Shawn Colvin on New Covers Album and Being Freaked Out By David Crosby
For many aspiring musicians plying their trade in bars and coffeehouses, learning cover songs is a necessity. But for singer-songwriter Shawn Colvin, who’s been playing her own songs on stages around the world for the better part of three decades, paying tribute to those who have influenced her own writing is a genuine passion.
For the second time in her career, Colvin puts her stamp on a dozen tunes from writers like Bruce Springsteen, Neil Finn and Creedence Clearwater Revival on the acoustic Uncovered. The new LP, out now on Fantasy Records, arrives 21 years after the similarly-themed Cover Girl, which spotlighted her unique takes on songs by Bob Dylan, Steve Earle and the Police. Colvin, who will spend much of the next two months touring with the Eagles’ Don Henley, talks with Rolling Stone Country about the first songs that took her breath away, her ongoing battle with stage fright and the reason most of her covers come from male songwriters.
Why was now the right time for you to do another album of covers?
It was, in part, to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Cover Girl. Actually, more like 21st — but who’s counting? I’ve amassed a bunch of covers since then and I love to do them. I get a lot of joy out of covering other people’s songs and, at my best, I think I bring something a little new to a lot of them. Also, right now I’m writing songs with Steve Earle for a record we’re recording in December. I just can’t write that much. I can’t write two records worth of material at the same time. Steve can. He can write 10 songs in one day but I can’t.
Have you always had a pretty good number of cover songs in your arsenal?
I was a cover artist for years. I didn’t start writing songs until I was in my mid-twenties. I wrote them with John Leventhal and they were pretty bad. I was in my late twenties when I wrote the first song with him that made any sense to me about what I was rooted in and what spoke for me as an artist. That was “Diamond in the Rough” [from her 1989 debut album, Steady On]. From then on, I had a template and began to write the stuff that ended up on my records. I’ve always got my ear out and I’m also just a fan of great songwriters. I always wanted to be a songwriter and it took a while.