POP MUSIC REVIEW : Sheryl Crow Takes Off in a Bluesy Direction

Sheryl Crow is probably the first pop artist of note since Randy Newman to pointedly mention Santa Monica Boulevard in a song. (Her context is as unflattering as his: drunks in a beer bar gazing at the carwash across the street.) Perhaps appropriately, then, her first area headlining show since her debut album was given Tuesday at that street’s Troubadour, where there was plenty of reason to quote the “I love it” part from the other guy’s tune.

As the rare someone with natural chops--natural enough to have earned her a lot of paychecks as a prominent backup singer--who’s gone on to develop a strong, quirky songwriting ear too, Crow is the only new female mainstream rocker worth much attention. Probably wisely, Crow has picked a touring band that doesn’t try to re-create the expert eccentricities of “Tuesday Night Music Club,” one of last year’s cleverest pop albums, but that rocks vehemently and draws out her bluesier side, with Crow herself handling some of the vintage-organ work.

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One former employer, Don Henley, came out during an encore to duet on the lovely “No One Said It Would Be Easy,” and didn’t at all overshadow her.

Better-’n-you’d-expect remakes of “I’ve Got a Feeling” and the Stones’ “Happy” underscored her plethora of “classic rock” leanings, which in Crow’s case actually sound classic enough not to fall under the Undue Nostalgia Department.