n 1993, the "Tuesday Night Music Club" album hit the stores, and made its way to radio stations across the country. But it took months before it became a massive hit with the public. Crow hit the road and toured relentlessly; she made a stop at the American Theatre in April 1994, and returned to St. Louis three months later as an opening act on the Eagles' reunion tour stop at Riverport.

As Crow was taking her music on the road and landing a couple of mid-chart radio hits, the music channel VH1 was going through an overhaul. Hoping to shed its dorky, pop-schlock image, the station wanted a hipper look and sound to woo the 25-34 age demographic. And Crow, along with acts like Hootie and the Blowfish, Melissa Etheridge and Des'ree, had just the right mix of funk and easy-listening to get the job done.

It was the woozy, infectious, loose-limbed hippie jam "All I Wanna Do," the first big single off Crow's new album, that struck a mass nerve. With an off-kilter steel guitar lazily winding its way through the strummed guitars and loopy percussion behind her, Crow turned the verses into a seductive, odd rush of talking-blues.

"I like a good beer buzz early in the morning," she sang/talked, and a nation of baby-boomer rock fans grew misty-eyed over a hazy memory made fresh again.

With Crow's tune being played in heavy rotation on VH1, and with radio stations following suit, she became almost ubiquitous. Suddenly, everyone wanted to talk to Crow, to have her on their shows. Not only was she making music people wanted to hear, she also was extremely pretty -- not a bad combination for an ambitious woman rocker.

At home in Los Angeles, not everyone was happy with Crow's new-found success. While members of the Tuesday Music Club received songwriting and session mention on the album, accusations quickly flew that Crow had taken more credit than deserved for the songs, and that she had cut TMC members out of her tour plans.

But it was an appearance on the "Late Show with David Letterman," when Crow performed the song "Leaving Las Vegas" off her debut album, that caused the most controversy. After she was done, Letterman beckoned her over and asked if the song was "autobiographical." She sheepishly said yes, then amended her response to say it was "metaphorical."

She omitted the fact that the song was collaborative, and that the collaboration had been led by TMC member Baerwald. He had based the song on a novel by the same name written by his friend, John O'Brien. (The novel later became the basis for the 1995 movie for which Nicolas Cage won the Academy Award as best actor.)

Angry that Crow had not given others on-air credit, the TMC backlash escalated. O'Brien, a deeply troubled alcoholic, committed suicide shortly after the Letterman show. A number of publications eventually jumped on various aspects of the TMC story, and most made Crow out to look like a selfish, no-talent self-promoter.

The album went on to earn Crow 1995 Grammy awards for best new artist, record of the year and best female pop vocal performance. It should have been a time for Crow to bask in her success. Instead, she nearly went into seclusion -- at least from the press.

"It felt like almost the day after the Grammys, my press really changed," she says. "I went from being the underdog to being the person to be ripped apart. I didn't know how to deal with that. What's really helped me is isolating myself from the whole press thing and actually just not doing very much of it."