drive, and that's just essential when you're raising a child alone. He's growing up with a strong relationship to his family; he's madly in love with my dad.

Do you feel like your recent experiences have changed the context for any of your older songs? Is there anything that you think will feel really different now when you play it live?

Well, I think all your experiences wind up informing your art completely and totally. But I just feel more confident going out and playing, period. I've gotten more comfortable, after all this time, with seeing people's eyes instead of staying in the dark. That first tour after my [cancer] treatment, which I did with John Mayer, that was so celebratory, there was so much good will -- it was really wonderful to connect with people, it was just so fresh and new and it made me feel so great about the audience.

How was it to work with Bill Bottrell again? Things didn't necessarily end on the best terms after "Tuesday Night Music Club."

It was just a wonderful experience in every way. We've gone on our journeys in our lives, and come back as different people. I wanted to explore that creative relationship, and we just picked up where we left off, with the same connection we always had. It was like the old days, like no time had passed. I always felt there was no bad blood between Bill and me.

You've said that you feel liberated, rather than frustrated, by the fact that you probably can't get on the radio with new music.

It's such a funny time. It really feels like there's not any reverence toward artists anymore. There are the older, real classic rock stars, and then the rest of us fall somewhere between that and the readymade pop stars. We're really in some no man's land. We just have to wait, and I guess maybe we'll get that respect when it's time to retire.

I would like to believe there are songs on here that could get on the radio, but it's just such a long shot, and there's a real freedom in knowing that. It certainly makes it more interesting -- to be able to create a dialogue, and talk about issues, rather than just going out and peddling the product.

Alan Light is the former editor-in-chief of Spin, Vibe and Tracks magazines and a former senior writer at Rolling Stone. His writing has also appeared in the New York Times, the New Yorker, GQ and Entertainment Weekly. His book "The Skills to Pay the Bills: The Story of the Beastie Boys" was published in 2006. Alan is a two-time winner of the ASCAP-Deems Taylor Award for excellence in music writing.

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