Every Little Thing She Sings Is Magic

AFTER YEARS of passing through the doors just to see the stage where Frank Sinatra, Billie Holiday and other great singers performed, Shawn Colvin has finally arrived to see her name light the marquee at Carnegie Hall. The evening’s event includes bassist and former producer Larry Klein, current co-producer and multi-instrumentalist Stuart Smith, and a surprise appearance by one of Colvin’s soul sisters, Mary Chapin Carpenter.

Despite the history, splendour and excitement of the surroundings Colvin remains grounded, exhibiting an ease and candidness that charmed audiences in downtown club circuits. Although a floor-length black frock awaits in the dressing-room, the singer sits backstage in the temporary comfort of a plaid flannel shirt and leggings. With heels against her bottom, knees up in the air, and little concern for her work boots brushing the crimson velvet sofa, Colvin begins the day as usual: sipping coffee from a paper cup.

“Fun is not a word I’d use to describe the music business,” she says pausing abruptly. “I mean I love performing a lot of things about the business, but making records is really hard for me. The first two records I made were very laborious – it wasn’t a quickie deal. A lot of time was spent in microscopic detail examination of songs. It was the only way to do it, but I can’t do it that way any more. I’ve had it with that!” she says emphatically.

Colvin’s debut, Steady On landed a Grammy for best contemporary folk recording, and ‘I Don’t Know Why’ from her second album, Fat City received two Grammy nominations including best female vocal performance. The accolades, however momentous, left her in pursuit of something altogether different.

“I wanted to be more spontaneous, so I did this record which includes live performances and was far less complicated. This record was fun.”

The current release, Cover Girl, which Colvin co-produced, is a collection of cover songs with material ranging from hits to the obscure. An unusual turn for someone acclaimed as a “singer-songwriter.” In fact, the last time Shawn Colvin was interviewed for Hot Press, she was legitimately upset because Steady On had been deleted from the UK catalogue. At the time she was quoted as saying, “It’s my work, it’s the only thing I’ll leave behind.” One is poised to now wonder why the chanteuse chose to do an album of other people’s material. After all, it’s not her legacy . . .

“It is,” Colvin insists. “For ten or fifteen years, I didn’t write, and I played in bars and these are the songs that got me through and educated me. Some of them like the Sting song, (‘Every Little Thing (He) Does Is Magic’), people will know but there are songs on this album you’re not gonna hear unless you buy my record. So maybe I didn’t write them, but after all those years of earning a living and making an impression on people I think it would be a real disservice if I didn’t document these songs. They’re a part of me.”

With due acknowledgement of Colvin’s creative core, was the concept part of a record company plan or was it her idea?

“Record companies are silly if they don’t have a plan and it’s always kind of weird to be the artist and be thrown into the business mix and then find out what the plan is for you. But this was my idea,” she insists.

“I kept a list of songs through the years and when I got signed in 1988 I told Columbia that sometime I really want to make this record. I don’t feel that puts the lid on my creativity. I think it’s kind of impressive that they gave me the go-ahead when they did,” she continues. “If they really wanted to play if safe they would have waited another couple of albums. They probably saw it as a nice addition to the catalogue, rather than something they were gonna pump to death.”

Ironically, many musicians yearn to be “pumped to death” and do by working on a calculated image. It’s refreshing to find a performer who values artistic integrity over anything the marketing machine may have concocted.

“Image is so much easier to manage and put a price on and analyse. People can make a lot of money out of promoting image and the people in power are more comfortable having that aspect of the business at their fingertips rather than where the power really is, which is with the musician who is creating a piece of art and may strike a chord in audience and be very popular, and that’s to the musician’s credit,” Colvin says pausing for a deep breath and a last sip of coffee. “But art wins out here and there. I think in the battle of art versus image in the long run art wins out.”