Eva Cassidy. Wow, just WOW

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMfBKwCBgGI&feature=related

Eva Cassidy had a voice any angel would envy and a love of music that embraced many genres.  What she didn’t have was a long life.  Our loss.

 Eva had a career in music but she never achieved widespread fame, partly because she couldn’t be pigeon-holed and she was too shy to engage in flagrant self-promotion.  She just made her music, her way.  Which is to say she OWNED whatever song she sang.

She died in 1996 at the age of 33.  But her career wasn’t over.  She was discovered by the Brits a few years later when her rendition of “Over the Rainbow” was played on the BBC.  The phones lines lit up and requests poured in.   Soon her albums, which had to that point had only modest sales, were climbing the charts all over Europe and now she’s being rediscovered here in her homeland.

I have a recording of “Golden Slumbers” featuring Eva with Jackson Browne.  It’s been on my “FAV” playlist for long time. 

Give her rendition of "Over the Rainbow" a listen (link above).  What a talent!  

Hail to the Chiefs

Back in the 60s there were any number of politicians who would have been delighted to hang something on Bob Dylan–and they tried, oh, HOW they tried!  Back then it would have been hard to imagine that when a president finally got a chance to hang something on Dylan it would be the Medal of Freedom. The times they have-a changed.  At least in some ways.

At the ceremony last night, President Obama said, "There is not a bigger giant in the history of American music," and that the "unique gravel-y power" of Dylan’s voice helped define "not just what music sounded like, but the message it carried and how it made people feel."

When it was announced that Dylan would be one of the year’s recipients the White House issued a statement saying that the rock 'n' roll icon had "considerable influence on the civil rights movement of the 1960s and has had significant impact on American culture over the past five decades."

To which I say: You bet your boots!