Grousing about who's been overlooked by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is almost as engaging as seeing who gets in. If Sheryl Crow wasn't already on your wish list, she will be after you watch a new documentary on her winding road to fame.
In "Sheryl," debuting this weekend on Showtime and available on the channel's app, the nine-time Grammy winner celebrates a career that's still going strong. Her latest tour stops July 5 at the Ledge Amphitheater in Waite Park, Minn.
"I've always felt like documentaries were told after someone has already gone on after a fiery plane crash," Crow, 60, told TV critics during a virtual news conference in February. "It was my manager who has been with me from the very, very beginning who said, 'You've got a powerful story. It's time for you to tell it.'"
That tale might have been more fascinating if the film was longer than 90 minutes.
Crow mentions being sexual harassed by a manager, but offers scant details. Some of her best material, including "Good Is Good," "Steve McQueen" and her cover of Cat Stevens' "The First Cut Is the Deepest" gets largely overlooked.
Her relationship with disgraced cyclist Lance Armstrong gets about as much screen time as a montage of her goofing around with her two adopted kids. There's no mention of her romance with Eric Clapton. (Was her hit "Favorite Mistake" about him? We may never know.)
But director Amy Scott does dedicate ample time to a few of the more painful moments in her subject's career, including her 1994 appearance on "The Late Show With David Letterman" in which she appeared to take full credit for writing "Leaving Las Vegas." The interview upset her collaborators. Novelist John O'Brien, who contributed the song's title, committed suicide three weeks later.
Crow's recollections about the entire incident are the movie's emotional centerpiece.
