Monday 20 August, 2001
Eva Cassidy: A Musical Soul
A voice singing Somewhere Over the Rainbow has an emotional reach that can send a shiver down your spine.
But it has a special resonance when it is sung by Eva Cassidy, an American, whose album Songbird has recently become a surprise hit in the UK, with sales approaching a million. Until now, most people on both sides of the Atlantic had never even heard of her.
Tragically, Eva died early, oblivious to the impact her voice would make. She lost her battle against cancer in 1996.
Everywoman talks to Eva Cassidy's family and friends about the woman with the voice of an angel.
Musical family
Eva Cassidy was born in 1963 in southern USA, in Bowie, Washington DC.
She began playing the acoustic guitar and the piano at the age of nine, tutored by her father Hugh, now a retired special needs teacher.
Soon she was joining her siblings in a family choir, with Hugh playing bass guitar and her brother Dan at the violin.
Music however was not her only interest. She loved painting and drawing, and would use most surfaces as a canvas. Her friend and producer Chris Biondo recalls her drawing on napkins and walls, and collecting stones inspired by their beauty.
At high school, she joined bands and in 1986, met Biondo in his recording studio for the first time. A mutual friend had praised her talent.
Biondo was impressed and immediately invited her to record a demo tape as a soloist.
Stylistic range
During her life she listened to mainly female voices such as Joan Baez, Joni Mitchell, Bonnie Raith, Ella Fitzgerald, and Sarah Vaughn. Stevie Wonder was the exception and stood out as her favourite singer.
She excelled in a wide range of styles, from folk, jazz, blues, gospel and pop to rock, comfortably interpreting one style and subsequently switching to another.
In the world of music business however this ability proved to be a hindrance.
While in life, Cassidy was unable to secure a commercial recording deal. Record companies simply did not know how to market her. Her mother Barbara explains:
| 'Eva loved music and was so diverse, she refused to be pigeonholed. She just wanted to sing what she wanted to sing, and in America you have to belong to one category or another for you to get playtime.' | |
Her father simply believes she never tried to make it commercially as a singer. Art was paramount in her thoughts as was working at a plant nursery.
Shyness
In 1990 she formed the Eva Cassidy Band. An intensely private person, she had to be coaxed to face a public. Stage fright inhibited her. Biondo, who played the bass, recalls her feelings of anxiety when playing in small venues.
'She was an angel, very humble and shy. She would listen more than talk… I remember lots of times, we were playing and it was just empty and dead. She seemed to like those nights, because there wasn't as much pressure. In fact, she'd be more relieved when hardly anybody was out there.'
Diagnosis
In 1992, she released a CD of blues and ballads entitled The Other Side with soul singer Chuck Brown.
A year later however a black mole was discovered on her back. It was malignant and she was diagnosed with skin cancer.
Live At Blues Alley was released in 1996, the same year she underwent hip replacement and learned that the disease had spread to her lungs. The doctors informed her she had only a few months to live. She opted for radiation and chemotherapy.
Barbara says in hindsight her daughter would have probably been better off without the aggressive treatment. She adds:
'We realised it made her so weak and so ill, and she only lived three months with the treatment anyway.'
Tribute
In November 1996, two weeks before her death, Biondo organised a tribute concert at a stage in Bayou, Mississippi. Dozens of musicians and locals volunteered their services for the performance.
To prepare for the show, Cassidy abstained from chemotherapy.
On the day of the concert, she arrived by car and was carried up to the stage. She sat on a stool, picked up her guitar, and sang Louis Armstrong's What a Wonderful World. The concert lasted between five and six hours. Family and friends surrounded her. Barbara recalls the moment:
'She sang What a Wonderful World, and there wasn't a dry eye in the whole place. She sang with a power that was just unbelievable.'
It was an emotional powerhouse and it was her last public performance.
Fame posthumously
Her music was first broadcast in the UK on BBC Radio Two in 1999 by Terry Wogan, who played Somewhere Over The Rainbow on Wake Up To Wogan, his radio breakfast show.
Listeners rang in to ask for a repeat. The show was inundated by emails and letters requesting information about the unknown singer.
Then in 2001, a black and white video of Cassidy interpreting Somewhere Over The Rainbow was shown on the BBC television show Top Of The Pops 2. The homemade clip prompted an unbelievable response, the greatest in the programme's history.
Sales began to take off at an incredible speed. Songbird has been number one in the independent UK charts and number three in album charts. Incredibly, for someone who never promoted her work, Cassidy outsells Jennifer Lopez.
The shy artist from Bowie, Washington DC, has become something of a legend.
|
 |
 |
|
| Eva Cassidy’s Music |
 |
|
|
Time After Time, was released in 2000.
Songbird, a compilation, was released in 1998.
Eva By Heart, studio recordings issued posthumously, was released in 1997.
Live At Blues Alley, recorded at the Blues Alley club in Washington, was released in 1996.
The Other Side, a compilation of jazz and blues standards with Chuck Brown, was released in 1992.
Method Actors, Cassidy’s first album, is unavailable. It was recorded in 1987.
The label is Hot Records.
|
|
 |
|
