AOL: '100 Miles to Memphis' pays homage to the great '60s soul and Stax Records sound. Growing up, did you take trips to Memphis?
Crow: Memphis was like the big city when I was growing up. I grew up about an hour from there. We would go about twice a year; people just didn't travel like they do now. We would go to buy school clothes and we'd go to see Santa Claus, and the big department store was there. So it was like an outing, it was like going to the big city. I remember going to Beale Street and at the time: It was very rundown, but there was just such a lore about it. Now it's been brought back to its glory and it's very commercial and stuff.
AOL: What is it about that period of the American music canon that's so attractive to you?
Crow: I think that music kind of represents the way people live, the way people view their god, the way people are connected to the earth there. When I grew up, all the families grew up in churches, you raise your kids in churches, you grew up with them singing church music. The music that came out of Memphis and I think a lot of those singers -- Sam & Dave, Al Green, Otis Redding -- when they delivered a song, you believed it. You know whether it was a song about vulnerability or pain or wounding or injustice or just a cool, uplifting sort of dance song, you just believed it, you went there all the way fully committed. And I think about where I'm from and what I feel is that people who are from there are very connected to that part of America.
