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This is a supplemental page which includes some "older" reviews and articles about Eva Cassidy. If you find some outdated links, please let me know.
Our ice-skating connection, Heather, sent me an Eva link: The Philadelphia Inquirer on December 26th, 2001, published an article entitled "Enjoying a CD parade of long-forgotten talent," written by music critic Tom Moon. Eva is the first artist mentioned in the column. (By the way, this article was evidently carried on the Knight-Ridder wire service, for it appeared in the Hagerstown Herald-Mail and possibly other papers as well.)
"You could argue that Eva Cassidy - the Washington, D.C., singer whose SONGBIRD offers hauntingly spare treatments of jazz, gospel and pop songs - became a best-selling phenom because of her much-discussed tragic story. (The singer died at age 33 in 1996 after battling cancer, and was then unknown to most outside of her hometown.) But you could also make the case that people sought out Cassidy this year because her recordings provide something unavailable elsewhere: honest, open-hearted, contrivance-free singing.
In an era when even the jazz vocalists work every imaging angle to gain attention, here was someone who refused to play that game, who crossed stylistic boundaries effortlessly and infused every line with pure conviction. She meant everything she sang, and that investment made everything she sang riveting."
Shock Value Music Webzine has an article/review about Eva here, written by C.J. Cauley. "One thing you have to note about Eva is that when she does a cover song, she absolutely OWNS it."
Nov. 2001 A Star Trek fan site, the USS Joshua, has a feature report about Eva.
The website for the audiophile magazine SOUNDSTAGE! lists LIVE AT BLUES ALLEY as one of the "Reference Discs" their writers use to evaluate audio systems. Roger Kanno writes, "The instrumentation is exceedingly simple, but very high-resolution systems will extract the subtle nuances of Cassidy's soulful vocals that will allow you to connect with her and her music .... This straightforward recording will sound good on even fairly modest systems, but the vocals will truly come alive with breathtaking quality on more accomplished systems."
Oct. 10 An audio article, not a print one -- From Agent Steve in York : "I noticed last night the BBC Radio 4 'Womans Hour' segment {about Eva} seemed to have been repackaged for the BBC World Service. The 10 minute audio segment is still available at the following URL : - http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/arts/highlights/010820_cassidy.shtml."
There's a nice review of SONGBIRD here. "She slips effortlessly from one genre to another with a voice as pure and honest as a Judy Collins or a Joan Baez. On the gospel and R&B songs, she gets down with the best of 'em! Could this really be a slender, painfully shy, white girl? And then she goes on to a simple ballad
and her guitar, and the sweet-voiced folkie returns. The backing instrumentation
(usually bass, guitar, and drums) is simple and fully enhances the vocals."
Sept. 23, 2001
This article by Sharon Weisz, "The Ballad of Eva Cassidy," appears in Lip Service Magazine, "The Magazine for Music and Online Retailers." " It took three years for the late singer to become an overnight sensation ...." Sharon is the publicist working with Blix Street Records in the United States to promote Eva's music.
If you read Swedish, you might be interested in this review of LIVE AT BLUES ALLEY in Hifimagisinet. Mona in Sweden reports: "Hifimagasinet is a magazine for both hardware and software in music. It presents
reviews as well as tests of sound equipment." Mona kindly translated the review for me, and some of it follows : "I have always had a special relation to Sting's Fields of Gold and I thought of course that no one could do it better than Sting. Until now . . .
This song has carried me away to the heaths in Scotland where the barley has ripened
and turned yellow, waiting for becoming a good whisky, perhaps a Highland Park or a
Lagavulin. But I have never cried to the song. Until now . . ."
Sept. 13
I found another Eva article from a German website here.
There's a nice article about Eva at the German website VIVA.de, Zauberhaftes Comeback aus dem Jenseits . It's in German.
September 6, 2001
Here's one that came out a while ago but I just discovered it -- The LEXIS legal research firm seems to have some sort of on-line magazine, and published a nice story about Eva Cassidy, Discovered Too Late / The legend of Vocalist Eva Cassidy / by Robert Wiener .
Many people in Germany have been visiting this website via a link from "Brisant. Evidently this television program recently broadcast a story about Eva. Their headline is "Tote Sängerin wird zum Megastar" which I believe means "Dead singer becomes a megastar"!
August 24th: The USA TODAY story about Eva is in today's edition. It has been on their website for several days, oddly enough! To read it on-line, click here. Truth to tell, it's not a very good article, it doesn't convey any sense of what Eva was like or how her music affects her fans. But maybe it will spark curiosity in some people, who might seek out Eva's music.... I found the use of the word "warble" in the first paragraph to be particularly annoying.
August 12: ROLLING STONE has a review of SONGBIRD in its new issue. It is on their website here. The review is favorable overall, but it is puzzling that the album only received 3 1/2 stars. As Eva's producer/bassist Chris Biondo says, "Three and a half stars are not enough for Eva Cassidy."
August 4 : The German radio website SWR3 has an extensive audio program about Eva, which you can listen to over the Internet. It includes lengthy passages of music, and interviews with her mother and another German relative, as well as with Paul Walters of the BBC. It's in German, of course. From what I can tell (since I don't speak German) it's an excellent program. I had to search around for it a bit (handicapped again by my lack of German) but it's definitely worth seeking out if you can understand German.
A nice Internet review of SONGBIRD here. The writer, Tim Healey, is especially interested in Eva's use of rubato.
7/23 Here's an interesting article about Eva's music from the Worcester (Massachusetts) Telegram and Gazette, July 19th. Mike Schreibman alerted me about this one. The headline reads: "Songs by late singer getting raves from local fans, radio stations"
A quote: The BBC in England got the ball rolling when a copy of the Blix Street compilation 'Songbird' caught the attention of a producer there. BBC listeners went wild for 'Over the Rainbow' and that led to an hourlong special on the singer that aired in December. More than 250,000 copies of 'Songbird' sold in England.
Back here, National Public Radio picked up on the story and did a 9-minute piece on Cassidy that also aired in December. After that, 'Songbird' and the three albums Cassidy made before her death became the top-selling albums at Amazon.com.
Other national media outlets were drawn to the story and ABC's 'Nightline' did a show on Cassidy that aired on May 25 and was repeated on July 4.
In between those 'Nightline' dates, representatives from Blix Street went to radio executives to see if they would be interested in putting 'Over the Rainbow' on their playlists. Steve Peck, operations manager at WSRS-FM (96.9), attended one of those meetings last month. 'Blix Street wanted to launch a single in America after all the success they had in England. They got a bunch of us guys together for dinner and we watched the 'Nightline' piece and talked about it. I was convinced by the end of the night that we should play the song,' Peck recalled..
WSRS listeners responded beyond Peck's imagination. The station put together a 30-minute segment of its own about Cassidy that included more of her music and interviews with Bill Straw, owner of Blix Street Records. Peck said the combination of Cassidy's utterly perfect voice and the natural air in which she wraps her technical skills proves irresistible."
July 2001 :
From Doug in Pennsylvania: 'There is a review of SONGBIRD in the July issue of Maryland's "Music Monthly" magazine. If you are a long/life time resident of the metro mid Atlantic area you probably know this publication. If not, at musicmonthly.com is a list of its distribution points (it's a free paper). It even reaches Pennsylvania.' Doug also wrote a terrific piece about Eva which was published on the "People's Page" in this issue, with nice mention of this website. I'm still trying to track down an actual copy; the following quote was transcribed from someone reading the article out loud over the telephone : 'Within her Web site, Ms. Bligh notes that, although it may seem hard to believe, she witnessed Eva Cassidy and the band play at any number of sparsely-attended gigs. As such, Ms. Bligh stressed the importance of supporting live music. This point was driven home recently as I chanced upon
Red Letter Day (yet another Maryland act and one-time award WAMA award nominee) at the bookstore. Music in a bookstore. Hey, I like this setting; daylight entertainment and no smoke! What the smaller venues lack in the “stadium experience,” make up for an intimacy and higher probability of interaction.'
7/16 From today's Atlanta Journal-Constitution, there's an article about Eva by John Blake. The headline states, 'Eva Cassidy is the best singer I've ever heard in my life' / BUT IT'S ONLY AFTER HER DEATH / THAT SHE'S HIT THE BIG TIME. A quote : 'Though Hugh Cassidy recently gave 20 interviews in a two-week period, he and his wife, Barbara, say they don't mind the attention directed at their late daughter. "We think that it's wonderful," he says.' UPDATE: The same article has been reprinted in several other papers : It appears in the Houston Chronicle today. Error-wise, Lenny is still getting credit for that Chris Biondo quote about "pop crap," the tribute is still reported as having been held at Blues Alley (it was at the Bayou), and only PART of the audience is said to be in tears (believe me, everybody was). Otherwise, this is a nice one, with a link to my website which has brought many visitors here today! **UPDATE** The same article is in the San Jose Mercury News -- online here.
7/14/01 Mike in North Carolina just sent me a lovely article about Eva from the New Bern Sun-Journal, written by columnist Martha Reedy. He reports, "By the way, Martha Reedy (a contralto) and I sang together in a community chorus in the 80s. She is quite good and I am sure she is very sincere in her praise of and admiration for Eva." An excerpt from the article: "Standing on stage with her guitar, she was nearly too nervous to look up at the audience. Still, she captivates the listener with her voice. It's not just her technical skill that grabs you. It's the feeling that she was reaching out with her heart. It captures you and won't let go."
6/29/2001
From Blix Street Records today: "For the third time in as many years, [Los Angeles Times] jazz columnist Don Heckman has devoted much of his column to Eva Cassidy. It's on Page 20 of today's Calendar section." The article is called "Three Singers Who Defy Easy Labels / Eva Cassidy, Laurel Masse and Lorraine Feather stretch the vocal genre in interesting ways."
AMAZON.COM included this in their recent e-mail newsletter: "Record Breaker: At one point recently, Eva Cassidy's albums held five spots (including the top 4) on our charts, and her albums continue to dominate our top 20. Never before in Amazon.com's three-year history has an artist captured so many top spots at once; she is truly a phenomenon. Cassidy's posthumous fame continues to be fueled by the media, introducing her soulful, eclectic music to legions of new fans."
6/28 The Washington Post has an article about Chuck Brown today which mentions his connection with Eva: CHUCK BROWN'S in the house . . . the White House, that is. Friday, along with stars such as Queen Latifah, Boyz to Men and Lionel Hampton, the Godfather of Go-Go will meet the president of the United States as George W. Bush signs a proclamation honoring Black Music Month. Maybe the president should start thinking about proclaiming this the Year of Chuck Brown, because that's what it's shaping up to be....
"One of the greatest moments in my life was when I met Eva Cassidy and had a chance to do some stuff that I always wanted to try, a little jazz and blues," Brown says. "I might have gone out there and sang a few jazz tunes by myself, but I always dreamed of singing in a duet like Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong, Ray Charles and Betty Carter. They inspired me when I was young" -- here Brown breaks into a sweet, then gruff musical conversation -- "and I wanted to do that so bad. Someday I'm going to sing me some jazz with a woman."
He recalls the shock at hearing Cassidy's voice on tape during a recording session. "I drove home and that voice followed me all the way down the highway. I called [producer Chris Biondo] and said I wanted to do a record with her." And when Brown finally met Cassidy, "I couldn't believe she was such a nice, innocent, sweet lady. She looked like the sunshine."
Cassidy's life was cut short by cancer in 1996; she was only 33. Unknown outside Washington in her lifetime, and little known even here, Cassidy has in the last year sold millions of albums as a result of extended support from English and American media caught up in her tragic tale. "She's done so much for me, opened so many doors, just by me being on her album," says Brown, whose gentlemanliness obscures the fact that "The Other Side" was actually his album. Brown, after all, was the Washington music icon, Cassidy the unknown singer who inspired him and gave him the courage to do something different.
"I couldn't have done it without her," says Brown, with enduring affection.'
6/24
Julia Keller, a "cultural critic" for the Chicago Tribune, wrote an eloquent article about Eva Cassidy and "how we see, hear, read and think differently once we become aware of an artist's death...." Go read the whole article, but here's the opening: "Certain voices get under your skin like a letter opener does the flap of an envelope. Your soul is exposed. All of your secrets tumble out. Eva Cassidy had that kind of voice. It was lilting and husky, a thing of steel and a thing of smoke, both gritty and gossamer. Hearing her sing, you want to change the locks on your doors; that's how vulnerable she makes you feel. Yet halfway through listening to her 'Songbird' CD (1998) for the first time a few weeks ago, I looked at the liner notes and discovered she was dead. She had died of cancer in 1996 at 33. I was intensely aware of listening to the second half of the CD differently than I had the first. Knowing that she was dead, knowing that she had died young, changed the experience -- but how?"
June 13, 2001
From Jefferson Morley in the Washington Post Magazine, a brief story about this website. Are you an Evangelist? By the way, the article mentions a tape of Eva singing in a bar. To save me a lot of e-mail, I must regretfully tell you that No, the tape is not available. Will some of that material be used on an album someday? Who knows, but please don't bombard the record company with requests about it. They are very busy promoting Eva's five other albums.
In the newest edition of Music Connection Magazine is this profile of Bill Straw at Blix Street Records. "Bill Straw had met Martin Jennings, who was deputy manager for Warners U.K., in 1975. Through Jennings, Straw met Tony Bramwell, whose place in rock history was assured when he turned his boss at a record store -- Brian Epstein -- on to a band called the Beatles. Thirty-odd years later, when Bramwell heard Cassidy, he walked her music directly into British Public Radio, the powerhouse network that blankets the entire country. When the British public heard Cassidy the reaction was overwhelming. 'Then by December it was a gold album,' informs Straw, 'selling over 100,000 units on Songbird....'"
6/12
From Andrew at Hot Records in the UK: "There is a really nice piece on Eva in the current edition of Record Buyer Magazine, UK only. They do have a web site but it has
not been up-dated to include the Eva piece as yet. The web address is www.recordbuyer.co.uk." Has anyone seen this? Paul in the UK reports, "The piece is called 'Eva For Ever' by Mick St Michael... It's nice to see Eva on the
front cover of a UK monthly. What did make me smile was that Eva shares the front cover with.....Ozzy Osbourne! Is there something we
should know?"
From the June 1 issue of Radio & Records, a radio industry
paper, in Carol Archer's "Smooth Jazz Notes" column :Music intoxicates me. I love the rush, the unabashed joy it unleashes in me like a drug. It's an addiction shared by many in radio and records. Every now and then - not nearly often enough - I hear something so amazing that it changes me in ways difficult to describe, but I always listen with the hope that I'll find the amazement I crave and be overcome by a piece of music and completely swept away in it. I had one of those revelations recently when I listened to Eva Cassidy's 'Songbird' (Blix Street), which closes with an extraordinary interpretation of 'Over the Rainbow,' also the first single. Until now I considered Judy Garland's version and, later, the version by Israel "Bruddah Iz" Kamakawiwo'ole the ultimate readings of that tune. But Cassidy's version, pitch-perfect, artful and devoid of any pretense, brought me to my knees. With each subsequent listen I'm more riveted by the beauty of her performance and the song's subtle, delicate arrangement. I asked Smooth ! Jazz Assistant Editor Pete Petro's opinion, but he hadn't gotten to it yet. He later reappeared wide-eyed, misty, verklemmt, and whispered, "That's not a cover." Then he put his hand to his heart with a word or two about his composure. In a dumbed-down world - one saturated with banal images, pointless messages and commercial junk - I would add Eva Cassidy's 'Over the Rainbow' in a heartbeat as a gift to my listeners. In a heartbeat!
This
feature story about Eva, by Mick Fitzsimmons, is part of the BBC Radio 2's excellent new folk/acoustic website.
'For a singer who had little interest in fame and who had been virtually ignored by the major record labels, it's an astonishing story. For any acoustic-based performer to sell so many records in this era of dance music, nu-metal bluster and hip hop bravado is remarkable in itself. The fact that Eva Cassidy died in 1996 from cancer at the age of 33 makes it even more so....'
May 21: From FACTS in Switzerland, "Die Tote in den Charts / Bitteres Märchen -- zu Lebzeiten kannte keiner Eva Cassidy, nach ihrem Tod verkauft sie Hunderttausende CDs. / Von Bänz Friedli"
In case you missed the ABC "World News Tonight" story about Eva from April 9th, you can still see it on the ABC website.
From HW in the UK, "Try on Father Monty's wonderful piece on Eva!" English or Spanish.
From Tom in the Netherlands: "Here's another URL with a short article on Eva in the Philippine Star."
From Italy, a newspaper called (I believe) Repubblica printed this article about Eva. Here are couple of quotes, courtesy of Gary and Gwynne The headline reads:"Her album has been at the top of the English charts for two weeks, but she died five years ago. Everyone's mad for Eva Cassidy / The voice that is no more / The story of an undiscovered American singer." And in the body of the story, "A phenomenon...everyone is asking how an artist can reach such success five years after dying...." (It also stated that Eva never left the state of Washington, but I can't get too upset about that, my knowledge of Italian geography isn't any better.)
The Australian Daily Telegraph printed a story about Eva on March 31. The writer is Peter Lalor. This is a good one.
'How often have you, as A & R manager, slapped yourself in the face for missing the opportunity of scoring a world hit record? This must have been the case when the American singer Eva Cassidy, out of the blue, appeared on the independent British hitlists, and a video clip of her was televised in Top of the Pops. What had happened? Eva Cassidy, who died of cancer in 1996, was totally ignored by the record companies when she was still alive. No market for her, was their conclusion. How wrong can one be?' You can read the Dutch version here.
An article appeared in the Irish Times Weekend Review section, entitled
'Who is Eva Cassidy?' 'Posthumous success in
the pop and rock worlds often happens - you only have to look at the industry behind Presley, Hendrix, (Jim) Morrison, Lennon, Cobain et al, to understand that, in pop terms, death sells in perpetuity. Occasionally, it extends a career beyond its mortal shelf life, but for most of the time it keeps, at very least, the concept of the iconic rock star well and truly alive. So who, then, you might justifiably ask, is Eva Cassidy? And why has her album, Songbird, been at the top of the charts for several weeks - almost five years after
her death from cancer at the age of 33? ' One remark in the article prompted a discussion in the guestbook: 'She was a singer who liked singing a wide range of songs yet who was markedly unequipped with any true personal artistic vision. A good singer with no voice of her own.'
March 6, 2001 HMV Choice Award for Best Album of 2000, chosen by readers, goes to TIME AFTER TIME.
In The Scotsman on February 23rd was
a particularly nice article about Eva. Go read it for yourself. "Songbird has sold 230,000 copies in total. More than 130,000
of them have been since the beginning of the year. That any artist should experience a boom in popularity after their death is not uncommon. The Diana effect has seen many a performer’s career receive a posthumous and beneficial reassessment. What is remarkable about Cassidy is that at the time of her death she was unknown outside her home town, Washington DC. For an established artist to become more famous when they are dead than when they were alive is accepted. For an amateur singer to hit the top from beyond the grave is unheard of." The Scotsman writer, Jonathan Trew, drew heavily upon Jefferson Morley's excellent article "When Chuck Met Eva" and generally produced a more thoughtful and well-rounded piece than others I have seen lately.
February 13, 2001 Thanks to an anonymous tip, I can offer a link to a review of SONGBIRD from the
Toronto Globe and Mail.
"Consciously or not, Blix Records has packed this album with tunes whose lyrics seem to presage both the singer's untimely death and her surprising resurrection."