La Belle Dame sans Merci (The Beautiful Lady Who Doesn't Say Thank You): Une Histoire Vraie

Okay kids, as I have said on numerous other occasions, this is a very sad story, so try not to laugh.

Back around 1980, when I was hanging out in Greenwich Village and performing with The Floor Models, the lovely and talented Shawn Colvin blew into town (from a gig in Berkeley, if memory serves) and quickly became a fixture at both Folk City and the Speakeasy, a club around the corner that was also a haven for acoustic singer/songwriters. Shawn had an amazing voice, was modelly good looking and already had the requisite star attitude, and it was obvious from jump that she was going to get famous at some point, but it wasn't happening fast enough for her, and one night I found myself sitting next to her at the Folk City bar, where she was quite literally crying in her beer over her then lack of a career.

Shawn knew I was a rock critic, and thus on the periphery of the record business, so she asked me if I had any professional and/or musical advice. If truth be told, I thought a big part of her problem was lousy, i.e. predictable and boring, choice in material -- really, what the world needed was yet another cover of "Angel From Montgomery"? (not). And then, being no less full of myself than now, I tried to make that point to her, albeit as gently as possible.

So it suddenly dawned on me that Shawn's voice was not that far afield from a certain British gal singer I loved, and I asked her if she was familiar with the work of Richard and Linda Thompson. And she responded, to my complete lack of surprise, that no, she wasn't. So I explained who they were, and how great they were, and how some of their stuff would be right up her (Shawn's) alley. She seemed interested, and I told her that I would go home and make her a mixtape of R&L stuff that I thought might be appropriate for her pipes and style.

Cut to a few days later, and I gave her a 12 selection cassette with the songs I thought she'd dig and would sound great singing.

Anyway, the brief version of the finale: Fairly soon thereafter, Shawn got a gig singing backup for Suzanne Vega, ultimately wound up warbling on Vega's "Luka" (both the single and the album it was from, if memory serves), got her own record deal, had a hit or two, and ultimately the music biz success she'd been aiming at. I lost touch with her personally at that point, but I followed her career from afar with some pleasure thereafter and was happy for her.

And then, sometime in the 90s, I discovered through the intertubes that she was suddenly singing live onstage with -- you guessed it -- Richard fucking Thompson.(!)

Now look -- I'm not one of those people who carries a grudge forever if I do you a kindness and then you don't respond with what I think is sufficient gratitude. I mean -- honkies, please.

That said -- I don't think it would have been asking too much at some point for Shawn to send me an e-mail or drop me a postcard saying "Dude -- I owe you a solid."

Which she's never fucking done. Heh.

I should add that this song, seen here in a performance from 2015...

...was one of the ones I included on the aforementioned mixtape. As you can hear, it suits her.

Like I said -- this is a very sad story, so try not to laugh.