Although you might not have heard her name until some two years ago, Shawn Colvin has been a card-carrying member of the music scene since the early ’80s when she hit the club circuit in hopes of making it big. In 1987, she met Suzanne Vega, sang back-up vocals on the hit, "Luka," and kicked off a career that has developed and grown over the last 13 years.

Cited as one of the "bright spots of the folk movement that began in the late ’80s" according to the All Music Guide, Colvin finally achieved commercial success with 1996’s A Few Small Repairs when its single, "Sunny Came Home," hit the charts two years later, in 1998.

An overnight success, it was not.

After developing a passion for music and teaching herself guitar by age 10, Colvin has spent much of the past two decades touring the folk circuit, following in the paths of her inspirations, Richard Thompson and Joni Mitchell, and releasing some eight albums, all of which have received critical success: from 1989’s debut, Steady On — for which she received the Grammy for Best Contemporary Folk Recording — to her most recent, 1998’s seasonal Holiday Songs and Lullabies.

While Colvin has received critical acclaim and Grammy nominations for her second, third, and fourth releases Steady On, Fat City, and Cover Girl she was often commercially overshadowed by her female contemporaries in both the pop and folk world, competing in an industry that boasted the likes of Mariah Carey and Sarah McLachlan, the latter of whom she would later join on the Lilith Fair Tours.

And while the years and successive string of albums found the Academy on her side, it wasn’t until she struck gold in 1997-1998 with A Few Small Repairs that Colvin found worldwide fame. The album found Colvin reunited with her initial producer/collaborator John Leventhal and earned her 1997 Grammy nominations for Best Pop Album and Best Female Pop Vocal Performance ("Get Out of This House") and three nominations in 1998 for "Sunny Came Home" — two of which, Record of the Year and Song of the Year, she added to her collection.

Since the release of A Few Small Repairs, Colvin has been busy with a variety of projects — including acting, touring, guesting on numerous compilation CDs, and writing scores and soundtracks for a number of films and television series including Tin Cup, Grace of My Heart, and the HBO film Edie and Pen.

With A Few Small Repairs and the release of its follow-up, Holiday Songs and Lullabies, Colvin has solidified herself as a force to be reckoned with in the music industry and has finally attained the commercial success that had been alluding her for much of her career.

A success that was long overdue.

"Even amid the swelling ranks of female artists in pop," wrote Andrew Abrahams in People, "Shawn Colvin is a vibrant original."

Shawn Colvin will be at the Strand-Capitol Performing Arts Center on August 4 at 8 p.m. For tickets and information, call the box office at 846-1111.