Eva Cassidy: Classic or Dud

well?

Still dead.

kept 'Discovery' off the top of the album chart.

The album with Chuck Brown was very nice.

Providing yet another opportunity for Katie Melua to be make some money off people with cloth for ears = dud.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=_C5mNs8vFSc

Katie Melua - definitely not grave-robbing.

I've literally never heard of this person, but they are raving all about some posthumous collection on NPR right now. they're playing her, and it sounds like well like something NPR would play.

I think this is the 5th best of they've released, on the basis of 1.5 lps, a few live recordings and some ropey demos.

sounded like they used her vocals with new orchestration?

Yes, now it's her voice put with an orchestra. It is npr type folkie going jazzy soul music but she was good at it. She was from the DC area and first got known locally for doing a duet album of jazz and blues standards with DC go-go pioneer Chuck Brown. She died young from cancer and had posthumous hits in the UK -covers of "Over the Rainbow" and "What a Wonderful World"

Thank god people are finally discovering "Over the Rainbow" and "What a Wonderful World." We need more covers of them.

Radio piece said she's sold 10 million records? Must be in the UK.

yeah she was inescapable in the UK for a while

A perennial spotlight artist at Borders and Barnes & Nobel.

She’s pretty big in the U.S. too among the NPRish demographic — I first heard of her from my mom, e.g.

I think Shea’s quite good, but also obviously her early death created a sort of lost-great mythos.

She, not Shea

I love the duets albums she did with Chuck Brown, and she's real popular in this area. My wife is a big fan and we went to a tribute concert to her recently in Annapolis, Md where she had lived for awhile. 500 or so people there at $35 a ticket to see local musicians who had known her and some who didn't covering her songs.

"this area" is Washington DC, Virginia, Maryland . Her home region. Eva grew up in Bowie, Md where I did too, she was in my high school a few years after me but I didn't know her.

My wife and I saw "The Essence of Eva" Irish director made doc about vocalist Eva Cassidy. Lots of footage of her singing and at her dayjob surprisingly and good interviews with family, and bandmates, and folks who filmed her gigs or saw her live. Plus Sting being humble actually and raving about her voice and how he borrowed her arrangement of his song back and started using it. Mick Fleetwood also.

Her parents and sister and a bandmate were at the DC screening I attended

Wow

I know some folks might find some of her recordings a bit schmaltzy and or bar band like but her version of soul song "The Dark End of the Street" in the footage in the movie was not trite or generic.