A Folk Stylist Hangs on to Intimacy : Artist: Shawn Colvin.

History: Born in the Black Hills town of Vermillion, S.D., Colvin was surrounded with the music of the late-’50s and early-’60s folk boom by her folk-fan father. Moving with her family first to London, Ontario, Canada and then Carbondale, Ill., Colvin sang and took up acting in high school and got her first paying singing gig at 19. A short stint leading a hard-rock band in Carbondale left her with blown-out vocal cords, and a diversion with an Austin-based country swing group didn’t make things better. Once healed, Colvin moved to San Francisco and then, in 1980, to New York, eventually becoming involved with the resurgent Greenwich Village “Fast Folk” acoustic scene. Club dates throughout the Northeast brought her a following, with a particularly loyal following in Boston, while also performing in the musicals “Pump Boys and Dinettes” and “Diamond Studs” and joining the bluegrass band the Red Clay Ramblers in the Sam Shepherd play “Lie of the Mind.” In 1987 she was recruited to sing back-up on fellow Village neo-folkie Suzanne Vega’s hit-to-be “Luka,” then joined Vega’s touring band. In 1988, Colvin won the best new vocalist New York Music Award and signed to Columbia Records. Her debut album, “Steady On,” was released in September.

Sound: You like Suzanne Vega? You’ll probably like Colvin. You find Suzanne Vega cold and solipsistic? You might still like Colvin. There’s more unprepossessing warmth to both her voice and writing on “Steady On,” and the low-key settings are airier and more fragile than Vega’s have become. (Vega co-producer Steve Addabbo also co-produced this with longtime Colvin partner John Leventhal, while guest contributions are made by Bruce Hornsby and Vega, who returns the back-up singing favor.) Some of Colvin’s lyrics stretch for metaphors and imagery, but her best (“Diamond in the Rough,” “Cry Like and Angel”) are first-person accounts of the struggle to find and hold on to intimacy. What’s missing are songs and a presentation that will separate her from the crowded pack of neo-folkies.

Show: Wednesday at Zello’s in Santa Barbara, Friday at McCabe’s in Santa Monica.