A Look Into Shawn Colvin’s Discography
If you take a look into the discography of Shawn Colvin, you’ll find an expansive musical repertoire that ranges over 30 years. The folk songstress’ catalog is full of music that comes straight from the heart and digs deep into the soul, and it all started in 1989. This was the year when Shawn released her debut album Steady On, which won a Grammy for Best Contemporary Folk Album and immediately cemented her place in the music scene. Full of reverberant acoustics and commanding vocals, Steady On served as a powerful kickoff to Shawn’s solo career. Notable standouts on the album include the hauntingly beautiful “Shotgun Down The Avalanche” and the title track “Steady On” with its remarkably poignant lyricism. Steady On set the stage for what was to come in the following years of her career, with the next batch of songs arriving in 1992 on her sophomore album Fat City. Fat City charted on the Billboard 200 and expanded greatly on Shawn’s ability to craft cohesive sonic narratives, with “Polaroids” and “I Don’t Know Why” among the album’s highlights.
In 1996, Shawn released the album that would prove to be one of the brightest shining stars of her career, A Few Small Repairs. This album saw Shawn continue to evolve as a storyteller, songwriter, and musician, her creative vision coming through clearer than ever with each strum of the guitar and reciting of a lyric. The album’s opening track, “Sunny Came Home,” became a smash hit and won two Grammys, and is considered to this day to be one of the most quintessential songs of the 90’s. Other fan favorites from A Few Small Repairs include “Get Out Of This House,” “The Facts About Jimmy,” and “Wichita Skyline.”
Shawn went on to dominate the coming decades with several more original albums that put her musical prowess on full display, including Whole New You (2001), These Four Walls (2006), All Fall Down (2012), and Uncovered (2015). Traversing through her discography, you’ll also find albums outside of just original studio albums such as Cover Girl (1994) which features renditions of songs like Talking Heads’ “This Must Be the Place,” as well as a holiday album, Holiday Songs And Lullabies (1998) and a live album, Live (2009). Each of these releases is an important piece of Shawn’s artistry, and each one of her musical works has played its own key role in paving the way for modern day singer-songwriters within the folk genre.
To fully immerse yourself in Shawn’s discography and hear a dynamic mix of original songs, collaborations, and covers, make sure to get tickets for her upcoming US tour, An Evening With Shawn Colvin & KT Tunstall Together Onstage.
