Sunday morning coming down

I bought tickets for each of Shawn Colvin’s four nights at the Dakota in June 2018 as soon as the shows were announced. I must have been the first in line because we had seats right in front of Shawn every night. I snapped the photo of Shawn at the right from our table. Seeing her up so close added greatly to the experience. When Shawn came out onstage to perform on the first night of her run Wednesday evening, she looked down and took a deep breath before she went to work. It was something real.

As it happens, the Paul Simon concert at the Xcel Center in St. Paul was announced after we had bought the tickets for Shawn’s shows, but my wife wanted to see Simon on his farewell tour. I gave our tickets to Shawn on Friday night to a friend I hoped would enjoy the show as much as I would have. I think it worked out. She wrote me: “Such a good show. I feel bad you had to miss it. Hope Paul Simon was good. I took my best friend from high school and we had a fantastic time.”

Shawn, coincidentally, had opened her Wednesday night show with Simon’s “An American Tune.” Paul Simon wasn’t far from her mind either, but it was the only one of the three shows we saw in which she played the song. You had to be there.

John Pizzarelli played Shawn’s version of “An American Tune” on Radio Deluxe with Jessica Molaskey yesterday. It is a song that always hits home with me. Listening to it again last night, however, I thought the song and the moment have met.

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