Eva Cassidy

Eva Marie Cassidy (February 2, 1963 – November 2, 1996) was an American singer and musician known for her interpretations of jazz, folk, and blues music, sung with a powerful, emotive soprano voice.

Born on February 2, 1963, at the Washington Hospital Center in Washington, D.C., Cassidy grew up in Oxon Hill, Maryland, and later Bowie, Maryland.

She was the third of four children.

Her father, Hugh Cassidy, is a teacher, sculptor, musician, former army medic, and world champion powerlifter of Irish and Scottish descent, while her mother, Barbara (née Kratzer), is a German horticulturist from Bad Kreuznach.

From an early age, Cassidy displayed an interest in art and music.

When she was nine, her father began teaching her to play the guitar, and she began to play and sing at family gatherings.

At age 11, Cassidy began singing and playing guitar in a Washington-area band called Easy Street.

The band performed in a variety of styles at weddings, corporate parties, and pubs.

Due to her shyness, she struggled with performing in front of strangers.

While a student at Bowie High School, she sang with a local band called Stonehenge.

Throughout the 1980s, Cassidy worked with several other bands, including the techno-pop band Characters Without Names.

During this period, she also worked as a propagator at a plant nursery and as a furniture painter.

In her free time, she explored other artistic expressions including painting, sculpting, and jewelry design.

During the summer of 1983, Cassidy sang and played guitar six days a week at the theme park Wild World.

Her younger brother Dan, a fiddler, was also a member of this working band.

She enrolled in art classes at Prince George's Community College but dropped out after finding them unhelpful.

In 1986, Cassidy was asked by Stonehenge guitarist and high school friend, David Lourim, to lend her voice to his music project, Method Actor.

This brought her to Black Pond Studios, where she met recording engineer and bassist Chris Biondo.

Biondo helped her find work as a session singer and later introduced her to Al Dale, who would become her manager.

She sang back-ups for various acts, from go-go rhythm and blues band Experience Unlimited to rapper E-40.

Biondo and Cassidy, who were in a romantic relationship for a time, formed the five-piece "Eva Cassidy Band" with Lenny Williams, Keith Grimes, and Raice McLeod in 1990.

They began to perform frequently in the Washington area.

In 1992, she released her first album, The Other Side, a set of duets with go-go musician Chuck Brown, followed by the 1996 live solo album titled Live at Blues Alley.

In 1992, Biondo played a tape of Cassidy's voice for Chuck Brown, the "Godfather of go-go".

It resulted in the duet album The Other Side featuring performances of classic songs such as "Fever", "God Bless the Child," and what would later become Cassidy's signature song, "Over the Rainbow."

The album was released and distributed in 1992 by Liaison Records, the label that also released Brown's go-go albums.

Brown originally intended to record an additional duet with Cassidy for his next solo album, but this was postponed due to ongoing negotiations between Dale and other labels for a solo deal.

Cassidy's unwillingness to narrow her stylistic focus to one genre hindered her chances of securing a deal.

After talks broke down, the two decided to record their own duet album.

As a duo, they performed at the Columbia Arts Festival and opened for acts like Al Green and The Neville Brothers.

In 1993, Cassidy was honored by the Washington Area Music Association with a Wammie award for the Vocalist Jazz/Traditional category.

Although she had been honored by the Washington Area Music Association, she was virtually unknown outside her native Washington, D.C., at the time of her death from melanoma at the age of 33 in 1996.

Two years after her death, Cassidy's music was brought to the attention of British audiences, when her versions of "Fields of Gold" and "Over the Rainbow" were played by Mike Harding and Terry Wogan on BBC Radio 2.

Following the overwhelming response, a camcorder recording of "Over the Rainbow", taken at Blues Alley in Washington by her friend Bryan McCulley, was shown on BBC Two's Top of the Pops 2.

Shortly afterwards, the compilation album Songbird climbed to the top of the UK Albums Chart, almost three years after its initial release.

The chart success in the United Kingdom and Ireland led to increased recognition of Cassidy worldwide.

Her posthumously released recordings, including three number-one albums and one number-one single in the UK, have sold more than ten million copies.

Her music has also charted within the top 10 in Australia, Germany, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland.

In total, nine posthumous albums have been released.

The most recent, I Can Only Be Me, a collaboration with the London Symphony Orchestra, was released in 2023 and charted at number 9 on the UK album chart.