Shawn Colvin brings world-class group to Wilbur
When Shawn Colvin began planning her current tour, it was expected to work out a bit differently. There were always planned to be three worldclass singer/songwriters onstage together, including herself and Marc Cohn. Rehearsals were due to start in March 2020, and the third singer would have been David Crosby.
The tour was first postponed by COVID, then Crosby’s health issues led to his dropping out. His first replacement was Colvin’s longtime friend and collaborator Mary Chapin Carpenter, but she too got sidelined by a shoulder injury. Finally Crosby suggested one of his own favorite newer artists, Sarah Jarosz, to join Colvin and Cohn. That acoustic supergroup will hit the Wilbur on Thursday.
“There’s a lot to enjoy,” Colvin says. “We take turns with all of us onstage, going down the line playing songs. Marc and Sarah are fine harmony singers, but they also add some instrumentation that the songs hadn’t had before.” Jarosz brings some youthful energy to the group, and probably some of Colvin’s own musical influence. “Sarah would probably say there is some — but I can’t tell because
I don’t have a great perspective on what I sound like. Probably we were both influenced by some of the same people. I like that some of her fans are coming out to see me and Marc, and hopefully vice versa.”
She did get a few chances over the years to sing with Crosby, who died last month. “The guy is the harmony singer of all time, and a stellar singer and writer. When he gets on a song, he gets it in a heartbeat and just nails it.”
Colvin’s been through a handful of musical changes since the ‘80s, but her breakthrough hit “Sunny Came Home” is still part of the set. “I was definitely not looking for a big hit,” she recalls. “Someone at the label wanted to pick a single and the first choice was ‘Get Out of This House,’ which seemed fair enough. I’d naturally do ‘Sunny’ in the live sets around then, and I don’t recall it getting any major reaction compared to the other songs. It definitely wasn’t an obvious hit, being mysterious and a little quirky.” One might expect she’s met a lot of kids named Sunny since then. “Actually I haven’t, but I did meet a few parents who named their sons Colvin after me.”
The albums come less frequently these days, but in 2013 she released a memoir, “Diamond in the Rough,” which opened up her creative process as well as her struggles with relationships and depression. “I’m a pretty honest person and I am of a mind that when I have been struggling the thing that helped me most is hearing from people who have been through the same thing and come out the other side; and maybe I could do that for other people. I felt I was following in the footsteps of other writers like William Styron and Kathy Cronkite.”
There’s a new album in the works, but she says she’s not rushing it. “One thing I learned in my career is that you can’t hurry it, you let it evolve. Even in the old days, the record label knew that you couldn’t squeeze blood from a turnip. It’s not that I’m more painstaking now— It’s honestly that I don’t have as much to say. The older I get, I find that there’s less drama in my life— so right now it’s about melody, chord changes and wordplay. At this age you have more of your life behind you than ahead of you, so things change — and eventually it comes down to dying, and there’s only so much you can say about that.”