Eva CassidyEva Cassidy was an American vocalist described by the British newspaper The Guardian as "one of the greatest voices of her generation". Although possessing a soulful voice, an extraordinary range, and a diverse repertoire of jazz, blues, folk, gospel and pop, she still remained virtually unknown outside of her native Washington DC. When she died of melanoma in 1996. However, her posthumously released recordings have since sold in excess of four million copies, and in early 2001 the compilation album Songbird reached #1 on the UK album charts.
HistoryEva Cassidy was the third of four children born to Hugh and Barbara Cassidy. From an early age, she displayed exceptional artistic and musical talent. When she was nine years old, her father bought her a guitar, and she began to play at family gatherings with her musical siblings. As she entered her teens, however, Cassidy seemed to be unaware of the depth of her own talent. She did, however, sing with an amateur band, called Stonehenge, during high school and received considerable praise. Due to her extreme shyness, she struggled with performing in front of strangers.
At the age of eighteen, Cassidy began her professional career, singing and playing guitar in a Washington, D.C. area band, called Easy Street. This band performed in a variety of styles, at weddings, corporate parties, and smokey pubs. Cassidy paid her dues as a struggling young musician, working with Easy Street on Christmas night in 1982, at a neighborhood pub in Bowie, Maryland.
Throughout the 1980s, Cassidy worked with a number of other bands, including the soul and Motown oriented band, The Honeybees, and the techno-pop original band, Characters Without Names. Cassidy co-wrote songs, along with the other band members, and recorded them at various home studios.
In 1992 Biondo played a tape of Cassidy to Chuck Brown, best known as a "Go-Go" singer, although he is also an accomplished jazz and blues vocalist. This led to the first commercial recording of Cassidy, the duet album The Other Side, which featured performances of classic songs such as "Fever", Billie Holliday's "God Bless the Child" and Cassidy's signature tune "Over the Rainbow". The independently released duet CD attracted the attention of various record companies, but the offers all required Cassidy to pigeonhole herself within a single style (e.g., pop or jazz), something she adamantly refused to do.
In January 1996 Cassidy recorded the album Live at Blues Alley, about which the Washington Post later commented that "she could sing anything and make it sound like the only music that mattered". Cassidy was unhappy with the album and promptly began recording a studio album which was eventually released as Eva by Heart in 1997.
During a promotional event for this CD in July 1996, Cassidy noticed an ache in her hips, which she attributed to stiffness from painting a ceiling. The pain persisted, and a few weeks later Cassidy was diagnosed with melanoma. By the time of her diagnosis, the cancer had spread throughout her body, causing the pain in her hips.
Cassidy rapidly deteriorated, and her final performance was in September 1996, when, after using a walker to reach the stage, she sang "What a Wonderful World" in front of an audience of friends and admirers. Eva Cassidy died on November 2, 1996, at the age of 33.
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