Comments on : Being faithful to the institution

BiographyThe heart-tugging story of Eva Cassidy re...

2008-05-07T08:21:00.000-05:00

Biography

The heart-tugging story of Eva Cassidy reads almost like the plot of a Movie of the Week tearjerker. A native of the Washington, D.C., area, the painfully shy Cassidy earned a local reputation as a masterful interpreter of standards from virtually any genre, blessed with technical agility and a searching passion that cut straight to the emotional core of her material. Despite the evocative instrument that was Cassidy's voice, record companies shied away from her, unsure of how to market her eclectic repertoire; for her part, Cassidy adamantly refused to allow herself to be pigeonholed, prizing the music above any potential fame. In 1996, just when she had begun to record more frequently on a small, local basis, Cassidy was diagnosed with cancer, which had already spread throughout her body and rapidly claimed her life. But her story didn't end there; her music was posthumously championed by a BBC disc jockey, and amazingly, the anthology Songbird became a number one million-selling smash in England.

Cassidy was born February 2, 1963, in Oxon Hill, MD, and grew up (from age nine on) in Bowie, MD. She loved music from an early age, particularly folk and jazz (as a girl, her favorite singer was Buffy Sainte-Marie), and learned guitar from her father Hugh. At one point, Hugh put together a family folk act featuring himself on bass, Eva on guitar and vocals, and her brother Danny on fiddle; Eva and Danny also played country music at a local amusement park, but Eva's sensitivity eventually made performances too difficult on her. Something of a loner during her teens, Cassidy sang with a pop/rock band called Stonehenge while in high school. After graduating, she studied art for a short time, but soon grew dissatisfied with what she was being taught, and dropped out to work at a plant nursery. She sang occasional backing vocals for friends' rock bands around Bowie and Annapolis, but was never comfortable trying to overpower the amplification. In 1986, longtime friend Dave Lourim persuaded Cassidy to lay down some vocals at a recording session for his soft pop/rock group Method Actor. (The results were eventually reissued in 2002.) At the studio, Cassidy met D.C.-area producer Chris Biondo, who was immediately struck by her voice and agreed to help her put together a demo tape she hoped would get her more backup-singing work.

Cassidy became a regular presence at Biondo's studio, where he recorded a wide variety of music; incongruously enough, Cassidy performed backing vocals on D.C. go-go funksters E.U.'s Livin' Large album (singing all of her own harmony parts to give the illusion of a choir) and, later, on gangsta rapper E-40's "I Wanna Thank You." At Biondo's urging, Cassidy formed a backing band to play local clubs, where her singing began to win a following in spite of her discomfort. In 1991, Biondo played Cassidy's demos for Chuck Brown, the originator of D.C.'s swinging go-go funk sound (which never really broke out to a national audience). Brown had been wanting to record an album of jazz and blues standards, and found his ideal duet partner in the sophisticated yet soulful Cassidy. Their collaborative album, The Other Side, was released in late 1992, and in 1993, the two began performing around the D.C. area together; helped by Brown's outgoing showmanship, Cassidy finally began to lose some of the insecurity and intense fear that usually kept her away from live performance. Several record labels showed interest in signing Cassidy, but her recorded submissions always covered too much ground -- folk, jazz, blues, gospel, R&B, pop/rock -- for the marketing departments' taste (or limited imaginations), and the labels always wound up passing.

In September 1993, Cassidy had a malignant mole removed from below her neck, and neglected her subsequent checkup appointments. Shortly thereafter, she broke up with Biondo, who'd been her boyfriend for several years; however, they did continue their professional relationship. In early 1994, the Blue Note label showed some interest in teaming Cassidy with a jazz-pop outfit from Philadelphia called Pieces of a Dream; they recorded the single "Goodbye Manhattan" together, and Cassidy toured with them that summer, but didn't really care for their style. She returned to D.C. and began playing more gigs on her own, though she still made the occasional appearance with Brown; at the end of the year, she won a local music award for traditional jazz vocals.

Cassidy remained unable to secure a record deal, and Biondo and her frustrated manager decided to put out an album themselves. In January 1996, Cassidy played two gigs at the D.C. club Blues Alley; despite her dissatisfaction with the quality of her performance, the album Live at Blues Alley was compiled from the recordings and released that year to much acclaim in the D.C. area. Sadly, it would be the only solo album to appear during Cassidy's lifetime. She moved to Annapolis and took a job painting murals at elementary schools; during the summer, she began experiencing problems with her hip, which she assumed was related to her frequent use of stepladders at work. However, X-rays revealed that her hip was broken, and further tests showed that the melanoma from several years before had spread to her lungs and bones. Cassidy started chemotherapy, but it was simply too late. A benefit show in her honor was staged in September, and Cassidy found the strength to give her last performance there, singing "What a Wonderful World." She died on November 2, 1996. Cassidy virtually swept that year's Washington Area Music Awards, and the album she'd been working on with Biondo prior to her death, Eva by Heart, was released by Liason in 1997.

D.C.-based Celtic folk singer Grace Griffith finally found some interest in releasing Cassidy's music at the label she recorded for, Blix Street. 1998's Songbird was a compilation culled from Cassidy's three previous releases, and when BBC Radio 2 disc jockey Terry Wogan started playing the version of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow," Songbird started to sell in the U.K. The British TV show Top of the Pops aired a home-video clip of Cassidy performing the song, quite intensely, at the Blues Alley, and were deluged with requests for further broadcasts. Thanks to all the exposure, Songbird steadily grew into a major hit, climbing all the way to the top of the British album charts and selling over a million copies. In 2000, Blix Street followed Songbird with Time After Time, a set of 12 previously unreleased tracks (eight studio, four live) that proved an important addition to Cassidy's slim recorded legacy. The same year saw the appearance of No Boundaries, an unrepresentative set of adult contemporary pop released by the Renata label over strenuous objections from Cassidy's family. Profiles of Cassidy began to appear in American media, including pieces on NPR's Morning Edition and ABC's Nightline. In the summer of 2002, Blix Street compiled Imagine, another set of live recordings and studio demos. ~ Steve Huey, All Music Guide

Todd--that "Get well soon" song...scared the crap ...

2008-05-06T19:45:00.000-05:00

Todd--that "Get well soon" song...scared the crap out of me! I hope it helped Superfly feel like a man again...

i really love her version of "Imagine"...and I app...

2008-05-06T19:30:00.000-05:00

i really love her version of "Imagine"...and I appreciate your comments on The Who and freedom.

Get well soon, Superfly!

2008-05-06T19:25:00.000-05:00

Get well soon, Superfly!

Todd, Songbird made me feel like I had a vagina. ...

2008-05-06T18:06:00.000-05:00

Todd, Songbird made me feel like I had a vagina. Thanks for the suggestion sister.

i meant to say "cloth bags" instead of "plastic ba...

2008-05-06T15:07:00.000-05:00

i meant to say "cloth bags" instead of "plastic bags" when referring to a relatively easy solution to land-fill

Thanks, Tom. I really truly believe in personal f...

2008-05-06T15:03:00.000-05:00

Thanks, Tom. I really truly believe in personal freedoms as long as we're not hurting people, society, and the institution of democracy. This does not mean we can't change. Change for the good--is obviously welcome. We keep building the house of America on the foundations of the framers of the Constitution.

I worry about laws like the Patriot Act and Patriot Act II and it's effect on the foundation of our country.

I will of course report from Germany. Moving away from your home really helps you see what is so great about where you come from--and also give you ideas on how to make your home better.

For example...small example...Germans bring their own cloth bags with them to the grocery store so they don't have to keep using plastic bags. Using plastic bags is a relatively easy solution to keeping down on land-fill (bags...huge landfill filler).

America on Germany: charge for some tuition for university. please. they have no books. the UIUC library is a palace compared to Germany's premier university, The Humboldt University's library.

Very good piece, Segen. Enjoy your time in German...

2008-05-06T14:52:00.000-05:00

Very good piece, Segen. Enjoy your time in Germany. I'm sure you'll be missed. Keep sending us stuff, ok?

Tom

If I were president, I would probably ignore my fa...

2008-05-06T12:10:00.000-05:00

If I were president, I would probably ignore my family to the greatest extent possible without drawing media attention to myself for it. No matter how important my family is to me, the fate of the US and the world is far more important, and I would find it difficult to spend much time and mental energy on anything but my job.

In me, I don't think this attitude would manifest itself in the form of cheating, but if it does manifest itself in this way in others, I won't complain much if they do a good job of hiding it until their service ends. Again, I don't want the cheating to become a media event.

To be clear, I do not condone the cheating, but if, for whatever reason, it's something that a president just must do in order for him to do his job well, I'll begrudgingly accept it. And I think that for some people, it probably is something that they must do in order to maximize their focus on their work.

And for anyone unfamiliar with Eva Cassidy - if you liked that video, I'd highly recommend her "Songbird" album. It's a good introduction to her work.

Not true.FDR cheated. Had respect for the country....

2008-05-06T11:09:00.000-05:00

Not true.

FDR cheated. Had respect for the country.

JFK cheated. Had respect for country and democracy.

MLK cheated. Had respect for the cause.

Johnson cheated. Had respect for the institution of the Senate and ultimately shaped it as it is today.

W. Clinton got a blow job. He didn't blow the country.

NIXON on the other hand....did not respect the county.

Great leaders are able to distinguish their personal lives and their public responsibilities.

In the next election, instead of focusing on wheth...

2008-05-06T06:53:00.000-05:00

In the next election, instead of focusing on whether our next president is faithful to his or her spouse, let’s think about their faithfulness to the institutions of the United States.

They are one in the same. If someone can't even be faithful to their spouse, someone they took a vow to love for the rest of their life, then how can we trust that person to uphold the institutions of this great nation with any fervor? If we're just looking at their politics, then we might as well elect a convicted murderer; as long as they have strong political beliefs of course!