Davina Sowers and the Vagabonds have created a stir on the national music scene. Their high-energy live shows feature level-A musicianship, sharp-dressed professionalism and Sowers’ commanding stage presence. Also, their influences range from Fats Domino and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band to Aretha Franklin and Tom Waits. Moreover, the band is converting audiences one show at a time, from Vancouver to Miami and across Europe.

Much like the music, the story spurns era, expectation and classification. The often unbelievable, sometimes harrowing, and wholly inspiring journey of Davina Sowers gave birth to her eponymous band in 2004. As the tale goes, she grew up in the economically depressed Allegheny town of Altoona, PA. She now describes the town as “awesome in the industrial era, but horrible for high school.” Then, she was adopted by her stepfather when he was in his 80s; he passed when she was just 13. Through him and his Edison phonograph, she first heard the music that would start her journey. For example, The Ink Spots, Sidney Bechet, Louis Armstrong, Louis Prima, Sister Rosetta Tharpe and many others. “Great man. He was my angel and still is,” she says.

On her own, she vividly recalls hours in front of the record player at home. There, she religiously spun Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath and Simon and Garfunkel records belonging to her folk singer mom.

To this day, Davina still refers to music as “my first and eternal love.” Despite early dalliances with classical piano and guitar, she developed a heavy drug habit in high school. Further, this 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.”