Shawn Colvin

Shawn Colvin - Live - 2009 - Nonesuch

Shawn Colvin chose a three-night solo acoustic stand at San Francisco's legendary Yoshi's (a jazz club) to record her second live offering. Simply titled Live, the set was compiled from songs played on those three nights, and serves as a delightful, intimate overview of her career. Every album, from her Columbia debut Steady On through to her 2006 Nonesuch debut, These Four Walls, is represented here. The 15-song set list is canny and tight; 12 of these selections she either wrote or co-wrote with co-producer John Leventhal. Favorites such as "Diamond in the Rough," "Ricochet in Time," "Polaroids," "Sunny Came Home," and "Trouble" are showcased in versions that, while almost utterly faithful to their original recorded versions, become definitive here in this stripped down, on-a-wire presentation. Other notables include the beautiful "Nothing Like You," the haunted "A Matter of Minutes," the revelatory "Shotgun Down the Avalanche," and "Fill Me Up." There are three covers here, too: reprises of her readings of Robbie Robertson's "Twilite," Talking Heads' "This Must Be the Place" from her Cover Girl outing, and a solo blues version of Gnarls Barkley's "Crazy" that was issued as an in-studio single version in 2007 (this one is longer and far more beautiful). And while it's true that Colvin has excellent interpretive skills, this set is a almost a forum on her as a songwriter. These songs hold up to repeated listening in either their original studio forms or in this bare showcase because they are simply great songs. They have universal themes no matter how personal, and can be lyrically interpreted in numerous ways. More than this, they can be heard as either slices of a moment in time or as in-the-moment statements of emotion. Colvin fans will be delighted by this collection, and anyone remotely curious would do well to make Live her introduction to the artist's work. © Thom Jurek © 2012 Rovi Corp | All Rights Reserved http://www.allmusic.com/album/live-mw0000819211

The album was nominated for a Grammy for Best Contemporary Folk Album of 2009. It didn't win, but winning Grammy's is certainly not always an indication of great talent. This is a great urban folk album full of outstanding songs mostly composed by either Shawn or in collaboration with John Leventhal. There are a few covers here also including Robbie Robertson's "Twilight" and Talking Heads' "This Must Be the Place (Naïve Melody)", done extremely well. Thankfully, there are still great singer/songwriters out there who possess a natural talent and have a substantial fan base who appreciate great music. Shawn Colvin has been recording truly great music for many years now and has done an immeasurable amount of work in promoting real music. "Live" is VHR by A.O.O.F.C. Buy Shawn's outstanding "A Few Small Repairs" album and support great modern folk rock [All tracks @ 160 Kbps: File size = 69.4 Mb]

TRACKS / COMPOSERS

1 Polaroids - Shawn Colvin 5:05
2 A Matter of Minutes - Shawn Colvin / John Leventhal 4:31
3 Shotgun Down the Avalanche - Shawn Colvin / John Leventhal 4:01
4 Twilight - Jaime "Robbie" Robertson / Robbie Robertson 3:07
5 Trouble - Shawn Colvin / John Leventhal / Tom Littlefield 3:55
6 Tennessee - Shawn Colvin / John Leventhal 4:01
7 Nothing Like You - Shawn Colvin / John Leventhal 3:38
8 Sunny Came Home - Shawn Colvin / John Leventhal 4:10
9 Fill Me Up - Shawn Colvin / John Leventhal 3:28
10 Wichita Skyline - Shawn Colvin / John Leventhal 3:42
11 I'm Gone - Shawn Colvin 3:25
12 Ricochet in Time - Shawn Colvin 4:10
13 Diamond in the Rough - Shawn Colvin / John Leventhal 4:04
14 Crazy - Brian Joseph Burton / Thomas Decarlo / Gian Franco Reverberi / Gian Piero Reverberi / Gianfranco Reverberi 4:18
15 This Must Be the Place (Naïve Melody) - David Byrne / Chris Frantz / Jerry Harrison / Tina Weymouth 4:44

BIO

Shawn Colvin is one of the leading lights of the so-called "new folk movement" that began in the late '80s. Although she grew out of the somewhat limited "woman with a guitar" school, she kept the form fresh with a diverse approach, avoiding the genre's clichéd sentiments and all-too-often formulaic arrangements in favor of a more personal, pop-influenced style. Colvin's debut record won the Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Folk Album in 1991, but it was her 1997 single, "Sunny Came Home," that firmly catapulted her into the mainstream. Although she never revisited that commercial peak again, Colvin still commanded a broad, loyal following into the subsequent decades. Colvin was born in Vermillion, South Dakota, on January 10, 1956. By the age of ten, she had discovered a passion for music and taught herself guitar. After moving twice -- first to London, Ontario, and then to Carbondale, Illinois -- Colvin formed the Shawn Colvin Band, a hard rock outfit whose high-energy demands soon strained her voice. She relocated to Austin, Texas, where she joined the Western swing band the Dixie Diesels and sang with the band until nodes forced a temporary retirement at age 24. In 1983, she moved to New York, where she found a home in the city's singer/songwriter scene and built a following in the surrounding area. Throughout the '80s, Colvin worked her way up the folk circuit, also appearing in off-Broadway shows such as Pump Boys and Dinettes, Diamond Studs, and Lie of the Mind. Her work also appeared in Fast Folk magazine, and she got her first break in 1987 singing backup on Suzanne Vega's hit song "Luka." By the following year, she had found a songwriting partner in John Leventhal, who began providing melodies for Colvin's lyrics. A live tape sold at Colvin's shows (Live '88) attracted the attention of Columbia Records, who signed her the same year in the wake of success from such like-minded performers as Tracy Chapman, Suzanne Vega, and the Indigo Girls. Steady On, released in 1989, won the Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Folk Recording. Colvin's 1992 sophomore effort, the more pop-oriented Fat City, earned her two more nominations -- Best Contemporary Folk Recording and Best Female Pop Vocal for the single "I Don't Know Why" -- as well as considerable critical praise and a growing crossover audience. In addition, "I Don't Know Why" became a big adult contemporary hit. Cover Girl, an album of cover songs, met with mixed reviews and modest sales in 1994, but Colvin again earned a nomination for Best Contemporary Folk Recording. In late 1996, Colvin released A Few Small Repairs, having written the album during the midst of a painful divorce. A Few Small Repairs slowly became a hit over the course of 1997, due in part to the success of "Sunny Came Home" on the pop charts. In 1998, "Sunny Came Home" won two Grammy Awards for Record of the Year and Song of the Year, and A Few Small Repairs became her first album to reach platinum status. Holiday Songs and Lullabies followed that autumn. During the new millennium, Colvin contributed vocals to songs by Béla Fleck, Edwin McCain, James Taylor, and Shawn Mullins. She also collaborated with Sting on "One Day She'll Love Me," the theme song for Disney's The Emperor's New Groove. She returned to the solo format with 2001's Whole New You and, in 2004, summarized the first 15 years of her recording career with the compilation Polaroids: A Greatest Hits Collection. A companion home video was also issued. Two years later, Colvin came out with another album, her debut for the Nonesuch label, entitled These Four Walls. It featured guest performances from Patty Griffin and Teddy Thompson, among others. While touring through San Francisco in support of the album, Colvin recorded material from her three-night residency at Yoshi's, which she released in 2009 as the concert album Live. Colvin's eighth studio album, 2012's All Fall Down, was produced by Buddy Miller and recorded in Nashville at Miller's home studio, and featured guest spots from Emmylou Harris, Alison Krauss, Jakob Dylan, and others. © Chris Woodstra ©2012 Rovi Corp | All Rights Reserved http://www.allmusic.com/artist/shawn-colvin-mn0000013387