''Be Myself'' is the tenth
studio album by American singer-songwriter
Sheryl Crow. The album was released on April 21, 2017, by Wylie Songs and
Warner Bros. Records
Warner Records Inc. (formerly Warner Bros. Records Inc.) is an American record label. A subsidiary of the Warner Music Group, it is headquartered in Los Angeles, California. It was founded on March 19, 1958, as the recorded music division of the ...
. Produced by Crow and
Jeff Trott, who also worked with Crow on her
self-titled 1996 album and 1998's ''
The Globe Sessions
''The Globe Sessions'' is the third studio album by American singer-songwriter Sheryl Crow, released on September 21, 1998, in the United Kingdom and September 29, 1998, in the United States, then re-released in 1999. It was nominated for Grammy ...
'', it features a return to a more rock-driven sound following Crow's 2013 country album, ''
Feels Like Home''.
Release
Singles
The album's
lead single
A lead single (also known as a debut single) is the first single to be released from a studio album by an artist or a band, usually before the album itself is released and also occasionally on the same day of the album's release date.
Release s ...
, "Halfway There", was released on March 3, 2017.
Critical reception
''Be Myself'' received mostly positive reviews from
music critics
Music journalism (or music criticism) is media criticism and reporting about music topics, including popular music, classical music, and traditional music. Journalists began writing about music in the eighteenth century, providing commentary on w ...
. At
Metacritic
Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...
, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album has an
average
In ordinary language, an average is a single number taken as representative of a list of numbers, usually the sum of the numbers divided by how many numbers are in the list (the arithmetic mean). For example, the average of the numbers 2, 3, 4, 7 ...
score of 69 out of 100, which indicates "generally favorable reviews" based on 10 reviews.
Stephen Thomas Erlewine of
AllMusic
AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databa ...
rated the album four out of five stars and calls it "set of strong, sophisticated pop."
Writing for ''
Rolling Stone
''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner, and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. It was first known for its ...
'' and rating the album three out of five stars,
Rob Sheffield
Robert James Sheffield (born February 2, 1966) is an American music journalist and author.
He is a long time contributing editor at ''Rolling Stone'', writing about music, TV, and pop culture. Previously, he was a contributing editor at '' Ble ...
calls it "excellent" and "a full-blown return to her fierce rock-queen glory."
Dave Simpson from ''
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
'' gave 3 out of 5 stars and stated "After a short-lived dabble in country music, Be Myself reunites Sheryl Crow with 1990s collaborators Jeff Trott and Tchad Blake and returns to the sassy, carefree, stripped down folk-pop-rock that brought her massive success in that era"
Sal Cinquemani from ''
Slant Magazine'' rated 3.5 out of 5 stars and wrote "''Be Myself'' might lack the quirks that made ''Sheryl Crow'' so distinctive (it opened with a song about aliens, after all), but the album proves that some alliances can outlast even the latest planet-shrinking technology".
Track listing
All songs written by
Sheryl Crow and
Jeff Trott, except where noted.
Personnel
Credits adapted from
AllMusic
AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databa ...
.
Musicians
*
Doyle Bramhall II
Doyle Bramhall II (born December 24, 1968) is an American guitarist, producer and songwriter best known for his work with Eric Clapton and Roger Waters. He is the son of the songwriter and drummer Doyle Bramhall.
Early life
Bramhall was born i ...
–
soloist,
vocal harmony
Vocal harmony is a style of vocal music in which a consonant note or notes are simultaneously sung as a main melody in a predominantly homophonic texture. Vocal harmonies are used in many subgenres of European art music, including Classical c ...
*
Gary Clark Jr.
Gary Lee Clark Jr. (born February 15, 1984) is an American musician from Austin, Texas. He is known for his fusion of blues, rock and soul music with elements of hip hop. In 2011, Clark signed with Warner Bros Records and released ''The Brig ...
–
electric guitar
An electric guitar is a guitar that requires external amplification in order to be heard at typical performance volumes, unlike a standard acoustic guitar (however combinations of the two - a semi-acoustic guitar and an electric acoustic gu ...
, soloist
*
Sheryl Crow –
bass,
celeste,
Fender Rhodes,
acoustic guitar,
piano
The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keybo ...
,
tambourine
The tambourine is a musical instrument in the percussion family consisting of a frame, often of wood or plastic, with pairs of small metal jingles, called "zills". Classically the term tambourine denotes an instrument with a drumhead, though ...
,
toy piano
The toy piano, also known as the ''kinderklavier'' (child's keyboard), is a small piano-like musical instrument. Most modern toy pianos use round metal rods, as opposed to strings in a regular piano, to produce sound. The U.S. Library of Congress ...
,
vocals
Singing is the act of creating musical sounds with the voice. A person who sings is called a singer, artist or vocalist (in jazz and/or popular music). Singers perform music (arias, recitatives, songs, etc.) that can be sung with or withou ...
,
Wurlitzer
The Rudolph Wurlitzer Company, usually referred to as simply Wurlitzer, is an American company started in Cincinnati in 1853 by German immigrant (Franz) Rudolph Wurlitzer. The company initially imported stringed, woodwind and brass instruments ...
* Mark Douthit –
saxophone
The saxophone (often referred to colloquially as the sax) is a type of Single-reed instrument, single-reed woodwind instrument with a conical body, usually made of brass. As with all single-reed instruments, sound is produced when a reed (mouthpi ...
*
Fred Eltringham
The Wallflowers is an American rock solo project of American singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Jakob Dylan. The Wallflowers were originally a roots rock band formed in Los Angeles in 1989 by Dylan and guitarist Tobi Miller. The band ...
–
drums,
handclapping,
percussion
A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater including attached or enclosed beaters or rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or struck against another similar instrument. Ex ...
, tambourine
*
Audley Freed – acoustic guitar, soloist
*
Toby Gad
Tobias "Toby" Gad (born 28 March 1968) is a Los Angeles-based German music producer/songwriter, best known for co-writing John Legend's biggest hit, " All of Me," the fifth-highest certified single in RIAA history, and for co-writing and produc ...
– bass guitar,
Moog synthesizer
* Josh Grange –
flute,
baritone guitar,
electric guitar
An electric guitar is a guitar that requires external amplification in order to be heard at typical performance volumes, unlike a standard acoustic guitar (however combinations of the two - a semi-acoustic guitar and an electric acoustic gu ...
,
lap steel guitar,
Mellotron,
pedal steel guitar, piano
* Barry Green –
trombone
The trombone (german: Posaune, Italian, French: ''trombone'') is a musical instrument in the brass family. As with all brass instruments, sound is produced when the player's vibrating lips cause the air column inside the instrument to vibrate ...
* Robert Kearns – bass guitar
*
The McCrary Sisters
The McCrary Sisters are an American gospel music quartet from Nashville, Tennessee, formed in 2010 by sisters Ann McCrary, Deborah McCrary, Regina McCrary, and Alfreda McCrary. They have released four studio albums and one live album: ''Our Journ ...
–
background vocals
A backing vocalist is a singer who provides vocal harmony with the lead vocalist or other backing vocalists. A backing vocalist may also sing alone as a lead-in to the main vocalist's entry or to sing a counter-melody. Backing vocalists are us ...
* Adam Minkoff –
keyboards
* Doug Moffet –
baritone saxophone
* Steve Patrick –
trumpet
The trumpet is a brass instrument commonly used in classical and jazz ensembles. The trumpet group ranges from the piccolo trumpet—with the highest register in the brass family—to the bass trumpet, pitched one octave below the standard ...
* Andrew Petroff – bells, drum brushes,
drum loop
In music, a loop is a repeating section of sound material. Short sections can be repeated to create ostinato patterns. Longer sections can also be repeated: for example, a player might loop what they play on an entire verse of a song in order to ...
, acoustic guitar, handclapping, keyboards, percussion,
shaker,
strings,
synthesizer, tambourine, Wurlitzer
* Rick Purcell – handclapping
* David Rossi – strings
* Tim Smith – background vocals
*
Jeff Trott – bass guitar, acoustic guitar, baritone guitar, electric guitar,
acoustic-electric guitar, Moog synthesizer,
pump organ
The pump organ is a type of free-reed organ that generates sound as air flows past a vibrating piece of thin metal in a frame. The piece of metal is called a reed. Specific types of pump organ include the reed organ, harmonium, and melodeon. Th ...
,
sitar
The sitar ( or ; ) is a plucked stringed instrument, originating from the Indian subcontinent, used in Hindustani classical music. The instrument was invented in medieval India, flourished in the 18th century, and arrived at its present form ...
,
slide guitar, soloist,
SynthAxe,
tom-tom
A tom drum is a cylindrical drum with no snares, named from the Anglo-Indian and Sinhala language. It was added to the drum kit in the early part of the 20th century. Most toms range in size between in diameter, though floor toms can go as l ...
, vocal harmony, background vocals,
wah wah guitar, Wurlitzer
Technical personnel
*
Tchad Blake
Tchad Blake (born 1955) is an American record producer, audio engineer, mixer and musician.
A native of Baytown, Texas, he has worked with numerous artists and musicians, including Al Green, American Music Club, Ani DiFranco, Apartment 26, Arc ...
–
engineer
Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who invent, design, analyze, build and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while considering the limit ...
,
mixing, photography
* Drew Bollman – engineer
* Sheryl Crow –
producer
*
Bob Ludwig –
mastering
* Frank Maddocks –
art direction, design
* Andrew Petroff – engineer
* Rick Purcell – studio technician
* Matt Rausch – engineer
* David Rossi –
string arrangements
*
Mark Seliger
Mark may refer to:
Currency
* Bosnia and Herzegovina convertible mark, the currency of Bosnia and Herzegovina
* East German mark, the currency of the German Democratic Republic
* Estonian mark, the currency of Estonia between 1918 and 1927
* Fin ...
–
photography
Photography is the art, application, and practice of creating durable images by recording light, either electronically by means of an image sensor, or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film. It is employe ...
* Jeff Trott – producer
* Alberto Vaz – engineer
Charts
Release history
References
{{Authority control
2017 albums
Sheryl Crow albums
Warner Records albums