Published on Jul 29, 2014
Few voices have touched millions of souls in the way that Eva Cassidy’s has. Few success stories are quite as poignant.
And then, at the same moment a person discovers Eva Cassidy, they have to deal with the loss of her.
In 1993, Cassidy had a malignant mole removed from her back. Three years later, during a promotional event for the Live at Blues Alley album in July 1996, Cassidy noticed an ache in her hips, which she attributed to stiffness from painting murals while perched atop a stepladder. The pain persisted and a few weeks later, X-rays revealed that the melanoma had spread to her lungs and bones.
Her doctors estimated she had three to five months to live. Cassidy opted for aggressive… treatment, but her health deteriorated rapidly. In the early fall, at a benefit concert for her at the Bayou, making her final public appearance, closing the set with “What a Wonderful World” in front of an audience of family, friends, and fans.
Additional chemotherapy was ineffective and Cassidy died on November 2, 1996 at her family’s home in Bowie, Maryland. In accordance with her wishes, her body was cremated and the ashes were scattered on the lake shores of St. Mary’s River Watershed Park, a nature reserve near Callaway, Maryland.
It’s one of those stories that is at once beautiful and tragic, taking on a life of its own and becoming the stuff legends are made of—especially if the lead character is a petite woman so shy and unsure of her talent …. that she would never realize the degree of her gift during her own lifetime; who was also unknown outside the D.C. area where she worked in a plant nursery during the day so she could play half-filled clubs on weeknights; or who was never able to land a record deal because labels couldn’t figure out how to market her—she just so loved to sing great songs and was steadfast in her refusal to be confined to any one style of music. And then—less than six months after using her savings, a cash advance on a credit card and a $1,000 gift from her aunt to record and release her independent album—she tragically died of malignant melanoma at the age of 33.
As with all great legends, however, what seemed to be the end was only the beginning of this bittersweet tale of Eva Cassidy.
Four years after her death, a tape she had made of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” made its way into the hands of a programmer at Britain’s BBC2, who was so moved that he played it on his program—only to be overwhelmed with responses from people who, among other things, had pulled their cars over to call in and find out who this stunning voice belonged to.
If Eva were alive today she would no doubt be shocked and most likely overwhelmed at the worldwide attention, by the praise bestowed upon her by the likes of Paul McCartney and Sting—indeed that they even know her name at all. As of 2008, her posthumously released albums have sold over eight million copies worldwide. Eva’s high school friend, Ruth Murphy, summed it up nicely during an interview on ABC News Nightline: “I have to kind of laugh because this is the way I think Eva would have loved it; everybody else does all the talking for her, and all she does is sing.”
To honor Eva, here is the story behind her performance and recording of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” written by her cousin, Laura Bligh who runs http://evacassidy.org/
“OVER THE RAINBOW”
In the end, it was “Over the Rainbow” that made Eva Cassidy a star, but it didn’t happen until five years after her death.
Eva and Chris Biondo in 1992
Nobody seems to remember when Eva started singing it, but her producer and bassist Chris Biondo says, “Eva had been doing ‘Over the Rainbow’ for years. She had already recorded it once on a friend’s four-track when she was in high school. I remember we were driving to Ikea Furniture one day, and she pulled out a cassette and wanted me to hear the song. A couple of times I had to pull over, I was crying so hard; it was brutal. It was all her own version; there was a note she changed that was really good on the word ‘far,’ … it’s better than the way Judy Garland sang it.”
In the early ’90s, when the Eva Cassidy Band was recording The Other Side with legendary D.C. bluesman …. Chuck Brown, Eva and Chris…. spent a few days in his studio working on “Over the Rainbow.” The planned album would consist primarily of duets, however, Chuck and Eva would each be featured on solos as well. Knowing that Eva’s “Over the Rainbow” was something special, all the band members urged her to record that song for it. Eva played every note on the recording herself, Biondo says. “First she went in and played acoustic guitar, and that took the longest. Then she did the lead vocal, and then the other instruments. We worked really hard on it, and I remember the day we finished it—it was July 18, 1992. We were really tired and we didn’t think it was very good.”
Whatever Eva and Chris thought of the recording, lead guitarist Keith Grimes was very much impressed. “We were really slaving on that ‘Chuck and Eva’ album, and in the midst of our grunting and straining and working very hard (laughs), Eva and Chris did this song in a couple of days. She came in with that, and I said, ‘This is the best thing on the record! You little stinker!’ I felt so admiring of Eva. It was as if somebody had done the quintuple Lutz. I felt like going up and shaking her hand, because it’s so hard to land the big fish— in terms of performance—and that’s what we were grappling with on some of these songs. And she did it. It’s like capturing something, because once you have it recorded you’ve got it forever.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXU219b3Zdw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQRIOzzcswE