Shawn Colvin: Cover Girl

When Shawn Colvin first turned up playing Greenwich Village folk clubs in the early 1980s, she used to perform a variety of cover songs, often taking rock recordings and re-imagining them for her girl-with-guitar format. When Colvin began recording in the late '80s, however, she concentrated on her own original material. Cover Girl brings her interpretive abilities back into focus. Songs like the Police's "Every Little Thing [He] Does Is Magic" and Talking Heads' "This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody)" are the most radical reworkings here, but not the best, perhaps because they depend on their original productions. Colvin is more successful in choosing classic but not well-known songs already in the folk idiom -- Greg Brown's "One Cool Remove," Willis Alan Ramsey's "Satin Sheets," and Rolly Solley's "Killing the Blues." A fan from the old Village days can only lament that she didn't choose to include her version of Dire Straits' "Romeo and Juliet."
-- William Ruhlmann, All-Music Guide

Colvin does a beautiful live cover version, inspired by the way Rick Danko sings this song in his solo performances, of The Band's "Twilight", a Robertson tune first released in 1976 on The Best of The Band. In the liner notes she says: "I only really became aware of this song after hearing Rick Danko do it. I was sure it was an old civil war song. I don't even touch his rendition, but there you go." She also says she did record a cover of "Acadian Driftwood", but the recording sounded like she "took out about 40 foot o' guard rail".

Tracks

1. Every Little Thing (he) Does is Magic (Sting)
2. (Looking For) the Heart of Saturday Night (Waits,Tom)
3. One Cool Remove (Brown,G.)
4. Satin Sheets (Ramsey,W.A.)
5. There's a Rugged Road (Sill,Judee)
6. Killing the Blues (Salley,R.)
7. Window to the World (Littlefield,T.)
8. Someday (Earle,S.)
9. Twilight (Robertson,R.)
10. If These Walls Could Speak (Webb,J.)
11. This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody) (Byrne,David/Frantz,Chris/Ha...)
12. You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go (Dylan,B.)