Eva Cassidy - Songbird
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Free Music Notes for Songbird
Free Music Review: Dr. Eva's Medicine for the Soul
Hit: 5 Stars
I first stumbled across Eva Cassidy on a compilation of guitar songs for rainy days, singing "Autumn Leaves." A serviceable old standard to be sure, but I've heard it probably a hundred times by our most acclaimed singers, and wasn't enthused about hearing yet another version. But after listening I realized two things: that I'd never really heard Autumn Leaves before, or more accurately, I had never *felt* it, and that I had to know more about this singer who was able to bring so much new depth out of a familiar song. Why hadn't I heard of her before? Listening to others of her songs showed this effect was no fluke. Eva has a way of forcing us to slow down and feel, perhaps for the first time, what the songwriter was trying to tell us. 'Look what I found under this old leaf,' she seems to say, swaying her unerring metal detector from side to side and holding up the nugget you missed before.
And this was no accident. She reportedly chose her songs based on the effect the lyrics had on her, which gave her a somewhat eclectic but highly distilled repertoire. Some have said that Eva was unaware of her talent, but I am now convinced this was not the case, but rather she chose in her humility to subjugate herself in service to the message of the song, and its connecting power to the collective unconscious of our human condition. She bridges the synapse between songwriter and listener better than any other singer I have ever heard.
People speak upon first hearing Eva of being stopped in their tracks, waiters halted emerging from swinging kitchen doors holding plates of cooling food, of being unexpectedly and irresistably moved to tears.
At this Eva Cassidy has no peers. From what deep well of sadness she drew I can only imagine, but her airy incantations speak of what it means to be alive, to be human in a world not optimized for the care and feeding of sentient beings. You'll soon find out which of her songs do it for you. It is best, however, to take them sparingly, like a penicillin reserved for emergencies, to save your life, lest you become desensitized to the effect.
You'll know when: when life has taken all you have to give, and then it takes more; when you've lost someone you can't live without, but have to go on living anyway; when nothing can get into that hardened lump of coal that used to be your heart... Put on Eva, and turn out the lights, so it's just you, and a red dot glowing on the stereo, alone in the dark with your pain: take two sad songs, have a good cry, and call me in the morning.
Free Music Review: Songbird,very aptly named.
Hit: 5 Stars
This is July 4th and many of you reading this review were stunned to hear the music eminating from the television set during tonight's rebroadcast of the Eva Cassidy story. you were then deeply saddened to hear how her life was cut short by melanoma before she rightly took her place as one of the greatest female vocalists of all time. I know ,because the same thing happened to me as I was channel surfing a couple months ago when it was broadcast for the first time. I immediately did a web search and found her albums for sale at Amazon. I have all of them now but the first that I listened to was Songbird. This album is sort of a "best of Eva Cassidy" collection,at least it contains a broad selection of songs from her earlier albums(all except Live at Blues Alley were released posthumously). The selections cover most of the range of her repetoir from blues to folk to folk rock to gospel to traditional. I really can't say that it is truly a "best of" album because after listening to everything she's performed I still don't have a favorite,my favorite is usually the last selection I listened to. Eva,as far as I can tell,has a perfect vocal instrument but beyond that she uses it to interpret songs in such a way as to expose pieces of her soul and makes us aware our own. if you are as taken with Eva's music as I am,buy all of her albums,you will likely listen to them over and over and find them to be the most treasured in your collection. Live at Blues Alley shows her off as a live performer,which despite her shyness was her favorite aspect of her art. She told her mother before dying that if she survived the melanoma,she just wanted to sing and play the guitar in intimate nightclub settings. I think,though,that one misses a true appreciation of her vocal talent if one doesn't have at least one of her studio works since her voice was a somewhat impaired by a bad cold on the night of the Blues Alley performance. It is truly incredible that she sounded as good as she did despite this! "Songbird" contains a few of the selections from "Blues Alley" so it is a good sampler of her live performance work as well as the studio material. Buy "Songbird" if you have a very limited budget or aren't sure of how much you might enjoy her work. Buy all her other albums if you felt the same chills that I did when I first heard her voice,they don't go away no matter how long you listen!Free Music Review: A voice for the ages
Hit: 5 Stars
Like the briefest, brightest shooting star, Eva Cassidy was here, then she wasn't. Perhaps God wanted his angel back. During a lifetime of playing and listening to all styles of music, I have heard most of the great popular and operatic singers whose work survives in recordings: Caruso, Armstrong, Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Billie Holiday, Sarah Vaughan, Ella Fitzgerald, Van Morrison, just to name a few. But I was not prepared when a friend gave me this precious album last November.
From the first bars of the first song, "Fields of Gold," you are struck by the pure natural beauty of Eva's voice, the perfect pitch, intonation, vibrato, inflection. It seems to be exactly what a woman should sound like when she sings. Your sense of awe will only build as she sings over appropriately spare arrangements (including her understated but perfect guitar and keyboard work) of pop, soul, gospel, folk, and blues standards. Impossibly, each one of her performances (some of which were live) becomes definitive.
Just for good measure, she even takes on the song of the century, "Over the Rainbow," and eclipses Judy Garland's version--doesn't just eclipse it--blows it completely away in an anthemic performance which is, believe it or not, understated. I have never heard anything like it. Listening to it never fails to bring tears. Even trying to describe it to friends who haven't heard it brings tears.
Happiest when she was on her bicycle, Eva was a shy little waif-like blonde who never thought too highly of her awesome vocal instrument. But she possessed buckets and buckets of soul without overdoing it, without oversinging (as Barbra Streisand, Celine Dion, Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey, and others are known to do). I concur in all the rapturous reviews above and below. It's impossible not to love this music, just as it is impossible not to feel a strong sense of loss knowing that she's no longer with us. I defy anyone to listen to these ten songs and not be pleasantly devastated. This album will haunt you. It will hit you in your most vulnerable spot. It will become an indispensable part of your life.
(Since November I have bought the rest of her available CDs and continue to marvel at her fabulous and definitive performances. You haven't heard anyone sing "Danny Boy" until you've heard Eva sing it.)
Free Music Review: Happy/Sad
Hit: 5 Stars
What a wonderful Album. I bought it only for all the hype but after hearing it I was breathless. At last, after so many years looking for a TRUE pop/rock/country....... singer here comes Eva. It is so sad that she passed away so young that the album feels more and more like a piece of heaven. Listening to it and I was remembering other two of my favorites of all time; I know that some of you may disagree but, anyway, I felt it and it is only a personal view. First of all Karen Carpenter: she was one of a kind, really, and she and Eva had something in common, the earthiness of their voices. We are not hearing a superstar possing or making waves with their talent, no, because they are singing to us, making a confidence, sharing a feeling. Hear Fields of Gold and you are surelly to agree with me. I think that if Karen have lived long enough she would have ended singing songs the way Eva does, her pure voice, with simple arrangments, without the typical Carpenters sound (don't get me wrong, I LOVE The Carpenters but Karen's talent was too big). The other singer I was thinking about was Olivia N-J. This time I felt all the sweetness that a voice can bring to a tune with the perfect phrasing, the magical touch. Of course people is going to tell me about the songs that Olivia choose to sing and yes, sometimes I agree that they were not the best choice, but I think that in a way Olivia didn't has enough confidence in her own talent to display the range of songs that we can find in the small discography of Eva, butif you are one of the lucky ones to have been able to be at an ONJ concert these past years hearing her singing Come On Over and, coincidence, Over The Rainbow, or had had the chance to hear that wonderful and incredible overlooked album called Back With A Heart, you also could agree with me. I am happy and sad at the same time : destiny is not always kind. Like KC, she passed away too young and with a formidable talent, unlike Karen, she made only a few records. Like Olivia, she had an angel voice, unlike Olivia, she lost her battle with cancer.
Eva, thank you for your gift, I am sure that up there you are in good company. Karen, Ella, Billie, maybe you are jamming and singing with the angels but........ Oooooops.......you ARE angels.
PS(sorry for my English..)
Free Music Review: Amazing and Tragic Performer
Hit: 5 Stars
There are no vocal histrionics here or mega-produced, synthesized crap so common out there today. This is just a young lady singing some songs and still sounding unbelievable. She is not my usual style of music so it kind of surprised me when I found myself addicted to her music. And it seems there's no one who can dislike it. She is just terrific. The first track opens the album on an ethereal, sad, and evocative note with Sting's "Fields of Gold." "Wade in the Water" is deep, evangelistic, and soulfoul; while "Autumn Leaves" is soft, delicate, and subtle. And the gospel song "Wayfaring Stranger" is strangely eerie as Cassidy proclaims, "There's no sickness toil nor danger in that bright land to which I go," and soon after her life was cut short by cancer. "Songbird" showcases her softer side again, and then "Time is a Healer" blasts through the roof with its powerful bluesey vocals. One of my favorite tracks is "I Know You by Heart" which seems ironic in that it sounds as if Cassidy is singing about herself, "You left in autumn, the leaves were changing . . . you're still here beside me every day." Cassidy passed away in autumn, and I'm sure her parents are very sentimental about this beautiful ballad. "People Get Ready" is another gospel number about "The train to Jordan, picking up passengers from coast to coast." And then comes "Oh, Had I a Golden Thread" which Cassidy makes sound like gospel even though it's not. It's hard to believe a voice that big was housed in such a small woman. My favorite cut on the record is "Over the Rainbow" which also seems so poignant and prophetic: "Where troubles melt like lemon drops, away above the chimney tops, that's where you'll find me." Make sure you've got a box of tissue when you listen to that one. Eva Cassidy was an amazing singer; she had amazing range, both vocally and stylistically, an amazing ability to reach inside people, and surely an amazing soul. I'll say again that I think there is probably no one who wouldn't enjoy this album, so what are you sitting here reading this for? Get it.