In an Age of Affectation, Colvin’s the Real Deal

Too many contemporary singer-songwriters confuse transparent affectation with originality, as they slur, growl, sneer and intone off-key throughout the course of an album or a concert. Dylan got away with it, at least in his glory days; very few others have been so fortunate.

That makes Shawn Colvin a precious rarity on the current folk-pop scene, as she proved once again in concert at the Coach House on Saturday (opening a two-night stand). This 38-year-old South Dakota native has a voice so genuinely gorgeous and an instinct so perfectly natural that her music shines as brightly and eternally as the North Star on a crystalline night.

Touring in support of the recently reissued solo acoustic album “Live ‘88,” Colvin was comfortably alone onstage, in full command of her considerable talents as a singer, songwriter, guitarist and interpreter of outside material.

Colvin took the stage casually attired in jeans and a white T-shirt. Her voice varying from a delicate vibrato to a swooping, yodeling falsetto, she performed a selection of old favorites (“Diamond In The Rough,” “Wichita Skyline”), intriguing new songs from a forthcoming album (“The Facts About Jimmy,” “Trouble”) and material by Tom Waits, Paul Westerberg, the Police and David Ball.

Most revealing in the live setting was her excellence as a guitarist. Employing intricate finger-picking techniques, a subtle but resourceful bag of rhythmic tricks and a plethora of exotic open tunings, Colvin’s musicianship was an unexpected treat not to be overlooked--she’s a bona-fide acoustic-guitar heavy.

Colvin’s engaging stage presence and rapport with her audience also offered much to be admired, as she drew hushed and respectful silence during the performance of her songs and warm laughter as she joked with fans between them.

Her songs demonstrate the influence of Carole King, Joni Mitchell and Judy Collins, yet at the same time Colvin’s music always comes off as fresh, inspired and emancipated from slavery to the past. She rises above the alterna-pandering that runs rampant among her singer-songwriter peers with work that is genuinely, ingratiatingly timeless.

Opening the show was Danny Peck, an interesting but seemingly self-enamored singer-songwriter. His songs showed clever and creative chord structures and a jazzy sense of cool, but his apparently well-rehearsed histrionics and political lip-service were at times more than a bit overstated and inherently at odds with one another--ya can’t be Springsteen and Billy Joel at the same time.