To: Tom Clarke who wrote (4116 ) 2/18/2013 10:52:29 AM From: 2MAR$ 1 Recommendation Read Replies (2) | Respond to Shawn Colvin - Diamonds In The Rough (holding onto you, like a diamond in the rough) Last Tuesday, with the release of the memoir “Diamond in the Rough,” Shawn Colvin, a Grammy-winning singer-songwriter based in Austin, officially added “author” to her biography. In an ambitious bit of old-media, cross-promotional synergy, Ms. Colvin’s publisher, William Morrow/ HarperCollins, has doubled down and timed the book’s release to coincide with her first new studio album in six years. “Who’s going to care?” Ms. Colvin said. “I’m not Obama. And my drinking career is a joke compared to Keith Richards’s. I had to get over that a little bit and just believe there were parts in there that are universal. When I encountered people in my life that were honest about the tough stuff — alcoholism or depression — it helped me enormously. I started to look at the book as something that might help people, instead of just what’s been interesting about my life.” VIDEO Ms. Colvin said she was careful not to let “Diamonds” evolve into either a self-help book or a name-calling laundry list of ways she thinks she has been wronged. Instead, like many of Ms. Colvin’s greatest hits, the book is candid about her heartaches but also comically self-deprecating. She balances the serious admission that she needs medication to combat her depression with a funny anecdote about the time she wet herself on national television while dancing with ’N Sync during a late ’90s Disney Christmas special.
