Davina and the Vagabonds

Davina Sowers and the Vagabonds have created a stir on the national music scene with their high-energy live shows, level-A musicianship, sharp-dressed professionalism, and Sowers’ commanding stage presence. With influences ranging from Fats Domino and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band to Aretha Franklin and Tom Waits, the band is converting audiences one show at a time, from Vancouver to Miami and across Europe. In 2011 Davina released her first full length, all original album Black Cloud. It was named one of the 10 best releases of the year by the Minneapolis Star & Tribune and awarded 4 ½ stars from Downbeat Magazine. Their next release in 2014, Sunshine, hit number 13 in the Billboard Blues Chart and led them to be a musical feature on the hit BBC show, Later with Jools Holland.

DATV’s shows are filled with New Orleans charm, Memphis soul swagger, dark theatrical moments that evoke Kurt Weill, and tender gospel passages. Davina’s voice and stage presence defy category in a different way. Davina has been compared to Etta James, Amy Winehouse, Janis Joplin, Billie Holiday and Betty Boop, but comparisons don’t suffice: Sowers is a true original.

Bringing you 100 years of American music and Davina’s originals, which lend themselves to the American Songbook, the band brings edgy nostalgia to older generations and fresh new music to younger ears. This rollicking quintet is held together by Sowers’ keyboard playing, with acoustic bass, drums, and a spicy trumpet and trombone horn section. The group’s focused, clean sound and emphasis on acoustic instruments is novel to both blues and jazz worlds, and sets the show closer to New Orleans than to Chicago. This has set the Vagabonds apart at festivals in Thunder Bay, Ontario; Sighisoara, Romania; Sierre, Switzerland; Kemi, Finland; the 2012 New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, and 2013 Monterey Jazz Festival ( in 2014 was asked back to play their main stage in 2014, Vache de Blues in France, and North Sea Jazz Festival. Catch this one-of-a-kind live show while they are in town!

Praise

“Davina Sowers’ classically trained right fingers shimmy down the piano keys and meet up with an insistent boogie-woogie bass. Then she reveals her other musical talent: a sassy, salty, sweet voice that’s childlike at the top, husky at the bottom.” – NPR / Marc Silver 2011 “Song of The Day” / Lipstick and Chrom

“Sowers’ vocals are unreal. She simultaneously evokes Adele and Bessie Smith, and the band’s sound is vintagey and fresh, a modern take on old-time blues and jazz.” – PennLive

“Think of a meld of Bessie Smith, Etta James, Alberta Adams and Amy Winehouse, and you come close to understanding what Davina Sowers is all about…Davina is a real talent who deserves greater exposure – and I have no option but to highly recommend this band.” – Blues In Britain (UK)

“Davina is a modern day, female version, of Louis Armstrong.” – ELMORE MAGAZINE Jim Hynes (UK)