Imagine

 

 

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With so many artists having passed too young; Eva is no exception to this. I often sit & wonder what music would be like today if she were still with us! She hands down had one of the best voices to grace the music industry.

On this CD she yet again delivers! What I love about Eva so much is how clear & precise her voice was...her voice carries like a church bell ringing on a Sunday morning.

Her version of "Fever" is so clear & the arrangement works well with her vocal performance. I thought this rendition would be more bluesy but it actually has a jazzier ring to it.

"Imagine" as we all know is I think the best song John Lennon ever wrote or sang. I have heard many versions of this song; but I would have to say other than John Lennon's original version my favorite versions are this one by Eva & a version done by Our Lady Peace on the Peace Songs CD. I love the guitar work that Eva was so gifted to excel in. Her acoustic guitar work is so well done it sounds like she's in the room with you playing it.

"Still Not Ready" is a lovely loungy jazzy version of this song. The musicians that accompany her (horns) are so good...it starts out with an intro using the horns...and then easily drifts into song with Eva's lovely voice. She really could sing any genre of music I think but really did so much justice to songs that were blues, jazz, R&B or contemporary rock songs especially. I think she could have sung the phone book (as Randy Jackson often likes to say on American Idol) and made it sound like it was a full movie soundtrack she was that gifted. This song just makes you want to lay on a lounge chair in the summer & drift off to sleep peacefully to her voice.

"Early Morning Rain" has such wonderful guitar work on it. This is a more country genre song rendition but Eva could even make me listen to country because she did it so well. Usually I don't have tolerance for country especially traditional country but her voice is so powerful and her interpretation of other peoples songs so compelling that soon she just makes you forget absolutely everything & you start going on her journey with the song.

"I Can Only Be Me" is a traditional song that I think is such a lovely song that is made even more dynamic with her vocal abilities. When I listen to this song I wish my own mother have lived long enough to hear Eva's interpretation of this song she would have simply loved this song being an accomplished pianist herself. The background vocals are also so richly delivered & with Eva's ending on this song you will feel like your in the heavens!

"Who Knows Where The Time Goes" has been on my favorite playlist since I first heard this song. It will stay on my favorite playlist until I pass from this earth. I always want it on when I am having trouble falling to sleep because it is simply vocally angelic in nature. It makes you ponder your life...where you begin....the pieces along the way...parts we keep close to our hearts....other moments we wish we could erase if not for the lessons they teach us along this road of life. When she sings that she has "no thought of leaving" I just want to say ....you have never left...because thankfully she is with us forever in her music left for us to enjoy. I also think this song really highlights Eva's incredible artistry as a guitarist.

"You've Changed is a song my parents used to listen to, dance to and play together ...my mother on the piano & my Dad on the guitar when I was a child & whenever I hear Eva's version of this song...it transports me back to that time when they so enjoyed playing this song together, our house filled with music, our funny dog trying to sing to it (which still makes me laugh). I love her version & I think it's better than anyone else has ever done it.

Eva had a remarkable ability to draw you into her music with her style, ability, musicianship and incredible intuitive abilities that only great artists have the ability to do...and her music has stood the test of time because of those incredible god given/universe given talents that she had. Can you just "Imagine" the kind of music she would be doing today if we were so fortunate to still have her here with us????

Obviously Mott the Dog does not know how Angels sound like, but he would not be disappointed if Angels sounded like Eva Cassidy. Without doubt, she is the female vocalist of our time.

It is one of the cruelest tragedies that Eva Cassidy never lived to enjoy her success. In fact, with Cassidy's natural shy personality (yet strong character) that kept her from rocketing to superstardom in her short life, she was never sure of her stage presence. She shunned the spotlight till it was nearly too late, or preferred to sing backup vocals or duets as she did on Chuck Brown's wonderful album 'The Other Side', released in 1995, which although is a Brown album, it is the wonderful voice of Eva Cassidy that grabs your attention. Eva Cassidy refused to limit herself to one style, taking on jazz, funk, blues, rock, pop, and folk, all with that ethereal voice, turning each song into something magical.

Eva Cassidy released only one solo album in her lifetime, the wonderful 'Live at Blues Alley' (1996). It was recorded in Washington's most famous blues club after which it was named, and then it only got a local release.

It was one of the cruelest blows that by the end of that year the dreaded cancer had whisked this beautiful girl with the heavenly voice away from us. Fortunately for those of us left here on our very mortal planet, Eva Cassidy left many recordings behind which are now being released to great critical and commercial acclaim internationally. All of Eva Cassidy's recordings are lovingly managed by the Eva Cassidy estate. So far we had 'Eva By Heart' (1998); 'Songbird' (1998); 'Time After Time' (2000); 'Imagine' (2002); and 'American Tune' (2003). These albums have sold over three million copies worldwide and still counting.

It has to be remembered that Eva Cassidy did not write songs herself, but was able to take other people's great skills and twist them into something even greater. At the moment (although I admit it does vary) 'Imagine' is my favorite Eva Cassidy collection.

The album opens with a solo version of 'It Doesn't Matter Anymore' by Paul Anka (who also wrote 'My Way', made famous by Frank Sinatra, Sid Vicious, and then Nigel of the Bastards). This is followed by a version of Little Willie John's 'Fever', not done as Peggy Lee did it in 1958, but as it was originally intended to be, when written in 1956, with Eva's brother joining her, adding violin to Eva's scratch vocal.

You also get a track that has been salvaged from the Blues Alley sessions 'You've Changed', and when you hear this, you realize how high the quality of music was on that particular album. Eva Cassidy's voice sends shivers up and down your spine. She would surely get a nod of approval from the person who first recorded this song, the great Billie Holiday.

Sandy Denny's 'Who Knows Where The Time Goes' gets redefined here, giving the song a whole new lease of life. Eva even gets a little bit country with her true to the roots version of Patti Page's hit 'Tennessee Waltz', which in its days in the 1950's was one of the first cross over country/pop hits.

To finish the album is one of those "enough to make a grown man cry" moments as Eva Cassidy breaks into an emotional solo version of 'Danny Boy'. Still, with all these moments of magic, I think the stand-out track is the title track, a tribute to John Lennon in a touching version of his masterpiece 'Imagine'. Play this song in any room and in seconds it will reduce people to silence as they listen to Eva Cassidy's voice caress the air.

(...)

What does it require for a singer to take songs that have been perfected by someone else and record them as fresh harvest? To know Eva Cassidy's music is to experience perhaps the most amazingly gutsy spirit in modern music. By now, just about everyone knows the story, that she died before receiving any real acclaim outside of the Washington DC area where she performed, of cancer at the age of 33. In a way, it is next to blasphemy to give any of her songs or albums any less than perfect marks, but I found "imagine" to be less satisfying than "Songbird" or "Time After Time". The main reason is that the material was never intended to be collected into an album. The same may have been true of previous releases, but here it is more obvious. There is no coherence, no thread to follow, in the pattern.

This is not to suggest that the songs individually are not jewels unto themselves, and I don't fault Bill Straw of Blix Street Records; he had a limited selection of new music to assemble and release as a full-length CD.

There is only one other contemporary female vocalist with the ability to take the music of other singers and songwriters and appropriate it to herself to produce vintage wine of such quality. That woman is Bonnie Raitt. And occasionally some of the timbre of Eva Cassidy's voice reminds me of Ms. Raitt's. On "You've Changed", a Billie Holiday tune to most of us, that quality emerges.

I've heard many versions of "Early Morning Rain", and the Peter, Paul and Mary rendition is my favorite, because of the harmonies, but the more folk-flavored reading on "Imagine" does better justice to the lyric. And the bluesy treatment of the melody contrasts nicely with her straight-ahead guitar playing.

Ending with the heartwrenching "Danny Boy", "Imagine" is about what we would expect from Eva Cassidy, a lush collection of songs, each one packaged perfectly. But if you are starting your Eva Cassidy collection, "Time" or "Songbird" may be better choices.

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5.0 out of 5 stars Add some beauty to your life
I first heard Eva's rendition of "Early Morning Rain" at work, listening to a jazz internet station. It absolutely stopped me dead in my tracks. Read more

Published on April 15 2004 by Gregory A. Corbolotti

5.0 out of 5 stars the voice of an angel
If you have a pulse Eva's voice will reduce you to tears. So pure and honest. She takes other people's songs and makes them hers. Read more

Published on Mar 28 2004 by Stephen B. Kenyon

5.0 out of 5 stars I ADORE EVA AND GENIE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Eva Casidy is my 2nd favorite singer.

Genie is my favorite.

They're both wonderful because when they sing a gentle peace flows over me and the stress of the day just melts... Read more

Published on Feb 5 2004 by Al

3.0 out of 5 stars De Mortuis Nihil Nisi Bonum?
An obscure club singer flogs a bunch of standards in "Hey, check out my pipes!" manner. Really, folks, there are lots better vocalists out there, and if you take the... Read more

Published on Jan 24 2004

5.0 out of 5 stars Wow, I Thought Songbird Was Good...
Probably like many people, I heard Eva's rendition of Over The Rainbow and thought that was her best song until I purchased and listened to 5 of Eva Cassidy's CDs. Read more

Published on Jan 18 2004

5.0 out of 5 stars just get it!
this is a cd that everyone should listen to. nothing more to say, just buy it. now. really, i'm not kidding. Read more

Published on Jan 7 2004 by hopessohigh

4.0 out of 5 stars good, but I'd get Songbird or Time after Time first
Most of the album is really good. She even made something unique and special out of John Lennon's Imagine, which I thought she wouldn't have been able to do. Read more

Published on Oct 12 2003

1.0 out of 5 stars Nope
I never heard of Eva Cassidy before, and picked this CD up blind. Ms. Cassidy sings in a smokey, lounge-singer sort of way that works wonders with "It Doesn't Matter Anymore" (the... Read more

Published on Sep 24 2003

4.0 out of 5 stars Tennessee Waltz - she makes it her own
IMAGINE brings together more of Eva's solo material. It includes another version of FEVER, which she had performed as a duet with Chuck Brown on "the other Side" CD... Read more

Published on Sep 2 2003 by William

5.0 out of 5 stars Has There Ever been a Better Voice?
I have been in music as an amateur choir singer for almost 60 years and I have never heard a better singer than Eva Cassidy. Read more

Published on July 28 2003 by Mr. Patrick N. Renaud

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