Davina & the Vagabonds

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Christi Williams

Davina & the Vagabonds

Minneapolis-based Davina & the Vagabonds return to Madison in support of their forthcoming album, Sugar Drops, due out July 19. “Little Miss Moonshine,” the album’s first single, stays true to the band’s signature style, a bluesy, jazzy old-timey tune accentuated by the unmistakable smoky, soulful vocals and piano prowess of powerhouse singer-songwriter Davina Sowers.

$20 ($15 adv.).

press release: Red House Records announced a July 19 release date for SUGAR DROPS, the first album for the label from Davina and the Vagabonds, and shared the track "Little Miss Moonshine."

The album marks the first time singer/songwriter/pianist Davina Sowers entered a proper studio to record an album. The Minneapolis-based artist holed up in Nashville's Compass Sound Studio with producer (and Compass Records co-founder) Garry West, along with her trumpeter, string arranger and husband, Zack Lozier, and a rotating cast of powerhouse players including Todd Phillips (David Grisman, Robbie Fulks) on bass, Doug Lancio (Patty Griffin, John Hiatt, Tom Jones) on guitar and Reese Wynans (Stevie Ray Vaughan, Joe Bonamassa) on Hammond B3.

Davina says of the debut track, "My songs always begin with an emotion, so it started out as an 'I see you and I see through you' song. I do what I do because I am who I am, not because I wanna make a buck or because it's the next cool trend. There's nothing smellier than dishonest music and fake people. Even if you're doing music from eras past and paying homage to music that you, yourself have been influenced by, it needs to come from the heart and from your own truth. Then, through the process of writing it, I started reflecting, and I ended up giving advice to these types of people and having a little empathy; it was hard when I started out, too. You can get lost in what you think others want and it's not necessarily who you are. 

"At the end of the day though, it still needs to be your work and your words."

Sugar Drops is a distillation of bluesy barroom baritone and bravado, graveyard jazz grooves, and noir-ish confessional lyricism backed by boisterous piano, guitar, and strings. Eclectic, engaging and instilled with a deep respect and knowledge for the Great American Songbook, SUGAR DROPS is the actualization of longstanding intent for Davina.

"It represents about 100 years of Americana; I did exactly what I wanted to do," she says.

Davina grew up in Altoona, Pennsylvania, which she now describes as "awesome in the industrial era, but horrible for high school." She developed a heavy drug habit in high school, which morphed into heroin dependency, left her homeless, sent her in and out of jail, and brought on all manner of trouble. Kicking dope on the streets, she "got clean, started the band, and worked [her] ass off every day since."

Davina and the band are constantly on the road, touring throughout the world they've earned feverish acclaim from the Chicago Tribune, NPR, and more in addition to performing on BBC's international favorite late-night program Later...with Jools Holland and appearing on PBS's Bluegrass Underground.