Product Description

It's a sure bet that if you enjoy Shawn Colvin's breathy, yet gymnastic vocals and like to listen to obscure folk-rock songs, COVER GIRL is the album for you. Shawn has recorded adozen of her favourites--from the slickly produced version of The Police's "Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic", to W.A. Ramsey's rare find, "Satin Sheets"--in a live acoustic setting.
Standouts include her dramatic interpretation of Greg Brown's "One Cool Remove" (with help from Mary-Chapin Carpenter) and Judee Sills' folk nugget, "There's A Rugged Road". She gives a deliberate, tempered reading of the TalkingHeads' inventively wild "This Must be The Place", and an enthusiastic take on Dylan's classic "You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go". Also included are songs by Robbie Robertson, Steve Earle, Jimmy Webb and Tom Waits. Yet with all those heavyweight songwriters represented, the unlikely highlight is by a relative unknown, Roly Salley, whose "Killing TheBlues" is incisively and starkly interpreted during a powerhouse performance from New York's Bottom Line.
COVER GIRLis not only a good listen, it is an interesting insight into the ingredients that created an artist like Colvin.

Track Listing

1. Every Little Thing (He) Does Is Magic
2. Looking For The Heart Of Saturday Night
3. One Cool Remove
4. Satin Sheets
5. There's A Rugged Road
6. Killing The Blues
7. Window To The World
8. Someday
9. Twilight
10. If These Walls Could Speak
11. This Must Be The Place (Naive Melody)
12. You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go
13. 01'55

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #10074 in Music
• Released on: 1998-02-02
• Number of discs: 1

Customer Reviews

Everything she does is magic except the Police song
This album was criticised by many when it was first released, as it was felt that with only two original albums under her belt it was too early to produce an album of cover songs and that this was just filler before her next album. In retrospect this opinion can now be completely dismissed. It is an album that I have come to love over the past ten years or so, and if you can rid it of Every Little Thing He Does is Magic (which with the miracle of MP3 you can do now), you have a considered and beautifully sung piece of work. This cover of the Police song is unfortunate and it certainly coloured the early reviews of the album—it is so awful that it is difficult to get past it and truly listen to the other songs. But when you skip this and listen, the other covers are eclectic and often revelatory -- especially One Cool Remove. It is unapologetically folky and the stripped down production suits her so much better than the layers of sound that have been added to her more recent work. Cover Girl (the title is a bit silly) is not filler at all, but homage to her roots and passions. It may even be time for her to consider doing an album of covers again.

Shawn Colvin does other people's songs her way
Believe it or not, Shawn Colvin started out playing hard rock with her own group, the Shawn Colvin Band in Illinois. But the music played havoc with her voice. Then she ended up in the Dixie Diesels, a Western swing band in Texas. By the early 1980s she had moved to New York and was writing and singing folks songs there and in Boston, when she was not appearing in off Broadway shows like "Pump Boys and Dinettes" and "Lie of the Mind." By 1987 she was singing backup on Suzanne Vega's hit song "Luka" and a year later paired up with John Leventhal, writing the lyrics to his melodies. A decade later we get to her big album "A Few Small Repairs," with the hit single "Sunny Came Home," which won Grammy Awards for Record of the Year and Song of the Year.

The 1994 album "Cover Girl" is actually a look backwards in Colvin's ascent on the music scene. When Colvin first started working the folk circuit in Greenwich Village in the early 1980s she would take rock songs and turn them into tunes she could play and sing on her guitar, such as "Every Little Thing [He] Does Is Magic" by the Police and "This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody)" by the Talking Heads. Of course, when she was signed to a recording contract Colvin focused on her original material. But the generation of music lovers weaned on MTV's "Unplugged" are more amenable to hearing covers of familiar songs done in interesting ways, which justifies this effort. This is not to say that everything here is a radical interpretation of the text, because that would certainly not apply to Dylan's "You're Going to Make Me Lonesome When You Go." The only problem is that the best songs on the album are ones that are not mainstream works and it is hard to appreciate a cover song if you do not know the original (e.g., Greg Brown's "One Cool Remove" or Willis Alan Ramsey's "Satin Sheets").

This album is a mixture of studio and live tracks, and after listening to the likes of "Heart of Saturday Night" by Tom Waits and "Twilight" by Robbie Robertson, I will state a preference for the former. I have picked up Colvin's last album in preparation for hearing her in concert again this month. Since the last time was Lilith Fair it will be nice to hear her do more than a short set, and in addition to listening to her best known songs I will be interested to see what cover songs she shares with us this time around. Hearing this album can only whet your appetite for such things.

lovely summery album of cover versions
If you've heard other stuff by Shawn Colvin you'll know that she has amazing summery sounding guitar fuelled songs. This album is mostly acoustic based which I think suits her style of voice best. The songs have a sparse and raw feel to them which compliments the choice of cover versions well.
Although covers can be misguided, this album proves that addage wrong; every track on here is stunningly beautiful and sung with tenderness and emotion.
A truly beautiful album.