By Alan Sculley

Like scores of rock and pop artists, Sheryl Crow knows the days when she’ll see her albums routinely sell several million copies have passed. With downloading and file sharing, record sales are down significantly in every genre.

So how will Crow keep her career on track in this environment? The best strategy, Crow said, is simply to stay true to her earthy brand of pop music and the heartfelt lyrics that populate her songs.

“The best I can do is make records that matter to me, that I think have integrity and just trust that there will always be a need for singer-songwriters, and it’s not all about dance music and people will find it, those who are interested in the kind of music and the kind of messages I make,” she said in a recent phone interview.

Crow certainly follows that mission on her latest CD, Detours, an acoustic-flavored effort that is being seen as the most personal and outspoken record of her 15-year recording career.

The CD comes after a challenging three-year period that saw her much-publicized romance with cyclist Lance Armstrong end in early 2006, followed just days later by the news that Crow had breast cancer and needed to undergo what was described as minimally invasive surgery, followed by radiation treatment.

On the brighter side, Crow, 46, adopted a baby boy, Wyatt, last spring.

She writes about her son on the tender closing track “Lullaby For Wyatt,” and breast cancer on “Make It Go Away (Radiation Song).”

The rest of Detours is pretty much split between social/political songs and romantic/relationship songs. The former group includes “Peace Be Upon Us,” which laments the misguided motivations of war, and several songs (including “Motivation” and “God Bless This Mess”) touch on the idea that people have become too distracted with their own lives and pursuits to care about the problems of the nation and world.

As for the romantic material, there has been speculation that three songs in particular — “Now That You’re Gone,” “Drunk With The Thought Of You” and “Diamond Ring” — are about the Armstrong breakup. But Crow cautioned against taking that narrow of a view.

“I think the experiences of those songs are very universal,” she said. “I’ve been in several relationships that have ended up being really learning experiences for me. I wouldn’t say that everything was relegated to the Lance relationship. There’s a lot to be learned from all your relationships. So I definitely could not say those were specific to him.”

The Info:
Sheryl Crow With Ray LaMontagne & Ingrid Michaelson
Merriweather Post Pavilion,
$36-$76 Wednesday, May 28, 7pm

Want more? Read Alan’s Q&A with Sheryl Crow on our music blog, www.bmoretunes.com.