*=new music **=local music
From high atop the town of Eva, Alabama, we bring you the Stranger Show. Today we continue the new series featuring the less well-known towns of the United States. Is ita beautiful name or is it ave spelled backwards? Only here at 99.5 WUSR Scranton do we know the answer.
Nightwish, Eva, Dark Passion Play
Eva Cassidy was born 2 February 1963. Growing up in a musical family on the outskirts of Washington, DC, she sang as a small child and later learned to play the guitar. Even then as a child she had an amazing gift for perfect harmony, and on family outings, she would sing, harmonising perfectly with the music from the car radio. Her father, a teacher of children with learning disabilities and a part-time musician, formed a family band with Eva, her brother Danny, on violin, and himself on bass. She endured school, preferring her own company and, whenever possible, being involved with music and painting.
In 1986 she did the art work for a projected album by a band, Method Actor, led by a friend, Dave Lourim. She was asked to sing on the album and was heard by producer Chris Biondo who, impressed by her raw talent, encouraged her and introduced her to other musicians. Cassidy appeared on several albums as a backing singer, including E-40's I Wanna Thank You. Meantime, Biondo was stockpiling tapes by Cassidy and in 1991, while recording Chuck Brown And The Soul Searchers, played examples for the group's leader. Brown was immediately taken with her sound, as indeed would be other artists including Roberta Flack and Shirley Horn, and in 1992 Eva and Chuck recorded The Other Side (Liaison).
E-40's I Wanna Thank You Tha Hall of Game"(1996)
"You've Changed" Eva Cassidy & Chuck Brown from "The Other Side"
Early the following year
Chuck Brown and Eva Cassidy began performing live, including
an appearance at
Washington's Blues Alley. The collaboration with
Chuck Brown was one which Eva would value very highly.
They performed well together. seem to blend instinctively,
and they respected and admired each other as artists.
Eva Cassidy & Chuck Brown from "The Other Side"
Later in the year, following
a medical check-up, Eva Cassidy had outpatient surgery
for a malignant skin lesion on her back. Early in 1994
she recorded for Blue Note Records and toured with the
group Pieces Of A Dream, but, unlike the sessions with
Brown, she found this musically unsatisfying. In January
1996 she appeared at Blues Alley again, a session that
was recorded, but when summer came she was unwell. Eva
had been experiencing pain in her hip for some time.
At the time she was working for a friend in Annapolis
on murals in schools cafeterias, and she put the soreness
down to too much ladder work. Eventually Eva had a number
of tests. Although cancer was suspected, only after
several more tests, was the diagnosis confirmed: advanced
melanoma. She was told that she had three to five months
to live.
Eva Cassidy Say Goodbye
Eva was admitted to Johns
Hopkins hospital. A constant stream of friends kept
coming, bringing her fruit and flowers. She felt badly
that these were going to waste, so she asked someone
to bring in paper and crayons. Often she could not see
her visitors because of the regimen she had, so this
way she helped her visitors to express themselves to
her. When one stepped off the elevator and saw the hallways
lined with people sitting on the floor coloring, talking
and getting to know each other; it was a wonderful scene
to behold. Eva had every picture hung on the big wall
at the end of her bed so she could see them. Eva Cassidy died on 2nd November
1996. She was only 33 years old.
