Jackson Free Press

Davina Sowers started playing the piano when she was a little girl. Unlike most, she kept going after the lessons ended. Like even fewer, she now makes her living pounding the keys.

"I wasn't throwing down Fats Domino or anything like that, but I started taking piano at 6 and have just never quit," Sowers said in a February phone interview. "I've pretty much been playing my whole life. And now it is pretty much my whole life."

Sowers is the Davina of Davina and the Vagabonds, the Minneapolis-based combo she has fronted since 2005. A rare guitar-free ensemble, Davina and the Vagabonds is often tagged as a blues band. But the music isn't blues in the contemporary sense. Nor is it jazz, even though it has horns, piano and drums.

"I think unique is a good word," Sowers said, trying to define her band.

"I think eclectic has been overused, but it fits for me, too. It's hard for me ... to come up with one word for what we do. There's New Orleans jazz in it, blues, pop, old school rock 'n' roll. ... We make it our own, so it has a specific sound to it."

The pre-war sound, evocative of the 1920s through early 1940s, comes from Sowers' childhood. Her folk-singer mother remarried when Sowers was young. Her adoptive father, far older than her mother, was born in 1902. As a child, she listened to artists such as Judy Collins, Simon and Garfunkel, and Crosby, Stills and Nash. She recalls listening to her mother's records of The Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin on her Edison record player. In her small Pennsylvania town, Sowers' mother's records were her best exposure to music.

"I grew up in a really depressed coal-mining, railroad town (with) this park where they'd bring in washed-up bands, like The Guess Who with one original member," she said.

On stage, Sowers— frequently compared to Janis Joplin and Adele—is nothing if not enjoyable as she sings and plays in her boisterous, engaging style. She performs her distinctive mix of music with trumpeter and vocalist Daniel Eikmeier; trombonist Ben Link; drummer Connor McRae; and bassist and sousaphonist Andrew Burns

Davina and the Vagabonds' current tour crosses 13 states—from the Northwest to the Southeast and back through the middle of the U.S.—in three months. That's business as usual for the Vagabonds. Sowers, however, sometimes yearns for more time in her Minneapolis home.

"I'm a homebody, and I'm a woman, so I may want nesting to a certain extent," she said.

"But I'm a business owner—the band is my business—and I'm passionate about my music, so I need to share that with people outside of my community. Sometimes, do I just want to eat nachos and watch really bad TV for a week? Sure. Sometimes you need that. I get just enough that I can get back on my horse and get back on the highway."

This year, Davina and the Vagabonds will release its fifth album, a follow-up to 2011's "Black Cloud," which brought the band to '70s rootsy pop territory.

Sowers, who writes all the band's songs, says the new record, called "Sunshine," is again made up entirely of originals. And again, it's impossible to classify beyond being Davina and The Vagabonds music.

"There's some pre-war, some New Orleans music," she said. "It sounds like us. I didn't start doing country or rap or rock 'n' roll. Well, there's some early rock 'n' roll in there. It's just us, once again."

Davina and the Vagabonds headlines the St. Paddy's Block Party, starting at 3 p.m. March 15 at The Iron Horse Grill (320 W. Pearl St., 601-398-0151). Otis Lotus, The Bailey Brothers, and Chris Gill and the Soul Shakers also perform. Admission is $5. Visit theironhorsegrill.com and davinaandthevagabonds.com.