Video: Sheryl Crow and Justin Timberlake Record New Track

Sheryl Crow's seventh studio album, 100 Miles From Memphis, is a nod to the singer's southern roots that features all-star collaborations and a cover of Michael Jackson's "I Want You Back." "A lot of soul music got played on Memphis stations, particularly at night, and that's what we were exposed to," Crow tells Rolling Stone, adding she was inspired by Marvin Gaye, Sly Stone and Curtis Mayfield because "They were so amazingly equipped to write from an emotional place and have it be sexy to be about something — and that's what, in some ways, is missing from music today."

Justin Timberlake popped into the studio to sing on the Terence Trent D'Arby cover "Sign Your Name" (watch footage of Timberlake in the studio with Crow above). "It's dope, I like her voice so much," he says after wrapping a take. And Keith Richards joined Crow at New York's Electric Lady Studio to lay down guitar on "Eye to Eye." Beyond the fact that Crow calls the Stones "crusaders for me," she says the group loomed large on the album for another reason. "Writing the lyrics, it was like having a term paper hanging over my head," Crow says. "But I saw the documentary of making Exile on Main Street, and there's a scene where Mick has all these tunes that don't have any lyrics, and it made me feel so much better. That's one of my favorite records of all time, and I figure, 'Well, if he had a suitcase full of songs he had to write lyrics for and it turned out that good, there's some hope here.'"

Crow credits producers Justin Stanley and Doyle Bramhall II for shaping the disc's sound and freeing up Crow, who has normally produced herself in the past, to focus on the music. Crow was so invigorated by working with the duo that she recalls pulling "a full Kanye" at an awards show and speaking out about their brilliance in the studio. Check out Sheryl recalling her "Kanye moment" in the video clip below.

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Song Stories

“Baby Got Back”

Sir Mix-a-Lot | 1992

While watching a Budweiser commercial during the Super Bowl, Sir Mix-a-Lot thought the skinny female models in the ad didn’t represent reality. So he wrote this ode to ample bottoms, featuring its famous to-the-point lyric: “I like big butts and I cannot lie.” MTV banished the video, featuring shaking booties and sexually suggestive fruit, to 9 p.m. or later. “I thought my career was over,” he told Rolling Stone. “Then I called Rick Rubin, and I told him the video was banned, and he was like, 'Great!' We sold another 2 million records.”

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