Shawn Colvin Biography

Shawn Colvin is one of the leading lights of the so-called new folk movement that began in the late '80s. 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. Colvin formed the Shawn Colvin Band a hard rock outfit whose high-energy demands soon strained her voice. She later on joined the Western swing band the Dixie Diesels and sang with the band until nodes forced a temporary retirement at age 24.
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.

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