Last night while I was searching for a
choice version of "Who Knows Where the Time Goes," a pop folk
standard by Fairport Convention which was originally sung by the band's own Sandy
Denny who wrote the lyrics, a song later made famous by the great Judy Collins,
I kept bumping YouTube comments mentioning a singer named Eva Cassidy. How great it would be, wrote someone, if Sandy
and Eva were still working. Sandy Denny
was British. I assumed that Eva Cassidy
was British as well. I'd never heard of
her. Curious, I went and listened to
Eva's own rendition of the song and discovered, to my great surprise, that Eva
was American, born in Washington D.C. She
is virtually unknown in the U.S.A. Her
short but fruitful life ended in 1996 at the age of 33, but today her voice is practically
worshipped by thousands of mainly British fans who first heard her posthumously,
starting with Eva's version of "Over the Rainbow" broadcast over BBC
Radio 2. Soon after that, her posthumous
album Songbird (1998) climbed the
charts in Britain. The New York Times then took notice and wrote about Eva's
"silken soprano voice with a wide and seemingly effortless range, unerring
pitch and a gift for phrasing that at times was heart-stoppingly
eloquent." Figure skaters brought
Eva's covers to fore, starting with Sting's "Fields of Gold" to which
Michelle Kwan competed at the 2002 Winter Olympics. Eva's voice has also appeared posthumously in
film and on American TV. Both the BBC
and America's ABC have dedicated brief documentaries to her in response to her posthumous
success. Eva Cassidy was a timid, earthy
queen of soul, blues, jazz, folk, gospel, and pop music covers who accompanied
herself on acoustic guitar. She played
in a few local bands and was indeed recognized in the Greater Washington area where
she won prizes, had a following, and began recording, thanks to studio engineer
Chris Biondo who presented a tape of Eva's voice to Chuck Brown, the
"Godfather of go-go." Chuck
was "blown away," as were fellow musicians. In fact, those studio executives who heard
Eva's voice were impressed. But they
didn't know how to market her, which made all the difference. Blue Note later regretted not having signed
her. Although an attractive blond, Eva's
style was light years away from that of pop stars like Britney Spears. As someone remarked, "Eva was always
dressed for a hike." The plain
truth was, Eva was a dedicated singer, not a showgirl. Chuck Brown said, as he and Eva began
collaborating at Washington's Blues Alley, that this young white girl was not
only inspiring but she was also teaching him to sing jazz. Said The
Washington Post, "She could sing anything--folk, blues, pop, jazz,
R&B, gospel--and make it sound like it was the only music that mattered." Lyrics were fundamental in Eva's choice of
covers. Her own favorite was "Oh,
Had I a Golden Thread" by Pete Seeger.
She insisted it appear on the last album she actively contributed to, Eva by Heart. Eva's greatest supporters were probably her
German-born mom, a horticulturist, and her multi-talented dad who taught her to
play the guitar when she was 9. As a
child, Eva was artistic as well as musically inclined. Having started her singing career at the age
of 11 in a local group called Easy Street, Eva packed all her talents into 22
years of
performing. In 2001, the successful
book Songbird, Eva Cassidy: Her Story By
Those Who Knew Her was published in Britain. In 2007 plans began forming to produce a film. Eva's parents suggested that lookalike Kirsten
Dunst play their daughter. So far, no
film. But people like me and you still stumble
upon Eva Cassidy. We have to wonder how
many other mega-talented artists will remain virtually unknown. Does fame today depend mostly on
"marketability"? Does fame
even matter? All that matters in the end,
I suspect, is authenticity and intestinal fortitude, like Eva's. Her last public performance was given at
Blues Alley under the influence of morphine due to the pain of terminal melanoma. That evening she sang Louis Armstrong's
"What a Wonderful World," dedicating it to her parents. Six weeks later Eva took her last
breath. Better known today than when she
was alive, Eva Cassidy is still performing covers at YouTube, and likely, too, she
is improvising flawlessly, as usual, in a choir of angels somewhere over the
rainbow. By UN’AMERICANA
A VENEZIA
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