“There's something about her voice - a quality - that you really can't put into words.”
- Sting/on Eva Cassidy
This week marks the 30th anniversary of the passing of Eva Cassidy. She was 33. During her lifetime, few people were aware of her voice and her music. It was only posthumously that she became known to the wide world.
I first heard her rendition of Over the Rainbow around 2000. I don't recall where, but it was for sure one of those moments when you stop whatever you're doing and say, “Wow…who is that?" I learned more about her - that she had died in 1996 of melanoma, and that her music catalogue was sparse. A shy and private person, she was uncomfortable with aggressive self-promotion. She'd only started tentatively pursuing music as a ‘thing" shortly before she got sick. Through her 20s she’d dabbled in music, playing small gigs with family and friends, but mainly she worked in a plant nursery and as a furniture painter in the D.C. area where she was from.
When a producer friend, Chris Biondo, encouraged her to try and get a recording contract, she said, “Why would anybody want to hear me? Why would anybody want to buy my records?” When she was finally convinced to give it a go, she refused to chase a major label. Because of her vocal versatility, she didn't want the limitations a record company would saddle her with. She wanted the freedom to do what she pleased - pigeonholed into a “genre" - no thank you. She and Biondo eventually self-financed and self-released her only two records, The Other Side (1992) and Live at Blues Alley (1996). After her death, Blix Street Records released a collection of her music on the album Songbird. That's when the world found out about Eva.