Shawn Colvin

The folk singer and songwriter whose 1989 debut Steady On won a Grammy and holds "Diamond in the Rough", written with John Leventhal.

From Carbondale to New York

Shawna Lee Colvin was born on January 10, 1956 in Vermillion, South Dakota, and grew up in Carbondale, Illinois, and London, Ontario. She learned guitar at ten, attended Southern Illinois University and led a country-swing band, the Dixie Diesels, before working in Austin and the Berkeley folk circuit. In 1980 she moved to New York, joined the Buddy Miller Band and became involved with the Fast Folk cooperative.

In 1987 she sang backup on Suzanne Vega's "Luka" and toured with Vega in 1988, which led to her Columbia deal. Her debut album, Steady On, came out on October 17, 1989 and won the Grammy for best contemporary folk album at the 33rd Grammy Awards in February 1991.

Later records

Fat City (1992), Cover Girl (1994), A Few Small Repairs (1996), Holiday Songs and Lullabies (1998), Whole New You (2001), These Four Walls (2006, Nonesuch), All Fall Down (2012, produced by Buddy Miller), Uncovered (2015), Colvin and Earle (2016, with Steve Earle) and The Starlighter (2018) followed. "Sunny Came Home" spent four weeks at number one on the adult contemporary chart in 1997 and 1998 and won the Grammys for record and song of the year in 1998. Her memoir, Diamond in the Rough, was published by William Morrow in 2012, and she received the Americana Trailblazer Award in 2016.

Setlist.fm lists 877 setlists for her, with a UK tour in October 2026 including Union Chapel in London, St George's in Bristol and Queen's Hall in Edinburgh. A live album recorded at Yoshi's in Oakland came out in 2009, and Steady On: 30th Anniversary Acoustic Edition, with the songs re-recorded, in 2019.

Albums

Steady On 1989 · Columbia
Her debut: ten songs, most written with John Leventhal, with Suzanne Vega and Bruce Hornsby as guests.
Fat City 1992
A 1992 album.
Cover Girl 1994
A 1994 album.
A Few Small Repairs 1996
A 1996 album.
Holiday Songs And Lullabies 1998
A 1998 album.
Whole New You 2001
A 2001 album.
These Four Walls 2006
A 2006 album.
All Fall Down 2012
A 2012 album.
Uncovered 2015
A 2015 album.
Steady On • 30th Anniversary Acoustic Edition 2019
A 2019 album.

Songs

Diamond in the Rough Steady On · 1989
The second track on Steady On, with Suzanne Vega on backing vocals, and her most played song after "Sunny Came Home".

Sources

Shawn Colvin, Wikipedia
Steady On (Shawn Colvin album), Wikipedia
Shawn Colvin song statistics, setlist.fm
Shawn Colvin on music and memoir, PBS NewsHour (2012-06-25)