Shawn Colvin October 30, 2006

SHAWN COLVIN
OCTOBER 30, 8PM
MOORE THEATRE

The first song SHAWN COLVIN completed for These Four Walls, her Nonesuch debut, was the wistful “Summer Dress,” which opens with Colvin singing over the austere strum of a lone acoustic guitar, then builds into a lilting folk-rock arrangement. Colvin maintains a delicate balance between confidence and vulnerability as she describes a dream-like venture out to “face a wilderness.” Like much of this deeply felt album, “Summer Dress” is about looking ahead, moving on, performed from the vantage point of someone who’s had a chance to glance back somewhat ruefully at where she’s been. The song could be a veiled recounting of the picaresque route Colvin herself took to hard-earned solo stardom, from her South Dakota birthplace to the Southern Illinois college town where she was raised, to the bars and clubs of Boston and New York City, where she first attracted a following. Then again, it might be an artfully composed fiction about escaping a small town or running after love, a postcard from a youthful time when freedom seemed like a mere bus ticket or car ride away. Whatever its origins, the emotional and musical pull of “Summer Dress” -- along with the rest of These Four Walls -- is powerful. It’s very much an album of shared experiences, common epiphanies. Colvin is one of those rare performers, like Bonnie Raitt, Emmylou Harris, or her youthful idol Joni Mitchell, who has been able to grow up alongside her audience and mature into her role as singer and songwriter. Although she was rewarded with a Best Contemporary Folk Grammy for her 1989 debut disc, Steady On, Colvin didn’t reach a broad mainstream audience until eight years later, when her story of a housewife’s fiery revenge, “Sunny Came Home” became an unlikely Top 10 pop single fifteen months after A Few Small Repairs was released. These Four Walls, her first album of new, original material since 2001’s A Whole New You, is perhaps her most assured and compelling work to date.

Tickets are $23.50 and $33.50 plus applicable service charges and go on sale Friday, September 15 at noon and are available online at ticketmaster.com or hob.com, at all Ticketmaster outlets or charge by phone at (206) 628-0888

Official Website: http://hob.com/tickets/eventdetail.asp?eventid=41403