I came across this great bluesy tune from Sheryl Crow a few days ago. Called Live Wire and written by Crow, the track features Bonnie Raitt and Mavis Staples – quite a female power trio! It is the second single from Crow’s upcoming studio album Threads, which is scheduled for August 30th.
“Mavis Staples means so much more to me than any words I could write about her,” Crow told Rolling Stone. “I feel like, in many ways, she is the Godmother to Bonnie Raitt. To say that having both of these soulful women on ‘Live Wire’ is a treat would be a huge understatement.”
Threads is a collaboration album, which in addition to Raitt and Staples features many other heavyweights like Stevie Nicks, Eric Clapton, Sting, Willie Nelson, Keith Richards, Don Henley and Joe Walsh. Additionally, it includes a posthumous duet with Johnny Cash, Redemption Day, which appeared as the lead single in April. There is also already a third single out, Prove You Wrong, a collaboration with Nicks and Maren Morris.
As reported by Madison.com, Crow talked about the album at the CMT Music Awards in early May, saying it could be her last. “It may be my final album, so I am going out big. I grew up in the age where people made albums. But now, I think people do playlists and they will only hear one of two songs off a full-length album that you tried to make a full artistic statement. I kind of like the idea now of just putting out songs.”
Apparently, Crow is not planning to retire from music, just stop making full-fledged albums and instead focusing on singles and EPs. If that’s true, it certainly looks like it’s going to be compelling final album.
Sources: Wikipedia, Sheryl Crow website, Rolling Stone, Madison.com, YouTube
Christian's Music Musings 
Shame she’s putting a cap on her creativity. There are still people out there who want to hear albums.
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Nice. I was concerned at first thinking she was saying she was flat-out retiring. (And she has enough $$$ that she could.) But it’s too bad the album era is behind us or at least her. I totally understand her rationale though. And the combination of these three is inspired.
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It seems to me the music business has always been brutal but nowadays in the era of streaming where I understand artists literally only make pennies for each stream, it appears to be even tougher.
Being a great artist isn’t good enough any longer. Since most of the money seems to be in concerts now, I suppose you have to be on the road all time. You also have to get into selling T-Shirts and other merchandise. Oh, and you better make sure you have a good following on social media. It’s just nuts!
To your point, Sheryl became successful when albums were still selling. In that sense, she’s one of the lucky artists who probably no longer needs to worry about surviving. I suppose with that experience, it’s not very surprising that she figured that making albums is no longer rewarding. It’s really a sad conclusion. But at least at looks like Sheryl isn’t throwing in the towel altogether.
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Right. And as an established star who is raising a couple of kids and has had some health issues, along with all of that she probably just said Fuck It.
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