This process has been one of searching," Sheryl Crow says of her new album as she sits outside an L.A. recording studio. So perhaps it's only fitting that Crow is still searching for a title for the disc, which is to be released in March.

For a time, Crow seriously considered calling the album -- which features guest appearances from Lenny Kravitz, Don Henley, Stevie Nicks, Natalie Maines, Emmylou Harris and longtime Dr. Dre bassist Mike Elizondo -- Songs From the Waiting Room. "I have sort of been waiting around for the album to kind of reveal what it's supposed to be," Crow says. "Also, there was the kind of iffy health I was in and my relationship kind of falling apart at that juncture. My cyclical depression struck very hard this time. Had Mariah Carey not done it first, I would have checked myself into a hospital."

Crow's latest is her first release since Sheryl Crow and Friends: Live From Central Park in 1999 and her first studio album since 1998's The Globe Sessions. She began recording the album in her living room, but after finishing one song she found herself feeling adrift.

"I couldn't go back in there," she remembers. "I just didn't want to work. Every time I walked out of my house, it represented what I wasn't getting done. So I just packed up my stuff and went to New York," where she finished recording in a studio.

Crow credits a side trip to Detroit to work alongside Kid Rock with helping her rediscover her own Southern-rock roots. Kid Rock's world, says Crow, a proud native of Kennett, Missouri, felt like home. "The environment there of having all of his friends around, his family around -- Budweiser and hot dogs, and listening to Skynyrd. I realized, wow, it's just much more simple than I'm making it."

Her album has a heavy rock feel, with a complex range of textures and emotions. Even the seemingly upbeat "Soak Up the Sun" -- an instantly appealing, top-down anthem of Beach Boys infectiousness that features Liz Phair on background vocals - has hints of darkness around the edges. And the haunting "Safe and Sound" -- which Crow debuted on America: A Tribute to Heroes -- is, in its final recorded version, perhaps the most impressive and ambitious production of Crow's career.

"This record definitely feels manic to me," she says. "There are some really low moments on it, like 'Weather Channel,' and then there are some that are really up, to the point of nervousness, like 'Soak Up the Sun.'

"There's a lot of people on this planet right now who are going through serious changes, particularly this year," she adds. "I'm definitely going through them, and this record represents how I've been feeling."

DAVID WILD
(RS 889 - Feb. 14, 2002)