Background
Eva Cassidy was on the brink of stardom when she died of cancer in 1996. What exists of her work is a mix of stunning covers and mostly sub-par originals written for her.
The Album
Songbird is a collection of covers covering a gauntlet of styles, including tracks by Sting, Curtis Mayfield and Judy Garland. Sources range from straight up studio work to live recordings to home demos, which gives a great range of production styles (and, to a lesser extent, production quality).
The opening track, "Fields of Gold", is almost ethereal thanks to E.C.'s handling of the vocals, which are both pensive and masterful. Similarly, Songbird features her flawless range, with added harmonies by herself. These tracks would make a soft rock career out of any singer, but there's much much more to the album than just this.
In "Wade In the Water", Eva unleashes a commanding R&B voice matched by very few. "People Get Ready", another R&B track, shows her powerful voice and commanding sense of touch-some singers can belt out notes of similar power but have no sense of refinement, leading their performances to be over the top, whereas Eva Cassidy knew intrinsically where to raise the roof and where to bring it down.
"Oh Had I A Golden Thread" features one of the most wicked vocal slides you'll ever hear, and "Autumn Leaves" measures up to any other recorded, but the highlight of the album is her take on "Over the Rainbow", the classic Judy Garland tune from the Wizard of Oz. The track single handedly manages to capture all the qualities about her that made her perhaps the best contemporary American singer: A celestial purity to her voice, rarely matched range and power in her voice, and a true artist's touch of performance. She completely reinvents the song, and makes it entirely her own.
5/5 stars plus, a phenomenal album from an essential artist of contemporary music.
***=particularly reccomended tracks.
