Colvin’s career took slight turn

By John Benson

entertainment@vindy.com

Shawn Colvin is best known for her 1997 radio hit “Sunny Came Home.” But the folk artist’s career could have changed dramatically if a Playhouse Square play she was cast in led to bigger productions and even Broadway.

“Before I ever had a record contract, I spent a few months in Cleveland because I was in the play ‘Diamond Studs’ at the State Theatre,” said Colvin, calling from Austin, Texas. “It didn’t really go anywhere. It was about Jesse James, and this was the fall of 1987.”

Imagine for a second that the production catches fire, all of Northeast Ohio comes out, and the next thing she knows she’s touring nationally. Perhaps today she’d be known for stage work of a different kind?

“Yeah, I guess it could have, although I remember when we were doing it I was working on a song that ended up on my first record,” Colvin said. “I was getting there as far as having the material. I didn’t start writing until I was a little older, I just didn’t have any concept, so I suppose it could have delayed things, but I think I would have ended up being a recording artist.”

What an artist she became with album sales of more than 2.5 million copies in the United States. Over the years, she has played shows with Jackson Browne, Bonnie Raitt, Bruce Hornsby, Emmylou Harris and Lyle Lovett. Though she’s released 10 albums to date, it’s her 1996 effort “A Few Small Repairs” that led to her breakthrough. The murder-ballad “Sunny Came Home” gave Colvin a top-10 hit and two of Grammy’s biggest honors: Record of the Year and Song of the Year.

In looking over her catalog, it’s apparent that Colvin is less of a pop-singles songwriter and more focused on writing entire albums. For example, she’s never had another song come close to the success of “Sunny Came Home.”

“We never wrote or produced the songs to get on the radio,” Colvin said. “We thought in the earlier years — like with albums ‘Steady On’ and ‘Fat City,’ before we did ‘A Few Small Repairs’ — there was radio-friendly stuff that fit for the times. Anymore, it wouldn’t matter what I did. I don’t think there’s a chance for what I do on the radio, but in the past, yeah, there might have been something. In fact, I know there was stuff that worked.”

Perhaps fans can hear all about those songs when Colvin returns to the Buckeye State to appear at the Kent State Folk Festival on Friday at the Kent Stage. Or maybe they can read about it when she releases her first memoir next year. For the 54-year-old artist, writing her life story was never an intention, but yet here we are.

“It’s kind of silly; somebody kind of dared me to try it,” Colvin said. “I wrote a couple of chapters and submitted them to a couple of publishers, had some meetings and somebody bought the book. So then I had to write the whole thing.”

The one thing about celebrity autobiographies these days is they need to have a juicy hook to have something to promote on “The Today Show” and sell copies. Did Colvin dig up any dirt?

“I’d say there’s enough dirt in there to warrant some interest,” Colvin said. “It’s my own dirt. ... I don’t tell on anybody.”