Eva Cassidy’s story is an amazing one. She was a local nightclub singer in the Washington D.C. area who achieved international fame years after her untimely death from melanoma in November of 1996 (she was 33). My family moved to the same area where she lived in Bowie Maryland just a month before Eva died (I was 7), but I didn’t know anything about her until nearly 10 years later. Fortunately, Eva Cassidy had recorded a small body of live and studio material. In 2000 a BBC morning radio show began playing two of her songs, Somewhere over the Rainbow and Fields of Gold. There was an incredible response from the British public and within months her CD Songbird was sitting at #1 on the British album charts. The story just gets better from there. Just to list a a few highlights:
- she has now sold over 6 million records
- she is the #5 all time selling artist on Amazon
- her music has been played in television and movie soundtracks
- Olympic skaters have used Eva’s songs for their routines
- AIR productions has purchased the rights for a full length feature film on her
For those of you that would like to know more about this remarkable woman you can read Eva’s complete biography hereand/or you can watch a 20 minute ABC Nightline Special at:
Eva Cassidy is a true inspiration for me as a singer. Here’s what the NY Times wrote about her singing – “silken soprano voice with a wide and seemingly effortless range, unerring pitch and a gift for phrasing that at times is heart-stoppingly eloquent”. I can also relate to her as an artist. She was hard to categorize because she liked to sing so many styles of music. She wasn’t into visual or vocal flashiness, but preferred to earn an audience’s respect with great singing and song interpretations.
I wish I could have seen Eva perform live. But it wasn’t meant to be. Instead God gave us all the gift of her recordings and videos. Here’s one of my favorites:
-Marie
