- [voiceover] funding for overheard with evan smith is provided in part by the alice kleberg reynolds foundation. and hillco partners, a texas government affairs consultancy. and by klru's producers circle, ensuring local programming that reflects the character and interests of the greater austin, texas community. - i'm evan smith. she's a grammy award winning singer-songwriter whose latest album, a collaboration with fellow grammy award winner steve earle is called, appropriately enough, colvin and earle. she's shawn colvin. this is overheard. (piano music)

shawn colvin, welcome. - [shawn] thank you. - [eric] nice to see you again. - [shawn] you too. - [eric] it's so nice to hear your voice coming out of a record, i have to tell you the great fun i've had over the last couple of weeks listening to this record. it reminds me how much i enjoy hearing your music. - thank you. - and it's a really great, and interesting, and different record. it's very spare, very raw, and casual. not is as if pejorative i say that, but it just doesn't feel like it's been over-produced and over done. feel like you all had fun - that's a great compliment. - [eric] making it. - we did, and it was done quickly, a week and a half and- - [eric] you recorded it in a week and a half? - we did. and those are exactly the words we want you to use to describe it. - good. and it was recorded in different places, or it was recorded in one place? - no, it was recorded in nashville with buddy miller who's a producer and often it's not when he produces, you record at his house, which is what we did and it was just very casual.

the overall opinion from all of us, buddy first and foremost is this is not rocket science. - it doesn't have to be complicated. - yeah, if you can sing in place, sit down and sing in place and we'll push a button and that's the end of it. - so all recorded in nashville. - all recorded in nashville and fairly live. steve and i sat across from each other playing in scene, there wasn't a big baffle between us to separate the sounds and everything. the band just performed live in the control room actually, so there was bleeding of sounds all over the place and we didn't care. - [eric] you make a return to buddy miller actually, you have a long relation with buddy miller that goes back to new york. - goes back to austin, - [eric] oh, it goes back - [shawn] in the 70s. - [eric] to even before that. talk about that. - well i moved to austin '76, i think, with a band called the dixie diesels. we we're out of carbondale, illinois and we were kind of following the dream, asleep at the wheel, you know?

we were kind of pattering ourselves after that. it was a cool band. and i was the girl singer. we got here and it was such a small community then and easy to navigate and with the number of clubs, just it was easy to navigate, it was smaller. we just got to know everybody quickly. one of our main gigs was the split rail, which is no longer here. - [eric] right, long lamented and deceased. - long lamented and deceased on south lamar. buddy miller was all over the place, one of the bands i saw him play in, he was the drummer. and buddy's a monster guitar player and singer and it just cracks me up that he was drumming, he can do anything. so i got to know everybody and we became friends. and julie miller as well. who was julie griffin back then. - [eric] back in the old days.

- back in the old days. - now you know steve back not quite as long ago, but this relationship with steve, this record is surely born of a relation that goes back many, many years right? - [shawn] it goes back many years, although we were more or less acquainted, didn't know each other as well as we know each other now. i was aware of steve, i had guitar town. i don't know when he put it out, early 80s i believe? - [eric] you were a fan. first and foremost. - [shawn] a big fan and i met him when i opened a show for him at the iron horse in north hampton, massachusetts and i opened the show and met him down in the dressing room very briefly. that was a big thrill. he was playing solo, i was playing solo. i really didn't see much of him and i recorded 'someday,' on my cover girl album, a great song of his. you know, you always worry when you record somebody else's song, "are they gonna like it?"

sometimes you hear from people about them, i've made two cover records now, sometimes you don't. i didn't hear anything from steve and i found out later he was in the trenches with his drug addiction and as he tells it, towards the end of that really dark period he found out that emmi lou had recorded 'guitar town,' and i had recorded 'someday,' and that was kind of a beacon of light. - he's talked about that, in fact, in the course of promoting this record when it's come up, he's said, "you know, at a really difficult "time in my life, i was so happy to hear that "and to hear about that." - so we were kind of bonded through that, even though we really hadn't spent any time together since that time that i opened for him at the iron horn in north hampton. then we began to see each other because he got out in the world again, you know. - [eric] came back out performing. - he did. and we saw each other at festivals and sort of around campus, as it were and he would sit in with me and sing 'someday,' and i would sit in with him and sing 'someday.' - so you had actually performed with him before, but it was your reach out to him

that really got this partnership for this record. - years down the road, i started doing package concerts with people most specifically mary chapin carpenter, we're old friends, and we thought, "wouldn't it be nice, you know, "instead of having a package deal "where one person opens the show and "one person closes the show, "if we were on stage together for the whole night," swapping songs and singing, and playing on each others stuff and talking. - [eric] right, so she'd sing some back up for you, you'd sing some back up for her, tell stories. - tell stories and... it was great. - [eric] this has become kind of a thing in the music business now. - it has and people love it. it sure is fun for me, i love being a backup musician and i love having somebody to talk to. - [eric] you were a backup musician years ago, you sang backup for suzanne vega, you sung backup in a couple of different instances, right? - i did, and for example, when i got to new york in 1980 i enjoyed buddy's band, again i was the girl singer

and i had to play a lot of rhythm guitar, do a lot of harmony, i love that. which is something i got to do more on this steve record, because this is a little tougher than my normal... style, i guess you would say. - [eric] why's that? - i think buddy put it best, he said, i moved a little towards steve, and steve moved a little towards me and steve's a rougher player, you know, he's more of a raw player and i really loved that. i can play harder and sing harder than people might think. - you're often said to be fairlier, not a folk singer, he's often said to be fairlier and not a country singer and this record is neither folk or country. - [shawn] i'm glad you think so, so what would you call it? - [eric] i actually don't know how to characterize it except as the way i did, it's the two of you playing and singing, and it doesn't have an enormous amount of production behind it. everybody wants to be happy and free, 'happy and free,' is the name of the song, but the first line of that song, "everybody wants to be happy and free,"

that's my favorite thing on the record. and the thing about that song is just feels like it's light as an air, right? and i think that that's, again, back to this side of it being a casual record, it's hard to really pigeon-hole it as a particular style. it just seems like the two of you are having fun doing it. - it was supposed to be fun. supposed to be extemporaneous, not extemporaneous, but you know, just off the cup, easy. - so you mentioned mary chapin carpenter, so in fact the origin story of this record is you had come off of doing this package deal with her where you worked together. - i normally play by myself. i did a little bit of it with marc cohn, we did not a lot of gigs, but some. i was just eager to do it again with somebody else and i thought, "who would i like to do this with?" and i thought of steve earle and we asked him. he says he normally doesn't do that kind of thing, but he was interested in it. so we rehearsed for five minutes back stage

for the first gig. we rehearsed a couple of cover of songs, so we could at least intro the show with a together performance and then we would just swap songs. - [eric] so it was gig, and then eventually, record. - did the gig and steve had this reaction that, "you know, we sound better than i thought we would." our voices have a good blend. it's kind of like a familial thing almost, it's kind of this brother and sister sort of blend, is how i put it and we do move a little towards each other to make it work. it was his idea to make the record. - [eric] so it's original songs plus some covers, ruby tuesday, the rolling stones song for instance, and a couple of others. - a couple others. there are six original songs we had to cobble those writing sessions together over about nine months. - i've heard him talk about this, they really were collaborations. it was not case of you just joining in to a song that he had produced, you actually were writing the songs together. he would send you a riff, or send you a line from the road, he might be out doing something

and you would actually collaborate on the construction of the song. - yeah, it wasn't like, "okay let's do a record together. "here's a song i wrote, we'll do that. "here's a song you wrote, we'll do that." we wrote them together. - [eric] much more of a partnership. now he's a character, right? that's a nice way say it, right? he's had a very colorful and interesting career, and life, and as you said he's kind of had some personal issues he's dealt with over the years. what was it like to work with him? i look at him from a distance and i think it would be an interesting challenge to work with steve earle. you seem nice. - i am. i am nice. i've had my struggles, too, so there is a little bit of a shorthand with us about life in general. steve has been a solo, i have too, but has really been a solo artist his whole life. there was no collaboration or partnership. and he's very definitive about what he wants, very sure about what he wants and

he's used to having all the say and he knows what he wants. so to take me in and to have to listen was a little bit a challenge for him, i think. he'd probably say the samething. he's always been the boss. - [eric] yeah. well now there are two bosses. - now there are two bosses and one's a girl. (laughter) i think there was not tension, but a learning curve and he'll describe one situation where we really did kind of have a little tussle. i don't know if you want me to tell you about it. - [eric] tell us all about it. we want this to be boring. no, we want to actually- come on, give me a little scandal here, a little drama. - yeah, this is the dirt. we had written a song together called 'you're still gone,' and julie miller was part of that process as well, she started the song. so we had finished it and

the day before we recorded it, i was sort of in that dreamy state before you go to sleep and i thought, "this might be able to use a bridge." i kind of have this idea for a bridge, so i came in the next day, we were all set to record it and i go, "you know, i had this idea for a bridge," and he goes, "i hate bridges." (laughter) which is such bull because he's written a zillion bridges and we love the beatles and it was insane. and i said, "it was just an idea." and he goes, "well i hate 'em.' and he kind of threw a fit. so i go, "okay, let's record this song." and the next day, he came in with 'happy and free,' part of having been written, not much, and he goes, "and then here's the bridge." (laughter) - [eric] i hope you got up in his business about that. - you know, i did, i did. and he had to laugh and say he was sorry. - [eric] well good.

you've made steve earle apologetic. - for that moment. - [eric] for that one moment, exactly. so you've been on the road a fair amount with him playing a whole bunch of venues- - well, we made the record in december. - [eric] that's right, seven months. - we've been doing work since january. - [eric] and you still have a little bit more time to go. - we have six more weeks to go. - you like being on the road? is this something you still enjoy doing after all this time? - yes, i do. but there was this weird period of time. you put out a record on a major label, i had never worked so hard in my life even though i had been a touring musician for all those years before then, nothing prepared me for the kind of travel i was going to have to do and the promotion of the record all day with radio stations, print, things like that. - [eric] of course that's in the old days when a lot of that stuff was still a thing. - it was still a thing and it was a good thing, but i was like, "are you kid-" and then a gig at night. i was exhausted and they kept that pace up for every record, which meant they cared. it served me well.

i hit a point before we made a few small repairs, so that would have been our fourth record, where i got a little resentful. - [eric] of everything they were asking you to do? - just of going on the road. i was tired. i didn't wanna do it, in a way. i resisted it, i did it, but i wasn't particularly happy about it. then the years came and went and i'm just so grateful to have this job. i've learned to love it. i've learned to take care of myself on the road, i've learned to pace myself. i have just a lot more gratitude for the audiences, for what i can do, for what i can still do, for what people still want. - [eric] unfortunately there are no more radio stations and so you don't have to do promotions, right? - don't have to do those anymore. there are a few. - [eric] there's' no media, so you don't actually have to give interviews, right? - there are a few. - [eric] but it has changed. i mean, you acknowledge, of course, that the music business is vastly different now. - it's vastly different and

that's part of why i'm so extremely grateful. - [eric] and different better, from your perspective, different better. - different better to some extent, yeah. i mean there are issues, but- - well talk about that. i'd love to push yo ua little bit on that. are you eluding to the whole distribution and the sale of music today, difference in how it was before? - well it's not there. - you are on the streaming services. your music is available on the streaming services. could you not choose to put a flag in the ground to some of your colleagues in the business of done and say, "i'm not gonna allow my music "to be consumed for free." - i can't afford to. i would rather people heard it. - you buy the argument that people hearing it gives them the motivation to want to purchase it? - i mean it's possible. - it's a promotional device of its own. - the truth is, i'm not gonna make any money off selling records. if streaming didn't even exist, it's just the way it is right now. - [eric] touring is where you make your money. - touring is where i make my money. - [eric] was that the case 30 years ago, on touring than you did on sales? - i probably more money on touring,

but if you have a hit record and being a writer of the song and it gets a lot of radio play, the royalties that come in are decent. you sell million records or so, you'd make some royalties like that. - that was always the conversation in the old days, are you touring to promote the record, or are you making records to promote the in-person stuff? - yeah, that's a really good conundrum, i'll have to give that some thought. - but these days though, the whole label business has changed so dramatically that in some ways the concept of doing business by making a record and doing business with a label, that's kind of gone by the wayside. - it's gone by the wayside. you wanna get funded to make your record. and then you go out and tour it and hope for the best. there's itunes, people can download, although it's just, you know to not have the physical record- - [eric] it's weird, isn't it? - it's so weird. and i'll never stop thinking outside that box, i just can't. we even sequenced this record as though there were a side a and a side b and

we made vinyl, we did do vinyl. another part of the job now is going and signing your merchandise after the show, that's how we sell records. - [eric] that's something you didn't do in the old days. - oh, no. - [eric] there are probably some people who are more into that. i suspect you were not all that into it, i bet steve earle was even less into it. - no, steve's pretty into it. he's totally down for knowing that's part of the job. - [eric] he's good with dealing with the public and saying "hi," to people and all that? he's good at that. he's fine with it. if somebody gets him going on a certain subject you gotta say, "steve." - [eric] stop. i can only imagine what the must be like. - but no, he's really been a good influence on me, as far as that goes. because of all the years i put into it, it's like, i did the show. my job is done. - do you still think of yourself as music fan, listener? do you make time or do you- in some ways it's sort of like

a chef at a restaurant who can't bear to cook at home for himself, right? do you get off of the road, or get out of the studio and think to yourself, "the last thing i wanna do is listen "to somebody else's music," or somebody else's record? - no, i prefer to listen to somebody else's music. when the record is first made, i'll listen to it a lot just to get used to it. - [eric] your own record. - yes, and then that is done. i listen to the radio a lot, actually. - [eric] you do? - i do, i listen to good stations. i listen to sirius xm. - in some ways you know, the satellite radio has actually brought back a whole lot of music that we would not be encountering through traditional radio. i kind of think it's a good thing. all of sudden, i find that at age 50 that the almond brothers are back in my real house. and i think that would never have happened if i had been listening to the radio in the car, right? - it's true. there are a lot of choices on sirius xm, i'll admit that i'm a big fan of ''60s on 6,' so i'm not exactly in the 'know'

as i should be as far as what's current. really that's a downfall of mine. i did this cruise, i've done it several times, called cayamo which is a music cruise. - [eric] another one of these package deals where a bunch of different artists- - these package deals, yeah and the first time i did it i thought, "i don't wanna go on a cruise, "that sounds awful." and you know, it was really fun and i've enjoyed it every time. - [eric] artists who are contemporaries of yours, or ears of yours. - but lesser known ones like two years ago when i went shovels and rope was small time and they had it. i've gotten a lot out of that cruise seeing people that are coming. - that's a pretty hip cruise if you have shovels and rope on there. - [shawn] it's a hip cruise. - it's not like a nostalgia thing, or you know like the fake oj's at the bellagio. - [shawn] no. not at all, no. i hadn't seen chris stapleton and

chris stapleton was on- - [eric] that's the guy with the monster beard? - he's got a pretty big beard. he's stellar and he was on the cruise. i'd never seen him, he's very popular. but was doing a venue of 2,000 people on that cruise, he agreed to do it, and the guy can fill out a stage. - [eric] there's a 2,000 person venue on cruises? i need go on cruises. - they're big boats. - [eric] well it sounds like a very big boat. so, we were visiting before we came out here today about your teenage child and mine. and the fact that they listen to music that is very different from any music that we listen to and there are names that they would say and of course a conversation we would never actually (mumbles). that may be one way to actually ground you, if it's not radio, your ''60s on 6' not withstanding, you may get some of a sense of what's going on in the world today from your daughter. - you know what's been great is she is a great singer and a self-taught guitar player and can do pretty well. but, she asked me to learn songs that are contemporary songs on the piano she said, "learn this song." so i'll either learn it on guitar or piano, and she sings it while i play it.

so i've gotten to know songs, you know current songs that way, but i've gotta say she had me learn 'don't think twice it's alright.' - [eric] did she arrive at that on her own? - i don't know. - [eric] or did kendrick lamar sample it and then she's probably got there that way. - i don't know, but somehow she came to it and when she was small, i forced tte beatles on her and she didn't resist. - [eric] it's like vaccines, it's the right decision. - if you want to raise them right, you know, it's the right decision. it is. she was auditioning for something and i played it and she sang 'yesterday,' that's what she chose. - is this something that she's thinking about doing, and if so, and even if not, how do you feel about that? about it being the family business. - i'm fine with it. i know it can be a hard road, but wild horses couldn't have stopped me from doing it.

and i've never pushed it, i've never been the stage mother and i tried to teach her to play guitar, that was a big mistake. she's just come to it on her own. whenever she asks me for help, or to collaborate, or something, i do it. i'm just letting her find her own way. - [eric] what were you like at that age? we have just a couple of minutes left, i'm curious. - there's my mother. - [eric] well i'm trying not to look at her when i ask you this. so when you were the age that your daughter is now, did you have a clear sense of where you wanted to be and what you wanted to do? - i kind of didn't know how to do anything else. but that was okay with me. - [eric] and it wasn't a family business looking over your shoulder. - no, my family is very musical, but it was not the family business. but i definitely got all my talent from my family, from my mom and dad. my dad taught me to play the guitar, my mom's a great singer.

i knew what i wanted to do. i tried to go to university it didn't work out. because i got work playing in that university town, i got paid for it and that was it. it wasn't as though i didn't struggle through the years, but it was all i knew how to do and it was all i was really interested in doing. - [eric] no regrets now? - no. - [eric] so what do you do now? so you come off the road with steve earle in a few weeks as we sit here. hopefully the record does really well in the way that records do well these days, however that is defined. what happens after that? - next project. - [eric] you're not even close to being done doing things the way you were doing them before. i went backed and looked, you know. you're much more of a presence because if you turn on the radio these days actually, your old stuff still gets a pretty good hearing. you've only done fewer than a dozen records in almost 30 years. - [shawn] it takes me a while.

- so not the joyce carol oates model of artistry, where every five minutes there's something new, right? - no it takes me awhile. writing songs is probably the hardest thing that i do, it's the most challenging thing that i do and i do it slowly. what's interesting is i think as you get older, the drama is just not worth it anymore it's not there and as a young person you write a lot about romantic drama. - [eric] right, a lot of material. - lot of material. so you kind of either have to make things up, or learn to write about other things. so my ideal lately, and it's all over the place, all sorts of artists are doing this, this is not to write a musical, but to write a story. to write a musical story, sort of conceptually. - so a beginning, a middle, and an end like a narrative through line? - a narrative through line, different characters. - and have that be a record,

or have the be some kind of a performance piece? - a record. i also have considered doing a one woman show where i either do the entirety of one record that i've made and talk between songs and maybe even have a scripted performance type thing, because i've been to known to talk when i play, tell stories, make jokes, things like that. - [eric] we'll it's sort of like what you're doing now except with no steve. - sort of like what i'm doing now with no steve. i'm comfortable playing alone and being really just one-on-one with the people. there's no wall. - [eric] that sounds like a great idea. - i hope so. - well good luck with whatever you decide to do and congratulations again on the record, it's really nice to reconnect with you again. - i'm so glad you like it. - [eric] shawn colvin, thank you so much. (applause) - [voiceover] we'd love to have you join us in the studio. visit our website at klu.org/overheard to find invitations to interviews, q and as with our audience and guests,

and an archive of past episodes. - the person i really want to work with is not someone famous, there's a guy here in austin named steven barber who's... a string arranger for his profession, for his job, but he's a writer as well. - [voiceover] funding for overheard with evan smith is provided in part by the alice kleberg reynolds foundation. and hillco partners, a texas government affairs consultancy. and by klru's producers circle. ensuring local programming that reflects the character and interests of the greater austin, texas community.