| Eva Cassidy | |
|---|---|
| Background information | |
| Birth name | Eva Marie Cassidy |
| Born | February 2, 1963 Washington, DC |
| Origin | Maryland, United States |
| Died | November 2, 1996 (aged 33) Bowie, Maryland |
| Genre(s) | Jazz, Blues, Folk, Gospel and Pop |
| Instrument(s) | Vocals, Guitar, Keyboard |
| Voice type(s) | Soprano |
| Years active | 1981–1996 |
| Label(s) | Liaison (U.S.) Blix Street (U.S.) Hot (Europe) |
| Associated acts | Chuck Brown, Katie Melua |
| Website | www.evacassidy.org |
Eva Marie Cassidy (February 2, 1963 – November 2, 1996) was an American vocalist known for her interpretations of jazz, blues, folk, gospel, country and pop classics. She released her first album The Other Side, a set of duets with go-go musician Chuck Brown in 1992 followed by a live solo album, Live at Blues Alley in 1996. Cassidy was virtually unknown outside her native Washington, DC when she died of melanoma in 1996.
Four years later, Cassidy's music was brought to the attention of UK audiences when her versions of "Over the Rainbow" and "Fields of Gold" were played by Terry Wogan on BBC Radio 2. Following the overwhelming response, a camcorder recording of "Over the Rainbow" taken at the Blues Alley was shown on BBC Two's Top of the Pops 2. Shortly after, the compilation album Songbird, climbed to the top of the UK Albums Charts, almost three years after its initial release. The chart success in the United Kingdom led to increased recognition worldwide; as of 2008, her posthumously released recordings, including three UK #1s, have sold around eight million copies.[1] Her music has also charted top 10 positions in Australia, Germany, Sweden, Norway and Switzerland.
Contents |
Born on February 2, 1963 at the Washington Hospital Center,[2] Eva Marie Cassidy was the third of four children born to Hugh and Barbara Cassidy. Her father, a retired teacher, sculptor, musician and former army medic, is of Scottish and Irish descent while her German-born mother was a horticulturist.[3][4][5] From an early age, Cassidy displayed interest in art and music. When she was nine, her father taught her to play the guitar, and she began to play and sing at family gatherings.[4]
At age 11, Cassidy began singing and playing guitar in a Washington area band called Easy Street.[6] This band performed in a variety of styles, at weddings, corporate parties, and pubs. Due to her shyness, she struggled with performing in front of strangers. While a student at Bowie High School, she sang with a local band called Stonehenge.[4] During the summer of 1983, Cassidy sang and played guitar six days a week at the theme park Wild World.[4] Her younger brother Dan, a fiddler was also a member of this working band. She enrolled in art classes at a community college but dropped out after finding them unhelpful.[7]
Throughout the 1980s, Cassidy worked with several other bands, including the techno-pop band Characters Without Names. During this period, Cassidy also worked as a propagator at a plant nursery and as a furniture painter. In her free time, she explored other artistic expressions including painting, sculpting and jewelry design.[7] Despite holding a belief in God, Cassidy was not part of any organised religion.[8]
In 1986, Cassidy was asked by Stonehenge guitarist and high school friend David Lourim to lend her voice to his music project, Method Actor.[9] This brought her to Black Pond Studios, where she met bassist and recording engineer Chris Biondo. Biondo helped her find work as a session singer and later introduced her to Al Dale, who would become her manager. She sang back-ups for various acts from go-go rhythm and blues band Experience Unlimited to rapper E-40.[10] Biondo and Cassidy, who were in a romantic relationship for a time, formed the five-piece "Eva Cassidy Band" with Lenny Williams, Keith Grimes and Raice McLeod in 1990. They began to perform frequently in the Washington area.[4]
In 1992, Biondo played a tape of Cassidy's voice for Chuck Brown, the "Godfather of go-go".[11] It resulted in the duet album The Other Side featuring performances of classic songs such as "Fever", "God Bless the Child" and what would later become Cassidy's signature song "Over the Rainbow". The album was released and distributed in 1992 by Liaison Records, the label that also released Brown's Go-go albums. Brown originally intended to record a single duet with Cassidy for his next solo album, but this was postponed due to ongoing negotiations between Dale and other labels for a solo deal.[10][12] Cassidy's unwillingness to narrow her stylistic focus to one genre hindered her chances of securing a deal.[13][14] After talks broke down, the two decided to record their own duet album. As a duo, they performed at the Columbia Arts Festival and opened for acts like Al Green and The Neville Brothers.[10]
In 1993, Cassidy was honored by the Washington Area Music Association with a Wammie award for the Vocalist Jazz/Traditional category.[15] The next year she was invited to perform at the event and chose to sing "Over the Rainbow". A Washington Times review of the event called her performance "a show-stopper".[16] She took home two Wammies that night, again for Vocalist Jazz/Traditional and also for Roots Rock/Traditional R&B.[15] For a brief period that year, Cassidy signed a deal with Blue Note Records to pair up with pop-jazz band Pieces of a Dream to release an album and tour the country. She sang two tracks in a mainly instrumental album. It was a musically unsatisfying experience for her.[10]
After having a potential contract with Apollo Records collapse when the label went bankrupt, Biondo and Dale decided that she should release her own live album.[10] In January 1996, the material for Live at Blues Alley was recorded over a two-day period at Blues Alley, Washington, D.C. Due to a technical glitch on the first night of recording,[17] only the second night recording was usable. Unhappy with the way she sounded due to a cold, she was reluctant to release the album. She eventually relented, on the condition that the studio track "Oh, Had I a Golden Thread" would be included in the release and that they start working on a follow-up studio album.[10][7] Her apprehension appeared unfounded as local reviewers and the public responded positively.[7] In one of the first published news articles on Eva Cassidy, The Washington Post commented that "she could sing anything—folk, blues, pop, jazz, R&B, gospel—and make it sound like it was the only music that mattered".[11] The subsequent studio album she worked on was released as Eva by Heart posthumously in 1997. In the liner notes of Eva by Heart, critic Joel E. Siegel described Cassidy as "one of the greatest voices of her generation".[7]
In 1993, Cassidy had a malignant mole removed from her back. Three years later, during a promotional event for the Live at Blues Alley album in July 1996, Cassidy noticed an ache in her hips, which she attributed to stiffness from painting murals while perched atop a stepladder.[11] The pain persisted and a few weeks later, X-rays revealed that the melanoma had spread to her lungs and bones. The doctors gave her three to five months to live. Cassidy opted for aggressive treatment, but her health deteriorated rapidly.[3] In her final public performance in September 1996, at the Bayou, she closed the set with "What a Wonderful World" in front of an audience of friends, fans and family.[18] She was subsequently admitted to Johns Hopkins Hospital.[11]
Cassidy died at her family home in Bowie, November 2, 1996, at the age of 33. She was posthumously inducted into the Hall of Fame of the Washington Area Music Association.[19] According to her wishes, Cassidy’s body was cremated. Her ashes were scattered on the shores of St. Mary's River Watershed Park, a nature reserve near California, Maryland.[3]
After Cassidy's death, local folk singer Grace Griffith introduced the Blues Alley recording to Bill Straw from her label, Blix Street Records.[18] Straw approached the Cassidy family to put together a new album. In 1998, a compilation of tracks from Cassidy's three released recordings was assembled into the CD Songbird. This CD lingered in relative obscurity for two years until being given airplay by Terry Wogan on his wide-reaching BBC Radio 2 show Wake Up to Wogan, following recommendation by his producer Paul Walters. The album sold more than 100,000 copies in the following months.[3] The New York Times spoke of her "silken soprano voice with a wide and seemingly effortless range, unerring pitch and a gift for phrasing that at times was heart-stoppingly eloquent".[18]
Before Christmas of 2000, Top Of The Pops 2 aired a video of Cassidy performing "Over the Rainbow", which resulted in Songbird climbing steadily up the UK charts over the next few weeks. Just as ITV's Tonight with Trevor McDonald aired a feature on Cassidy, the album topped the chart.[20] Shot at Blues Alley by a friend with a camcorder the same night the album was recorded,[3] the black-and-white video became the most requested video ever shown on Top Of The Pops 2.[21] "There's an undeniable emotional appeal in hearing an artist who you know died in obscurity singing a song about hope and a mystical world beyond everyday life", wrote The Guardian.[22]
Commenting on whether Cassidy's early death played a part in her popularity, Sherri Dalphonse of Washingtonian.com writes, "No doubt her life story is part of it. But articles about her haven't boosted sales as much as when her songs are played on the BBC or NPR. Hearing about Eva Cassidy isn't as powerful as hearing her."[4] Songbird has since achieved significant chart success throughout Europe and quadruple platinum status in the UK.[3] Although still relatively unknown in the United States at that time, the album would eventually be certified gold over there.[23]
In May 2001, ABC's Nightline in the United States broadcast a well-received short documentary about Cassidy.[24] Over the weekend, all five of Cassidy's albums occupied Amazon.com's best sellers list top spots.[25] The Nightline episode has since been rebroadcast three times due to popular demand.[26] Producer Leroy Sievers has said that it is "probably the most popular Nightline ever".[27] In December, a nine-minute segment on NPR resulted in a similar sales surge, with five of the top seven spots going to Cassidy.[4] A rebroadcast of the Tonight with Trevor McDonald feature on Cassidy in Britain also bumped up sales.[28]
Since Songbird, several other CDs with original material have been released: Time After Time (2000), Imagine (2002) and American Tune (2003). 2008 saw the release of another new album entitled Somewhere. Unlike previous albums, which consisted solely of cover songs, this release contains two original songs co-written by Cassidy.
Together with word of mouth and internet fansites, the role of online commerce has played a big part in Cassidy's success.[29][30] This point was further affirmed when in 2005, Amazon.com released a list of its top 25 best-selling musicians, which placed Cassidy in 5th position, behind The Beatles, U2, Norah Jones and Diana Krall,[31] and far ahead of Elvis Presley and several other well-known stars.[32]
In 2004, during the gala opening of the Bowie Center for the Performing Arts, the Bowie Regional Arts Vision Association, Inc. (BRAVA) dedicated the Star's Dressing Room to Eva. Following a moving tribute to Eva, Chuck Brown took to the stage and performed his duet "with" Eva as her photos and video appeared in the background.
A collection of previously unreleased studio recordings from 1987 to 1991, was released in 2000 as No Boundaries. This release was not endorsed by the Cassidy family[3] and was released under a different label. An allmusic review of the album stated that even "a gifted vocalist like Eva Cassidy can only do so much with bad material".[33] In 2002, the self titled 1988 album by the band Method Actor, which Cassidy sang for, was re-released by the band's guitarist and producer David Lourim. Cassidy's name was featured prominently on the cover, which led to the Cassidy family and Blix Street Records filing a lawsuit against Lourim, claiming that Cassidy's name was used in a misleading fashion.[34] Eventually the cover was changed to look like the original LP album.[35]
In 2001, a book titled Songbird: Eva Cassidy: Her Story By Those Who Knew Her, on the life and work of Cassidy based on interviews with close family and associates was released in the UK. The hardcover edition has since sold in excess of 100,000 copies. A U.S. edition published by Gotham Books was released in late 2003 and includes two additional chapters on her influences and success in the US. Her life story has also been adapted into a musical[36] and also a Broadway piece for cancer benefit.[37]
At the 2002 Winter Olympics gala, and later on tour, figure skater Michelle Kwan brought Cassidy's music to a new audience when she skated to a recording of "Fields of Gold". Kwan's part in exposing the music of Cassidy to the international and American public led Cassidy's label to present her a gold record from the certification of Songbird.[38] Subsequently, other figure skaters such as Kristi Yamaguchi, Sarah Hughes and Kimmie Meissner have used Cassidy's music in their routines.
Anglo-Georgian singer Katie Melua is a keen fan of Cassidy.[39] Her debut album "Call off the Search" contained the song "Faraway Voice", written in Cassidy's memory.[39] Melua has also performed Cassidy's arrangement of "Anniversary Song" in concert.[39] On Christmas Eve 2006, she performed alongside video footage of Cassidy singing Over The Rainbow on BBC One's "Duet Impossible".[40] One year later, Cassidy's "What A Wonderful World" was spliced together with new vocals by Melua and released as a single exclusively at the British retail chain Tesco. It debuted at #1 on the UK Singles chart on December 16. All profits from the single went to the British Red Cross.[41] Irish singer Chris de Burgh has stated that his song "Songbird" from his album The Road to Freedom was written in honour of Cassidy. Singer Mary Chapin Carpenter made reference to Cassidy in the song "My Heaven" on the album Between Here and Gone: "More memories than my heart can hold, when Eva's singing 'Fields of Gold'."
The first film to feature an Eva Cassidy's recording was "Flight of Fancy" starring Dean Cain. Since then her music has appeared in various film and tv series including the comedy Joe Somebody, Love Actually, Maid in Manhattan, The Man From Elysian Fields, Alpha Dog and Smallville. Cassidy's arrangement of "Over the Rainbow" is a popular cover choice by singing competition contestants, with American Idol season 5 runner-up Katharine McPhee and The X Factor season 3 winner Leona Lewis among the numbers. Her interpretation of "Imagine" has been performed by American Idol season 7 runner-up David Archuleta.
In late 2007, AIR Productions acquired the rights to produce a film based on Cassidy's life.[42] It is being produced by Amy Redford (daughter of Robert Redford), Irwin Shapiro and Rick Singer.[43] In an interview a year earlier, Cassidy's parents suggested Kirsten Dunst or Emily Watson as possible actresses who could play their daughter.[44]
| Title | Release date | Label | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Other Side | 1992 | Liaison | Chuck Brown with Eva Cassidy. |
| Live at Blues Alley | 1997 | Blix Street | Originally self-released under Eva Music in 1996. |
| Eva by Heart | 1997 | Blix Street/Hot | Originally released under Liaison Records. Cassidy's only solo studio album. |
| Songbird | 1998 | Blix Street/Hot | Compilation. UK #1 |
| Time After Time | 2000 | Blix Street/Hot | UK #25 |
| No Boundaries | 2000 | Renata/Brunswick | |
| Method Actor | 2002 | Blp | Method Actor featuring Eva Cassidy. Reissue of a 1988 LP. |
| Imagine | 2002 | Blix Street/Hot | UK #1 |
| American Tune | 2003 | Blix Street/Hot | UK #1 |
| Wonderful World | 2004 | Blix Street/Hot | Compilation. UK #11 |
| Somewhere | 2008 | Blix Street/Hot | UK #4 |
| Title | Release date | Label | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| "Over the Rainbow" | 2001 | UK #42 | |
| "Take My Breath Away" | 2003 | UK #54 | |
| "What a Wonderful World" | 2007 | Dramatico | Posthumous duet with Katie Melua. UK #1 |
| Title | Release date | Label | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Live at Pearl's | 1994 | - | bootleg recording taped at Pearl's Restaurant in Annapolis, Maryland. Tracklist |
|
||||||||||||||
| Persondata | |
|---|---|
| NAME | Cassidy, Eva Marie |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | |
| SHORT DESCRIPTION | American singer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | February 2, 1963 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Washington, D.C., United States |
| DATE OF DEATH | November 2, 1996 |
| PLACE OF DEATH | Bowie, Maryland, United States |