Wednesday 16 January 2008

Eva Cassidy: A voice made in heaven


Eva Marie Cassidy was an American vocalist described by the British newspaper The Guardian as "one of the greatest voices of her generation." Unfortunately the world only realised this after her early death at the age of 33, caused by a melanoma. Ever since her talent has been honored with recognition and popularity in a posthumous phenomenon of success. Recordings released after her death have since sold in excess of four million copies and in early 2001 the compilation album Songbird reached #1 on the United Kingdom album charts. Also, in 2003, American Tune became Eva's third consecutive #1 album in the UK. No other recording artist in popular music history has been able to match this posthumous success, including Elvis Presley or Jimi Hendrix. She had a diverse repertoire of jazz, blues, folk, gospel and pop.

To my ear and to my heart she sounds a truly unique, emotional singer so I really understand when her cousin states that “Eva died in 1996, but today her soul-stirring voice is reaching people all over the world ” in the web page she dedicated to her.

Just let you with one of my favorite covers from her, that is also one of the most popular, played live at Blues Alley. It's unnecessary to say the name of the song because you will all immediately recognize it ....



I really recommend you to hear other songs, covers or not, from her for instance her well known version of “Imagine” which is definitely amazing! or the Sting’s “Field of Gold” cover which reportedly moved Sting himself to tears when he heard Cassidy's version.
Many other singers have been touched by Eva's voice like Katie Melua that in 2003 released "Faraway Voice" in memory of the singer.


I hope you all become enchanted as so many people and me in particular already have become with Eva Cassidy!

Kiss


The website dedicated to her: http://www.evacassidy.org/eva/eva.shtml


Some great (and cheap) cds on sale at Amazon: Live at Blues Alley (2001) , American Tune (2003), Songbird (2006).

1 comments:

GotchyaYinYang said...

Excelente cantora! Conheço poucas coisas dela, mas vou tentar ouvir mais! Grande voz!