Career
Colvin moved to Austin, Texas and joined a Western swing band called the Dixie Diesels. She then entered the folk circuit in Illinois and San Francisco, California before forming the Shawn Colvin Band. She "strained her voice" singing rock songs and took a sabbatical from singing at the age of 24.
Colvin later moved to New York City and with a renewed voice became involved in the Fast Folk cooperative of Greenwich Village. Over time she became progressively more popular on the new folk circuit and while appearing in the off-Broadway shows, Diamond Studs, Pump Boys and Dinettes, and Lie of the Mind. She was featured in Fast Folk magazine, and in 1987 sang backup vocals on the song "Luka" by Suzanne Vega.
After touring with Suzanne Vega, Colvin came to the attention of Columbia Records and signed a recording contract with the label. Colvin released her debut album Steady On with her fellow songwriter and co-producer, John Leventhal in 1989. The album won a Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Folk Album and featured backing vocals by Vega. Colvin's second album Fat City was released in 1992 and received a Grammy nomination for Best Contemporary Folk Recording. The song "I Don't Know Why" was nominated for a Grammy in the Best Female Pop Vocal category. In 1993 she moved back to the city of Austin and in 1994 released the album Cover Girl, a collection of cover songs. In 1995 Colvin released her album Live 88 which consisted of live recordings she had made in 1988.
In 1996, Colvin released her "platinum status" album A Few Small Repairs and in 1997 the success of her single "Sunny Came Home" "firmly catapulted her into the mainstream" after spending four weeks at the number one spot on the Adult Contemporary chart. The album won the 1998 Grammy Awards for both Song and Record of the Year. After becoming a mother Colvin released the album Holiday Songs and Lullabies in 1998 and in 2001 released another album called Whole New You. In 2004, she released another album, this time a compilation of past songs called, Polaroids: A Greatest Hits Collection.
In 2008, she left Columbia Records and released a 15 song album called These Four Walls on her new label, Nonesuch Records which featured contributions by Patti Griffin and Teddy Thompson. In 2009 she released Shawn Colvin Live, which was recorded at the jazz club called Yoshi's, in San Francisco, California and featured 12 original songs plus cover versions of songs by Gnarls Barkley, The Talking Heads and Robbie Robertson.
Her eighth studio album, All Fall Down, was released in 2012 and was produced by Buddy Miller at his home studio in Nashville, Tennessee. The album featured guest appearances by Emmylou Harris, Alison Krauss and Jakob Dylan. In 2012, Colvin performed at the first annual PEN Awards for songwriting excellence at the JFK Presidential Library, honoring Chuck Berry and Leonard Cohen in Boston, Massachusetts. That same year Harper Collins published her memoir Diamond In The Rough.
Since 2000, Colvin has collaborated with a variety of artists and has made vocal contributions to songs by James Taylor, Béla Fleck, Edwin McCain and Shawn Mullins. She also collaborated with Sting on the Disney theme song, "One Day She'll Love Me". Colvin played the voice of character Rachel Jordan on the TV show The Simpsons and lent her vocals to Mary Chapin Carpenter's 1992 recordings "The Hard Way" and "Come On Come On".
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