Thursday, February 02, 2006

Happy Birthday Eva Cassidy

"It is an Eva Cassidy day." I said to myself as I walked home from dropping the girls off at school.

I had to hear her today or I would die of want. So, when I got home I bemoaned the loss of the excellent CD given to me by Paul, and then proceeded to utilize "Limewire" in a slightly less than legal way. I also, out of pure curiosity, decided to look up her history online. I was moved to tears by her life and slightly surprised to find that today is actually the anniversary of her birth. Thus the title of this entry.

Today I charge all of you to the task of listening to just one of her songs. (The link I just provided only has partials, you need to listen to a whole song. Just use Limewire ok? You won't regret it.) She is unrivaled in my mind as the most soulful female singer ever. She was not a song writer, but a song interpreter, and she did that to its fullest capabilities. She performed all of the back up vocals and harmonies for her versions as well.

Though I am a great fan of originality and every one of the songs that she has recorded were written and sung by someone else first, I would still rather hear her sing them, with her soul and haunting movement of voice, than hear any other version available. She could read in to the song, better even sometimes than the original. For a perfect example I will say listen to Sting performing their "Fields of Gold", and then listen to Eva and how she felt it. (Years later, after her death, a t.v. reporter, who was a fan of hers and happened to be interviewing the lead singer of Sting got him to listen to her singing this song, and he was moved to tears. It was his song, he was fiercely territorial of it, but he immediately recognized that she had perfected what he had intended to say with it.

Here is a small list of my favorite songs sung by the beautiful voice of Eva Cassidy:

Fields of Gold
You take my Breath Away
Time after Time
Songbird
I Know you by Heart
Autumn Leaves
Wade in the Water
Heaven


If you want to feel Love listen to: "You Take My Breath Away", "I know You By Heart" and "Fields of Gold". They make your inside ache.


Eva Marie Cassidy was born on February 2nd, 1963, and left this earth on November 2nd, 1996.

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