Sheryl Crow sets out along familiar roads

Sheryl Crow is about to leave her bucolic spread outside Nashville and embark on an international tour to support her 100 Miles From Memphis album that's out today. But no matter how far she roams, she'll carry the home front with her this time.

When Crow makes that 41-date jaunt across North America, the U.K. and Europe (her first U.S. show is Aug. 12 in Gilford, N.H.) she'll be accompanied by son Wyatt, 3, whom she adopted in 2007, and 11-week-old Levi, whose adoption she announced in June. Wyatt gets his own bed on the tour bus, while Levi gets a bassinet and a crib. Crow tested the arrangement recently during five dates on the Lilith Fair tour, "and it worked out fine."

"When they're little, they're not tethered to one place," says Crow, 48, who travels with a nanny and various friends and family. "Until they're in a structured school situation, it's easy to travel. The bus is completely tricked out for kids. I go to work at 9 at night, so I put them down and go to work. During the day, we visit zoos and museums and parks, and they're surrounded by an extremely loving family."

The nine-time Grammy winner was raised with two older sisters and a younger brother in the small town of Kennett, Mo. (referenced in the album title), and she wants her sons "to grow up like I did, with the closeness of a sibling." That also includes being surrounded by a "normal" home environment - a vision reflected in the video for first single Summer Day, where Wyatt is shown briefly romping in Central Park amid kids carrying balloons, ice cream cones and flowers.

But Summer Day aside, her seventh studio album is anything but blissful and homespun (for one thing, Rolling Stone Keith Richards lends a hand). Her intent was to capture the sexy, sweaty, horn-spiked flavor of the classic soul music of her youth, woven by such heroes as Al Green, Otis Redding, Aretha Franklin and Marvin Gaye.

"Soul music is typically about sensuality, vulnerability and desire, so I kind of let the music guide me in the writing (of the lyrics)," says Crow, who wrote or co-wrote nine of the 12 songs. "It's an emotionally freer album" than 2008's introspective Detours, which reached No. 2 on Billboard's album chart and sold about 405,000 copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

Though she refuses to talk about her own romantic life, Crow does allow that she "had a great time" playing a love interest on ABC's Cougar Town during the sitcom's first season. "I give it up to Courteney (Cox) for taking a chance on me."

Whether she'll use those acting chops on the upcoming tour to try and emulate another Southern soul mentor, Tina Turner, is up in the air.

"You never know. I may bust out the fringe."