Today's work truck music......
Live At Blues Alley -- CD
Eva Cassidy
1998 Blix Street Records
Amazon.com
When
Eva Cassidy is swinging her way through "Cheek to Cheek" and getting
down and bluesy on "Stormy Monday" on this live set from 1996, it's nigh
impossible not to get swept up in her voice's vast, barreling force.
Her full range, though, becomes most obvious--and soul-shaking--on the
slower side, as with Paul Simon's "Bridge over Troubled Water," Buffy
Sainte-Marie's "Tall Trees in Georgia," and "What a Wonderful World." On
these latter tunes, Cassidy's mix of aching clarity and rich warmth has
a melting quality, speaking through the body to some evanescent
presence that she seems to know all too well. She improbably makes
Sting's "Fields of Gold" an emotional powerhouse just as easily as she
makes Billie Holiday's "Fine and Mellow" an offhand declaration of
feeling equal to nearly anything in the jazz vocal canon. In doing so
she earns her place among the great singers--artists who could take any
song and stamp it indelibly as their own. What Eva Cassidy had in her
short life was an unbelievably perfect voice and a musical soul that
grasped gospel, folk, blues, jazz, and all points in between as if they
were mere stops on a single train ride. Alas, her ride ended in 1996,
tragically early. --Andrew Bartlett
"Cheek to Cheek" (Irving Berlin) – 4:03
"Stormy Monday" (T-Bone Walker) – 5:49
"Bridge over Troubled Water" (Paul Simon) – 5:33
"Fine and Mellow" (Billie Holiday) – 4:03
"People Get Ready" (Curtis Mayfield) – 3:36
"Blue Skies" (Berlin) – 2:37
"Tall Trees in Georgia" (Buffy Sainte-Marie) – 4:05
"Fields of Gold" (Sting) – 4:57
"Autumn Leaves" (Joseph Kosma, Johnny Mercer, Jacques Prévert) – 4:57
"Honeysuckle Rose" (Andy Razaf, Thomas "Fats" Waller) – 3:14
"Take Me to the River" (Al Green, Mabon "Teenie" Hodges) – 3:51
"What a Wonderful World" (Bob Thiele, David Weiss) – 5:50
"Oh, Had I a Golden Thread" (Pete Seeger) – 4:46 [Studio recording]
I spent a lot of money on booze, birds and fast cars. The rest I just squandered.
- George Best
Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured.
Mark Twain
God Bless our Troops!
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