Steady On

Artist: Shawn Colvin
Label: Sony
Category: Music

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Media: Audio CD
Number Of Discs: 1

UPC: 074644520927
EAN: 0074644520927
ASIN: B0000026TH

Release Date: 1989-10-04

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Tracks:

Steady On
Diamond In The Rough
Shotgun Down The Avalanche
Stranded
Another Long One
Cry Like An Angel
Something To Believe In
The Story
Ricochet In Time
The Dead Of The Night

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A Few Small Repairs
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Customer Reviews:

STILL HER BEST WORK...........2006-09-07

Althgh I have nearly all of Shawn Colvin's albums & have seen her live twice, this album remains her best work to date. I am a great fan of her sound, music, lyrics - but somehow this album is most identifiable from the first cord. Ms. Colvin is a remarkable artist, poet. There are few artists like her and/or could be compared to her : Jann Arden comes to mind @ the moment. If anyone is curious about Shawn Colvin's music - I HIGHLY recommend this album to be where you shld begin your collection.

Wearing well with time.......2005-10-26

My first exposure to Colvin didn't come on this album or even with her pop hit "Sunny Came Home" (from A FEW SMALL REPAIRS). It was in a non-hit duet with Bruce Hornsby on "Lost Soul" (from his A NIGHT ON THE TOWN disc). The voice was clearly special and I checked our local library to see if they had anything by her. I fell in love with the disc and later added it to my own collection. Now, 16 years later I'm reassessing its merits.

HIGHLIGHTS:
The title track is Colvin's defiant yawp after another relationship implosion (the "the nuclear winter of another love affair" as Colvin refers to it.) "Diamond in the Rough" takes a childhood fantasy of ordinary rocks as priceless gems to become a metaphor for lost innocence. ("But in a little while I got steeped in authority/Heaven only knows what went wrong/There is nothing so cruel than to bury that jewel.."). Fellow folkies Suzanne Vega and Lucy Kaplansky join Colvin on backing vocals. If "Steady" is Colvin's ode to romantic persistence, "Shotgun down the Avalanche" is Colvin aching for what was lost. ("After countless appeals/we keep spinning our wheels/On this mountain of new fallen snow/So I let go the catch and we are over the edge/You have left me nowhere to go..") A spectral backing vocal from co-producer John Leventhal is a nice sonic touch to the somewhat country-ish shuffle. "Another Long One" is the most musically adventurous, folding in a panoply of percussion (I think I hear Chinese cymbals, bongo and perhaps aluminum pie pan?), cello, fiddle, and an electric guitar that toys with effects that stretch its tone so much in a couple occasions it sounds like an old warped vinyl record. It also probably has one of the more "pop" sounding hooks, belying the singer's tortured insomnia as she thinks about the man she's lost and can't forget. ("It's just me and my well-intentioned spite/I said someone did this to me/But no one did, there's no injustices..") While I find the 2nd half of the disc to be weaker than the first, there's one last highwater mark in the tender "Something to Believe In". The song is the antidote to the despair in so many of the other songs, hopeful without Pollyanna-isms. ("There will always be stars in the wind/Little lines on your face when you grin/When it looks like you've done it again/And you just don't know where to begin/There will always be something to believe in..."). Hornsby returns the favour here, guesting on piano, though the filigrees he adds here are somewhat more restrained than is typical on his own works.

LOWS:
While there's nothing truly substandard here, I find "Ricochet in Time" and "The Dead of the Night" to be the least involving tracks. They simply don't draw me in.

BOTTOM LINE:
Those who found Colvin on the strength of the effervescent "Sunny Came Home" and the poppier material on A FEW SMALL REPAIRS may be put off by the difference in sound here. It's definitely not an "immediate" listen. But if you spend some time with the CD, it will grow to become among your favourites. Recommended especially for pop fans who want more "adult" fare lyrically.

worth a listen.......2005-06-27

Thank goodness for brothers and sisters, otherwise I may have never discovered this cd.I heard the song "steady on " playing at my sisters house and borrowed the cd. I have since bought it and several other cds by Shawn Colvin but it is by far my favorite. I was happy to see Shawn have some comercial success with " A Few Small Repairs" But I would reccommend "Steady On " if you only buy one disc. Like one of the other people that reviewed this cd my tw favorite SC songs are "Diamond In The Rough" and "Shotgun Down The Avalanch" SDTA is a song that almost perfectly describes my feelings towards a dear friend. Its a song I wish I would have written, just like "solsbury Hill by Peter Gabriel. Except I don't write songs. But really I think all the songs on Steady On are great. Its nice to think that Shawn Colvin is the type of artist that will be around awhile and another "Steady On" could be right around the corner. Its a cd you can buy right here on amazon for dirt cheap used. I am not endorsing Amazon I am endorsing Shawn Colvin. But what do I know?? By the way, I got to see Shawn in Atlanta in concert along with Jackson Browne, Bonnie Raitt, and Bruce Hornsby, What a great line up and show..........Good Day!!

Shawn Colvin, Will You Marry Me, Please?.......2004-07-23

I'd give this CD 10 stars if Amazon allowed it!..But I can't, say enough superlatives about how fine Shawn Colvin's vocals, guitar licks, and lyrics are..I saw a concert with Jackson Browne and he introduced Shawn as the most talented artist he knew!..Shocking, but true!..Jackson Browne's legacy has always been to kickstart the careers of less visible talent..Because Jackson is so adroit himself, he doesn't envy other people's gifts, but rather salutes them..And Shawn Colvin is well, a rock angel for the ages!..She just needs to hit the road with an amped "live" tour, with the same class band she had years ago when I saw her sing "Tennessee" on the Tonite Show, before she was remotely well known: to build that Shawn Colvin Legion of Tye-Dye-Hard Core Followers, like The Dead Heads: a mobile symphonic gas, The Colvin Cars, rolling right into your hometown, "alive"..And not play acoustic only all the time, though that's serious picking too..People I know and respect, see her acoustic concerts and often dont "get" Shawn, regrettably..Sorry, you whiney purists out there, but Shawn is just better, backed by an all star, electrified, rock band..This is a must own CD..I've played it countless times and it remains as fresh as rain water..Curiously, every song on the CD is pure gold..That's rare, to nail every cut..I've never understood why Shawn isn't a people's express..Her banner hanging on every street lamp in Austin..It's mystifying because all the raw talent natural law allows in one entity is there..One better, Shawn is a Dylan..Songwriter par excellence.."Riding Shotgun Down the Avalanche" is way smart, hip!..And that middle guitar solo is note-bending magic!..But not better than "In the Dead of the Night," the dark queen of all ballads! "I live in a dream, I brought it here, everynight it dies but it is reborn"..No fooling, buy this CD for yourself, or give it away: you'll earn instant karma points..Tell your best friends and your worst enemies about Shawn: It's positively 4th street for a Hatfield to educate a McCoy now and again, for a worthy cause..Pay it forward..Shawn Colvin has been unfairly compared to Joni Mitchell ad naseum, but that's not righteous either, because she's too original to be compared to yet another superstar..Though I myself, did compare her to Bob..I'm sharing this because I'm paying it forward..And I'm happy to recommend Shawn in the same way Jackson Browne does, because Shawn Colvin is the real deal, just like Patsy Cline, The Texas Tornado, was!..Believe it!..It's the down and dirty truth! Not a hyperbolic West Texas dust storm!

I was born to be hearing this CD.......2003-10-22

OK, that's a bit of an exageration, but I love it! This CD is a gem. It's the one that I come back to over and over. And then I listen to it over and over. Not a bad one in the batch. Every time I hear the lines like to The Story I'm amazed. I don't know why, but this verse just amazes me:

Well our father married our mother too young
And he took on a world like a fortunate son
But in the cellar downstairs waiting for the bomb scare
He would hide from us under the kitchen
Where she simmered so soft with her weapons of tin
And like so many suppers she just gave us to him
And he never did guess in her cast iron dress
She was burning beyond recognition

PERFECTION! The title song is strong and determined. The lines: Cause he seemed like a miracle, I ate it up like cereal, but it was something like shrapnel" rank up there with the absolute best descriptions of relationships gone wrong. Shotgun is a marvel of emotional expression. Something To Believe In is tender and touching but not in the least saccharine sweet. Shawn Colvin's delivery is always 100% on the money. The production is great. The instrumentation never outweighs the songs.

On this album Shawn Colvin shows that she is not just another girl with a guitar but an incredible talent. There isn't a bad number on this CD. Highly recommended!

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