FAT CITY

Shawn Colvin - Fat City (Columbia / Sony Music)

Who is Shawn Colvin? The simple answer is: the woman who sang backing vocals on Luka and was part of Suzanne Vega's band on the Solitude Standing World Tour. After that it gets a little more complicated. Shawn Colvin released her fine debut album Steady On! in 1989. Vega sand backing vocals on the song Diamond In The Rough.

Three years on, she is back with her second album Fat City. Even on first hearing it is clear that a lot of time and care has gone into the making of this album. It was produced mainly by Larry Klein and recording and mixing took place in many different studios in Los Angeles and New York. Colvin picks up (6 and 12-string) acoustic and electric guitars, while her trusted sidekick John Leventhal is present both as a musician and a co-writer. Colvin is backed by top session musicians like drummers Jim Keltner and Vinnie Colaiuta and percussionist Alex Acuna. A lot of amous guests contribute bits and pieces like Joni Mitchell and Richard Thompson. However, the main focus of attention is on Shawn Colvin herself. Her rich, swooning voice can make the hardest of hearts melt and there is no disputing the quality of her song- and lyric writing. Fat City is polished but not overproduced. It fits into the mainstream but it is not easy listening. Take for instance the opening song Polaroids. Against gentle strumming she pleads: "Please no more therapy / Mother take care of me / Piece me together with a needle and thread." It is strangely reminiscent of Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar. Elsewhere, Polaroids paints pictures of "Forests in Germany / Kids in the Tuileries / Broken down fortresses in old Italy." Colvin's use of imagery is excellent throughout the album. The song is enriched by some tasteful playing by Larry Campbell on pedal steel guitar and David Lindley on - wait for it - Weisenborn Hawaiian guitar! It is a strong opener, but immediately Tennessee kicks in with its driving rock beat and upbeat feel. Who is Shawn Colvin? "I'm not the bad city girl come down to rape you / I'm not the hometown queen who wants to save you." She is a woman "with the soul of a rebel in a Yankee girl," who was touched by the rock & roll she heard on the back roads of Tennessee. After Arrested Development's song with the same title this is the second great song released about Tennessee this year. Perhaps the second hit as well? Although a writer like Colvin doesn't need to cover other people's material, the choice of Tenderness on the Block, written by Warren Zevon and Jackson Browne, is a good one. Colvin is backed here by the Subdudes, a young band who released an album of their own on Eastwest. It also features Booker T. Jones on Hammond organ. The soul harmonies become more prominent towards the end of the song. Another Round of Blues is another bright up tempo song that would make an ideal single. It contains the title line "I see lights in a fat city" as well as the clever "We smoked a lot of hope." But did she inhale as well? Bill Clinton wants to know. Monopoly is a song about songwriting as much as it is a song about a relationship gone wrong. "I hate that shit when people say: Well you know you got a song out of it," she remarks. Climb On (A Back That's Strong) is a mid tempo pleaser with a rousing chorus. Bruce Hornsby plays piano and sings backing vocals together with Mary-Chapin Carpenter and Valerie Carter. Set The Prairie On Fire is another high point, a smouldering love song with Booker T. Jones on Hammond Organ and Chris Whitley on National Guitar.

After that the album takes a different lyrical turn. Object of My Affection, the second song with The Subdudes, begins happy enough. "Jump into the night / Gas up and downshift / Cruise up the coast / On the FM drift," Shawn sings against a subtle accordion melody, but the mood swings quite abruptly in the following verses, leading to some of the album's most powerful poetry. "Now we see the women in the photograph / Sweet Anne of mercy and Sylvia Plath / For a thousand words they got a life sentence." Then it gets really bitter. "If we lined up all the girls who died in vain / We could walk on their heads to hell and back again," before sarcastically concluding "But I got the big book and antidepressants." Who the object of affection is remains unclear. After all, an "object" doesn't necessarily have to be human. But the real killer track is still to come. Kill the Messenger takes us to the Canadian plains and a woman called Jane who is called upon by the singer. "See Jane something's gone dead inside my head / There's nothing but fear / Jane the rivers of grief / The tears of relief / Seem ages from here." All is not well against a background of threatening percussion. Kill The Messenger could be about "The aesthetics of love / The athletics of loss." Jane has found love, something which the singer no longer seems capable of. "Sometimes someone drifts by / And our nets get entwined in the sea / And in time I might find they still mean something to me... But Jane, that is a luxury." What was the first line of the album again? "Please no more therapy..." Spooky. Who is Shawn Colvin? Is she "The ugly American" from Polaroids? "The stranger who knew too much" from Tennessee? A happy go lucky Yankee girl or a confessional poet? Or a bit of both? In any case she is a singer/songwriter who in 1985 had a song on a Fast Folk compilation album called I Don't Why. A new version of this song concludes the album. It is a relatively straightforward song with a hopeful line like "I don't know why but somewhere is a place where dreams come true" countered by a more desperate one like "If there were no music I would not get through."

Fat City belies its glossy packaging. Its deep emotional content is balanced by its accomplished musicianship. Fat City lives up to the expectations raised by Steady On! and exceeds them. It is a fascinating album that will hopefully get the attention it deserves.

photograph: E.J. Camp