Sheryl Crow - Live from Central Park

This is how a live album should sound--full of irony, crackling energy, and stellar guest pairings. Those who looked askance when Sheryl Crow--never a girl's girl--joined Lilith Fair for 1999 may develop a different perspective after hearing Central Park. After all, Lilith allowed Crow to share mascara wands and bond with Chrissie Hynde, the Dixie Chicks, and Sarah McLachlan, and they all dropped in for her concert at Central Park. Hynde makes "If It Makes You Happy" into the ultimate bad-girl song, and when Stevie Nicks takes over on "Gold Dust Woman," you can almost feel the wind whipping through her witchy hair. But while Dixie Chick Martie Seidel's fiddle gives "Strong Enough" an authentic country feel, Natalie Maines's leaden vocal drags the scathing feminist tract down to a greeting-card level. And a grizzled-sounding Eric Clapton serves up a tired version of the Cream's "White Room." But Crow is in peak form throughout the 14 songs, exposing herself as a rocker in sheep's clothing who's more than up to the task of taking on the Mick Jagger role in an edgy version of the Stones' "Happy," with Keith Richards as her sidekick. --Jaan Uhelszki Amazon.com

One of her best.

I love this CD. I wore out the first one and had to buy a second. October 20, 2008

Note to record company: please release the DVD!

Crackling live energy and tremendous singing and playing - note to record company: please release the DVD! February 18, 2007

A major letdown

I had some big expectations for this album but after several listenings, my jaw dropped to the ground and not precisely out of astonishment. Read my gripes below:

Sheryl Crow was not naive when she planned this concert so should have put out a live album performed only by her and her band and not this mess overloading with guest stars. One gets the impression that she didn't feel confident enough to play after huge audiences without outside people's help. To me it's pretty dumb.

What's up with her voice? She must be hoarse or who knows what happened, but you can't hear her without feeling like cringing - same as when the Dixie Chicks take over on vocals for Strong Enough. That voice can grate on anyone's nerves.

I'm sure most of Sheryl's fans would have liked far more an honest live album taped in a small club and with songs by her alone, not so many covers. Sheryl Crow's extra cd Live at Shepherd's Bush Empire comes to mind. Even though it only features six tracks, it's far more enjoyable than the album being reviewed in this page.

In a nutshell, skip this one unless you are the diehard fan.

2/5. November 27, 2006

One of the Greatest Live Albums Out There

This album is by far on the greatest recent live recordings. Sheryl Crow demonstrates her influence and talent by putting on an all star show with some of the biggest names in music history. Sheryl shines on her own, singing some of her great hits, but it's the duets that really make the album. My least favorite has to be the Dixie Chicks just because I can't appreciate the country flare they bring to "Strong Enough" but it's still a great version. Chrissie Hynde, one of the album's highlights, brings intense attitude to "If It Makes You Happy", still one of my favorite Sheryl songs. Stevie Nicks remains Stevie Nicks, giving more than enough emotion and flare to her own "Gold Dust Woman." Sarah McLachlan's usually soft voice comes out strong on "The Difficult Kind" and compliments Sheryl's quite nicely. My favorite rendition has to be Eric Clapton and Sheryl together on Cream's "White Room", the rock-out moment on the album. The show is complete when all the guests return to belt out Bob Dylan's "Tombstone Blues" and close the show with a definite BANG. November 16, 2004

with friends like these....

Clipped, petite and looking more like a leather bar Anne Murray, Crow drags out the hits and the `friends' for this all-star live bash. Half the album is standard issue and straight ahead stage sweat with the morning beer-buzz afficiando going it alone without a little help from her friends (All I Wanna Do, Everyday Is a Winding Road, A Change Would Do You Good, Leaving Las Vegas). With only slight variations on these overplayed originals (a sychopantic crowd and some tinkering with the rhythms) Crow's solo chores rarely rate more than a grudging ho-hum. The rest of the album is a parade of snap-on tools (Dixie Chicks, Stevie Nicks, Eric Clapton, Sarah McLachlan, Chrissie Hynde) who easily steal the spotlight from their downhome hash-slinging waitress/host. Reduced to the role of supporting guitarist, Crow butters the toast from the sidelines as femme contemporaries like Nicks (who unravels admirably on Gold Dust Woman), Hynde and McLachlan flounder about the mike in a haphazard hit (Hynde's If It Makes You Happy)-and-miss (McLachlan's The Difficult Kind) headbutt at Crow's hits. But it isn't until Clapton's suspendered, cigar-chomping husk is rolled out to update Cream's White Room that the sour stench of monstrous micalculation reaches it's devastating climax. Fresh from watering the daisies and still in his jammies, Clapton's return to the electric psychedelics of his Paleolithic past is a fumbling bumbling fiasco unleashed with the grace and finesse of a diarrhetic Brontosaurus. It's horrifying to think that this is what Cream would have sounded like if they hadn't broken up. Thank God for egos. It's almost a relief to hear Richards mindlessly croak his way through the old Stones Exile-era toss-off Happy, as if a cadaverous ex-junkie with the durability of a cockroach and nine lives would be anything but. Besides, Richards provides wonderful comic relief and criticizing his artistic capacity is as futile as pointing out the flaws in the bandages on an Egyptian mummy. The wrapper finds the entire gang, from Spanky Nicks to Buckwheat Clapton, joining hands for a bizarre entreaty with a kindergarten rendition of Dylan's Tombstone Blues - a fitting finale if there ever was one. August 29, 2003

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