There's a wry wink in the delivery of Davina Sowers. As the quintet's frontwoman, she may occasionally mirror the phrasing of Billie Holiday and evoke Holiday's ghost, but the group plays this music as retro good times, something that's evident on their first two albums, Black Cloud and Sunshine. Sowers (vocals, piano), Matt Blake (bass), Dan Eikmeier (trumpet), Ben Link (trombone), and Connor McRae (drums) formed Davina & the Vagabonds in Minneapolis in 2006. Over the next few years, the group gigged regularly, building up a reputation in the Twin Cities for their slyly updated nostalgia. Their first album, Black Cloud, appeared in 2011 and it earned positive reviews. Sunshine, arriving in 2014, bolstered the group's reputation, charting at 13 on Billboard's blues chart. In 2016, they released their third full-length, Nicollet and Tenth. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine