| Average Rating: |
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| Sales Rank: | 431 (lower is better) |
| Price Used: | $6.73 |
| Shipping: | Free Shipping on most orders over $25* |
| Availability: | Usually ships in 24 hours |
| Release Date: | 1998-05-19 |
| Label: | Blix Street |
| UPC: | 739341004520 |
| Binding: | Audio CD |
| Published By: | Blix Street |
| ASIN: | B000006AKD |
| Category: | Music |
Tracks on Songbird by Blix Street
- Fields of Gold - Eva Cassidy, Sting [1]
- Wade in the Water - Eva Cassidy, Traditional
- Autumn Leaves - Eva Cassidy, Mercer, Johnny
- Wayfaring Stranger - Eva Cassidy, Traditional
- Songbird - Eva Cassidy, McVie, Christine
- Time Is a Healer - Eva Cassidy, Scanlon, Diane
- I Know You By Heart - Eva Cassidy, Scanlon, Diane
- People Get Ready - Eva Cassidy, Mayfield, Curtis
- Oh, Had I a Golden Thread - Eva Cassidy, Seeger, Pete
- Over the Rainbow - Eva Cassidy, Harburg, E.Y.
Editorial Reviews and Product Descriptions
Album Description
Songbird is a posthumous anthology culled from the album Live At Blues Alley and her other solo release, Eva By Heart, along with one track from her 1992 duet album with Chuck Brown titled The Other Side. Blix label.
Amazon.com
Songbird cherry-picks tracks from the three locally released albums of Eva Cassidy, whose hauntingly beautiful vocals went virtually unheard outside her native Washington, D.C., during her short 33 years with us. Lost to melanoma in 1996, Cassidy sang with an unaffected purity and an astonishing ability to make both classic and contemporary songs sound like they were written just for her. Sting's "Fields of Gold" finally lives up to its title through the alchemy of Cassidy's transcendent rendition, while other tracks on this anthology showcase her ease in the realms of pop (Christine McVie's "Songbird"), soul ("People Get Ready"), gospel ("Wade on the Water"), and traditional standards ("Autumn Leaves" and "Over the Rainbow"). Framed by understated jazz and pop arrangements, Cassidy's clear, soulful voice and exquisite phrasing make her that rarest of vocalists whose interpretations are a complement to any song. A fine introduction to a true talent. --Billy Grenier
Customer Reviews
Dr. Eva's Medicine for the Soul - Reviewed on 2008-10-17
2 customers found this review helpful.
I first stumbled across Eva Cassidy on a compilation of guitar songs for rainy days, singing "Autumn Leaves." A serviceable old standard to be sure, but I've heard it probably a hundred times by our most acclaimed singers, and wasn't enthused about hearing yet another version. But after listening I realized two things: that I'd never really heard Autumn Leaves before, or more accurately, I had never *felt* it, and that I had to know more about this singer who was able to bring so much new depth out of a familiar song. Why hadn't I heard of her before? Listening to others of her songs showed this effect was no fluke. Eva has a way of forcing us to slow down and feel, perhaps for the first time, what the songwriter was trying to tell us. 'Look what I found under this old leaf,' she seems to say, swaying her unerring metal detector from side to side and holding up the nugget you missed before.
And this was no accident. She reportedly chose her songs based on the effect the lyrics had on her, which gave her a somewhat eclectic but highly distilled repertoire. Some have said that Eva was unaware of her talent, but I am now convinced this was not the case, but rather she chose in her humility to subjugate herself in service to the message of the song, and its connecting power to the collective unconscious of our human condition. She bridges the synapse between songwriter and listener better than any other singer I have ever heard.
People speak upon first hearing Eva of being stopped in their tracks, waiters halted emerging from swinging kitchen doors holding plates of cooling food, of being unexpectedly and irresistably moved to tears.
At this Eva Cassidy has no peers. From what deep well of sadness she drew I can only imagine, but her airy incantations speak of what it means to be alive, to be human in a world not optimized for the care and feeding of sentient beings. You'll soon find out which of her songs do it for you. It is best, however, to take them sparingly, like a penicillin reserved for emergencies, to save your life, lest you become desensitized to the effect.
You'll know when: when life has taken all you have to give, and then it takes more; when you've lost someone you can't live without, but have to go on living anyway; when nothing can get into that hardened lump of coal that used to be your heart... Put on Eva, and turn out the lights, so it's just you, and a red dot glowing on the stereo, alone in the dark with your pain: take two sad songs, have a good cry, and call me in the morning.
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Book Subjects
- Adult Alternative Pop/Rock
- Contemporary Singer/Songwriter
- Folk
- Folk & Traditional
- Folk Music
- Pop
- Singer/Songwriter