With the
possible exception of Sinatra, I’ve never heard anyone approach Eva Cassidy as
a singer, in terms of voice quality, phrasing, and the overall ability to
interpret a song, whether it be a standard like this one, a blues classic like
“Stormy Monday”, a soul number like “People Get Ready”, or a folk tune such as “Who
Knows Where The Time Goes.” I first saw her on a side stage at the Wolf Trap
Jazz and Blues Festival one year, when she was performing with go-go legend
Chuck Brown, and was instantly hooked. I was fortunate enough to see her a few more
times before her untimely death from melanoma, once more with Chuck and a
couple of times by herself at free summer/fall concerts outside the old Silver
Spring Armory and at A Taste of DC downtown.
A few years
after her death, BBC Radio 2 and the Top
of the Pops British TV show picked up Cassidy’s recording of “Over The
Rainbow”, eventually sending her Songbird
album to the top of the British charts and bringing Cassidy much more fame and
appreciation than she ever had during her lifetime. The posthumous success is
richly deserved, not just for her stunning version of this song but for her
entire body of work.
No comments:
Post a Comment