Have you ever heard of Eva Cassidy, or heard her sing? Eva Marie Cassidy (February 2, 1963 – November 2, 1996) was an unpretentious humble girl from small town Bowie, Maryland. She worked hard with her mother in their nursery growing flowers and plants. But Eva also sang. She had the voice of an angel, and delivered songs with purity, passion, and power. She accompanied herself on guitar, and also sang with a band. She would immerse herself in the words, she “connected to the lyric” and lived the songs. Her voice communicated directly to the hearts of her listeners. Rarely was there a dry eye in the place.
In the film Eva Cassidy: Timeless Voice, Carrie Grant, a British vocal coach who worked with top recording artists in the UK and US, was amazed when she heard Eva’s voice. After listening to Over The Rainbow, she said, “I cannot imagine what Eva Cassidy was thinking of when she chose to make it sound the way it does. But it’s just genius!” She describes how she redefines the song in unexpected ways, “yet for some reason it just works.”
She also explained the effect that Eva’s voice had on listeners. “She sounds like she’s singing just to you. And that is what makes it so intimate. And that becomes even more profound once you know she’s no longer alive. Because it’s haunting. And it’s personal.”
Eva sang the songs that she liked, regardless of genres, which is why record companies would not sign her during the days of manufactured music. They couldn’t slot her into a specific category. She sang blues, jazz, gospel, folk, old standards, and more. At first she was extremely shy, didn’t care for stage presence or how she dressed. With the help of local musicians she performed at Blues Alley, a local jazz spot in Georgetown, Maryland. One of her shows was later recorded. She sold two locally produced CDs out of the trunk of her car. You can listen to Live At Blues Alley on Spotify.
We might wonder how her singing was recorded in the first place when no company would sign her. One comment on Ain’t No Sunshine explained that the world owes Chris Biondo a debt of gratitude. Chris worked as a bassist, guitarist, keyboardist, recording engineer, and producer. He owned a studio in the 80s and 90s, and Eva would come in for session work. He recognized her ability, and said he “would just roll tape and stay out of her way.” At one point they were romantically involved. Chris “was the one who recognized her transcendent, ageless genius.”
In 1986 Chris began recording the then-unknown singer Eva Cassidy. For the next ten years he worked with Eva to develop her as a recording artist, producing most of her recordings available today. In the years since Eva’s death in 1996, her recordings have sold more than 10 million copies and achieved international renown, including three albums that reached number one in the UK charts. Chris has received numerous Gold and Platinum records in the U.S. and internationally for his work with Eva.
Bill Straw of Blix Street Records signed her up and continues to release and reissue her music, like the 20th anniversary of the new 32 track/2CD Nightbird album, The Best Of Eva Cassidy, Simply Eva, and eight other collections listed there that you can sample.
Her performances of Over The Rainbow, What A Wonderful World, Songbird, Falling Leaves, Time After Time, Sting’s Fields of Gold, and more are legendary, many recorded live in a club.
Sting himself was blown away when he heard her rendition of his song. He put a copy of her Songbird CD into record producer David Foster’s hands who quoted him saying, “‘If you want to hear the greatest version of my song ever’—he didn’t say it in an egotistical way—he said, ‘listen to Fields Of Gold with this girl, it’ll change your life.’ And her voice is life-changing, she’s that spiritual.” I love that song and remember hearing it on an airplane’s music channel during a flight. It was astounding! I had to find out who this singer was.
A relatively unknown singer in America at the time, somehow her music made its way across the Atlantic. From the first time Sir Terry Wogan, a BBC radio broadcaster, listened to Eva sing, he knew “she was an outstanding talent.” He said, “It was pure sound. A bell-like voice. She had this perfect pitch.” He couldn’t wait to play it on the radio. His was the most listened to program in the country at the time. It created a huge response from many of their seven million listeners wanting to know who she was. Unfortunately she had died two years earlier of cancer at the young age of 33.
When Mark Hagon, a Top of the Pops BBC (TOTP2) producer at the time, agreed to play that homemade video of Eva Cassidy singing Over The Rainbow, people kept calling in for weeks wanting to know her name. The listening public created a demand for her music. It was a groundswell! Sales of her CDs went from a hundred thousand to over a million in the UK. “Radio broke it. Television exploded it.”
Cropped screensaver taken from the video of Eva Cassidy singing Over The Rainbow at Blues Alley, Georgetown, DC, January 3, 1996.
At one point five of her CDs became top sellers at the same time, a feat usually held by the Beatles and Rolling Stones. She was then discovered back home in the USA. ABC Nightline in Washington, DC researched and produced The Eva Cassidy Story (18:40). It was shown in many countries around the world and within a week of it airing her CDs went to the top of the local charts.
In Timeless Voice, Terry Wogan concluded, “You’d have to say about Eva Cassidy that her talent was pretty timeless. The voice has a quality of timelessness about it. Anytime you would hear it, whether it was thirty years ago, or thirty years from now, it’ll still be worth listening to, and still strike a responsive chord in most people’s hearts.”
Mick Fleetwood of Fleetwood Mac who knew Eva said, “She was brilliant. She had the magic. And I call it, It. She had It!”
You can listen to her music on the YouTube Eva Cassidy channel. A book about her was written (Sept 29, 2003) by Rob Burley and Jonathan Maitland called, Eva Cassidy: Songbird: Her Story by Those Who Knew Her. Another book, Eva Cassidy Behind the Rainbow, was written (February 1, 2012) by art critic and music lover Johan Bakker.
Watch The Eva Cassidy Story 2001 report on ABC Nightline (18:40).
Watch the documentary film: Eva Cassidy: Timeless Voice (58:06).
Watch the trailer to Eva Cassidy: Timeless Voice, before/after the film.
Long after this was posted, while looking for another source for the ABC Nightline report, which was later taken down, I came across this video: WME Interview with the Late Eva Cassidy (Channel Session). Intriguing!
Found this great Eva Cassidy Website, Telling you about Eva since 1999.
This official Eva Cassidy Fan Club asked to publish my post on Eva as a Guest Blog. They added photos, which inspired me to now do the same.
January 3, 2021 was the premiere via livestream of a new documentary: Eva Cassidy – One Night That Changed Everything.
From her YouTube Official Artist Channel:
Eva Cassidy: 25 years ago, a little known singer, Eva Cassidy, and her producer scraped together enough money to record a gig and self-produce an album. This is the story of one night – 3rd January 1996 – at a jazz club in Georgetown, Washington D.C., a set of recordings that almost never happened, and the extraordinary success that followed told by her band members who played with her that night. No one could have imagined that the audio and video recordings from that night would prove to be the foundation of her unparalleled posthumous worldwide success.
January 6, 2021: Eva Cassidy – Blues Alley concert (12 live performances). Restored footage of Eva Cassidy performing at the Blues Alley jazz club on 3rd January 1996. Recorded by Bryan McCulley.
November 29, 2022: True Colors Rotterdam posted a 9-minute video on the life story of Eva Cassidy (1963-1996): The story of Eva Cassidy.
Posts on other great musical artists
Discover and enjoy the amazing soulful voice of young Angelina Jordan. It is jaw-dropping great! || My Mind by YEBBA at Sofar will blow your mind! || Lissie @lissiemusic and her connections to Twin Peaks, Fairfield and #TranscendentalMeditation || Colin Hay’s song—I Just Don’t Think I’ll Ever Get Over You—is so relevant during these tough times || Leonard Cohen said there’s a crack in everything—how the light gets in. It came thru him & lit up a broken humanity. || The hauntingly beautiful music of Davy Spillane played on uilleann pipes and low whistle || Bill Evans’s Peace Piece is musical onomatopoeia || Bobby Hutcherson plays Bouquet with Ron Carter and Herbie Hancock at One Night with Blue Note
The Uncarved Blog 