Fresh from collecting an armful of Grammies (three in all), and with her debut album "Tuesday Night Music Club" still in the US charts after peaking at number 4, Crow is stopping off in St Petersburg after a demanding American tour before hitting Great Britain in July.
The three concerts on June 14, 15 and 16 at the Oktyabrsky Concert Hall also feature veteran rocker Joe Cocker, Terence Trent D'Arby and one-hit wonder Tanita Tikaram. Tickets are 20,000 to 50,000 roubles from your nearest Teatralnaya Kassa.
After years writing other people's music and a self-recorded, self-confessed dud album that she refuses to release, Crow came up with last year's laid back, feel good hit "All I Want To Do Is Have Some Fun." A boppy track graced with rough honey vocals from the red-headed Crow practically wrote itself during an informal jam session last year. The success of both single and album has catapulted Crow from the woman behind the songs behind the stars to a hectic fame-and-fortune lifestyle frustrating in its lack of space and time to allow her to do what she really loves most -- writing and recording new material. Interest in her once-overlooked talents is at such a fever pitch in the States that bootleg copies of her first album -- under official lock and key at her request -- are selling for $100 each.
D'Arby will be concentrating on songs from his newly released album "Vibrator," which has been doing a roaring trade in both the US and his native UK. Tracks such as "If You Go Before Me," "Surrender," and "Supermodel Sandwich" will issue from D'Arby's mellow vocal chords in the White Nights gigs along with the songs that first sent a shiver down the world's spine "Wishing Well" and "Sign Your Name Across My Heart." All this will be topped by the smooth dance moves that make D'Arby a ballet dancer's answer to Michael Jackson's bump, slide, grab and grind.
The crooner's shows are usually sprinkled with philosophical musings that drive critics to distraction. At the same time they help set him apart from a run-of-the-mill pop star. Sporting a startling "ultimate bleach" crew cut that sets off his lithe and smoothly dark features, D'Arby has been wowing the club circuit in Britain.
Having burst on to the world music scene in 1987 with "Introducing the Hardline according to Terence Trent D'Arby," the smooth-voiced soul talent of the young star Setting aside the "nice looks shame about the ego" tag he earned for the four-year sulk he indulged in following his second offering "Neither Fish Nor Flesh" (but somewhat "fowl" according to most), D'Arby got back into the groove with his self-funded 1993 album, "Symphony Or Damn: The Tension Inside The Sweetness."
In a recent interview with "Q" magazine D'Arby, commenting on his change in image, said that the annual British pop music awards The Brits were "a great chance to show off my new hairstyle. I tell journalists that I had it changed because I went out with a girl who was going out with one of the mob, so I had to get a new look."
Joe Cocker has never been to St Petersburg though he has an enthusiastic following in Russia -- as witnessed by the crowds that packed his Moscow concerts earlier this year. Also performing will be Crystal Waters, Steve Way and Captain Hollywood.