Sheryl Crow: No Fool to This Game

by Richard Buskin

Describes the musical performer's collaborations with top fellow artists, driving ambitions, album successes, relationships with friends and adversaries, and awards. Reprint.

Genres: Music, Biography

288 pages, Paperback

First published November 30, 2002

About the author

A New York Times bestselling author, Richard Buskin is also a full-time freelance journalist, specializing in pop culture, music, film, television, and sociopolitical affairs. Since the early-Eighties, he has conducted interviews and written regular feature articles for a wide variety of publications in the US, the UK, France, Germany, Japan and Australia, dealing with all aspects of the entertainment business: the artistic, the technical and the entrepreneurial.

A native of London, England, who relocated to America in 1995, Richard has had his work published in newspapers ranging from the New York Post and the Sydney Morning Herald to Britain's Observer, Independent and Daily Mail, as well as magazines such as Playboy (US, Brazilian, Czech, French, Japanese and Polish editions), Stern (Germany) and Paris Match (France). He has also written for numerous music publications around the world, including Billboard, Spin, Musician, Mix, Musik Express, Melody Maker, Sound On Sound and Performance (for which he was a senior editor and UK bureau chief), and movie journals such as Film Review and Films & Filming, in addition to authoring/co-authoring more than 20 non-fiction books.

Among these are Inside Tracks: A First-Hand History of Popular Music from the World's Greatest Record Producers and Engineers (Avon Books, 1999); Blonde Heat: The Sizzling Screen Career of Marilyn Monroe (Billboard Books, 2001); Sheryl Crow: No Fool to This Game (Billboard Books, 2002); Phyllis Diller´s autobiography, Like a Lampshade in a Whorehouse: My Life in Comedy (Penguin/Tarcher, 2005); Effortless Style with celebrity fashion stylist June Ambrose (Simon & Schuster, 2006); Dream in Color: How the Sánchez Sisters are Making History in Congress with Congresswomen Linda and Loretta Sánchez (Grand Central, 2008); Die Trying: One Man's Quest to Conquer the Seven Summits with mountaineer Bo Parfet (Amacom, 2009); One from the Hart with actress Stefanie Powers (uncredited, Simon & Schuster, 2010); It's Not Really About the Hair with Tabatha Coffey, star of Bravo's hit TV reality show Tabatha's Salon Takeover (HarperCollins, 2011); Whitney Houston: The Voice, The Music, The Inspiration with musician/producer Narada Michael Walden (Insight Editions, 2012); and Classic Tracks: The Real Stories Behind 68 Seminal Recordings (Sample Magic, 2012). A co-author and consulting editor on the Billboard Illustrated Encyclopedia of Music (2003) and the Definitive Illustrated Encyclopedia of Rock (Flame Tree, 2006), Richard is presently involved in the planning and writing of several new books.

Richard Buskin has provided sleeve notes for records and videos; penned narrative material for DVD; written press releases and publicity bios for the likes of Aerosmith and Michael Jackson; served as a researcher and on-screen entertainment expert for television networks in the US and the UK; lectured journalism students at Chicago’s Northwestern University, as well as PACE program students at National-Louis University; and been interviewed on numerous TV and radio shows, including CBS's Entertainment Tonight, A&E's Biography, E! Entertainment's True Hollywood Story, AMC's Backstory and the BBC Television News. He lives in Chicago.

Reviews

[Nina · Rating 3 out of 5]

I heard bits and pieces of the Tuesday Night Music Club story over the years, but until reading this book had never seen the entire story laid out. I still like Crow's music, but I find her unappealing after reading about her manipulative climb to the top. The book is rather cold and factual. As this is an unauthorized bio, Buskin quotes frequently from published interviews. He did interview many of the record industry people involved in the meticulous packaging of Crow's career, as well as several of her childhood friends.

[Em]

I read this sometime before the fall of 2005, so I don't feel it's fair to rate something I read so long ago.

The book was interesting, but it also seemed like it was written to tear her down while she was at the height of her popularity.

I never understood her success because her music didn't appeal to me. I remember hearing the first single from TNMC on the radio and finding it catchy. However, her musical style wasn't consistent - upbeat pop or depressing rock to almost country.

I read it because I was interested in reading more about a woman who'd reached great success very quickly in the music world, one who came from a small town.

This book made it sound like she used people to gain attention and success, but it did it in a way that seemed like someone was behind the book, deliberately trying to tear her down.

She has a memoir coming out soon, and I'm interested in reading that to see what she has to say about events from 25 years ago.

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting look at the early years of Sheryl Crow's career and especially of interest if you've ever wanted to read more about the whole Tuesday Night Music Club period and the surrounding controversy.