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Subject: Eva Cassidy on Nightline From: Tedham Porterhouse Date: 25 May 01 - 12:42 PM Tonight's edition of ABC's Nightline with Ted Koppell tells the story of the wonderful folksinger Eva Cassidy who died of cancer at 33 in 1996. |
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Subject: RE: Eva Cassidy on Nightline From: GUEST,Arkie Date: 25 May 01 - 03:06 PM Thanks for the notice. This should be something worthwhile. |
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Subject: RE: Eva Cassidy on Nightline From: GUEST,Michele Date: 25 May 01 - 03:13 PM I never heard of Eva Cassidy. Was she famous? M |
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Subject: RE: Eva Cassidy on Nightline From: DougR Date: 25 May 01 - 03:19 PM Thanks for asking that, Michele. I never heard of her either. She must be though. DougR |
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Subject: RE: Eva Cassidy on Nightline From: GUEST,Dale Rose Date: 25 May 01 - 03:35 PM I was about to send Arkie a note on this, but I see I don't have to. Famous yes, just too late for her, unfortunately. Her album has been the #1 best seller in England recently. Click this for some of the best articles about her and her music |
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Subject: RE: Eva Cassidy on Nightline From: Tedham Porterhouse Date: 25 May 01 - 03:39 PM I first Eva a couple of years ago on Mike Regenstreif's Folk Roots/Folk Branches show on CKUT. He plays her often. I've since acquired all of her CDs and she was a wonderful singer. I'm sorry I never got a chance to see her perform live. Here is the promo notice from Nightline.
Date: Fri, 25 May 2001 09:06:23 -0700 Subject: NIGHTLINE: Posthumous Fame To: "Nightline Mailing List"
TONIGHT'S SUBJECT: One singer recently had the number one CD on the British charts, and five CD's in the top 150. On top of that, she was an American. But the real story is that she passed away a few years ago, and never saw her success.
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It's always been a cliché, and the plot of many bad movies, the artist who dies and whose work is suddenly worth millions, and I think the movies usually had the artists faking their deaths, or something like that. Our broadcast tonight is the real-life version of this, but without the cynicism.
The way Nightline works, the correspondents and producers pitch story ideas to us, and Ted and the senior producers and I decide which ones to go ahead and do. One of the Nightline principles is that, even if we don't much like the idea, if the person pitching it really cares, I mean really really cares, we generally say go ahead, because if someone is passionate about a story, chances are the broadcast will be pretty good. That's what happened in this case. I admit it, I wasn't wild about it when Dave Marash first pitched it. But he believed in this story, and so we present it tonight. And by the way, he was right, I was wrong. But I want to let him tell you about it himself, so here's his note about Eva Cassidy:
---- Reporter's Notebook By Dave Marash Correspondent, ABC News Nightline
Like almost everyone, I missed Eva Cassidy, the first time, the real time,the live time.
This was, originally, an embarrassment to someone who considered himself a "maven" of Washington-area music to be told by an old friend (an out-of-towner, no less!) that I had to hear the CD of this "great singer from your town." Once I did hear them, in 1997, I became an immediate and intense fan, and my embarrassment turned to deep regret that I had never heard her sing before she died of cancer the year before, at the age of 33.
I tried to make up for it, by pressing her CDs on dozens of people I knew would love them. Eva Cassidy's "Over the Rainbow" was the first tune played on my traveling stereo in my hotel room at the end of almost every shooting day I spent in the Balkans during the years 1998 and 1999 years spent mostly in, or just outside, the tortured Kosovo. My crewmates and I were witnessing guerilla wars, waves of ethnic cleansing and the destruction and disruption of hundreds of thousands of lives. Yet we would follow the days of painful witness with nights of Eva's heartfelt invocation of that place "where the clouds are far behind me." We all knew it was a strange conjunction, but we all drew comfort from it.
Then, shortly after the first of this year, I learned from some of my English colleagues, who had joined in those hotel room listening sessions,that Eva Cassidy was all the rage on BBC Radio and TV. By March, her CD Songbird, was No. 1 on the BBC "Top of the Pops 2" album chart, and five of her discs were in the British Top 150. People all over the UK were clearly hearing the same ravishing beauties in Eva's music that had won me over.
This wonderful, "fame after death, after life in obscurity" story was too good to ignore, and besides, it gave me a chance to posthumously "meet" the singer I had loved for years.
How I loved learning that the sweet singer could be a tough cookie who carried her own gear and sacrificed her "career" to a conviction, that she could sing only songs she cared about. Eva's second "fault" was that she cared about and insisted on singing songs in just about every musical style she heard from pop to folk to jazz to gospel. America's format-defined music industry could not handle that either.
So for the most part, Eva Cassidy's musical career never happened until her music happened to be heard in another country, in another hemisphere, years after her death.
Now we all know.
As it says in the title of another of Eva's best songs, "What a Wonderful World!"
---- We will be posting a clip of one of the rare tapes of Eva Cassidy performing, along with a couple of songs, on the Nightline page at ABCNews.com. We hope you enjoy tonight's broadcast, and we hope that everyone has a safe, and happy weekend. See you all next week.
Friday, May 25, 2001
Leroy Sievers Executive Producer Nightline Offices Washington, D.C.
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Subject: RE: Eva Cassidy on Nightline From: Art Thieme Date: 25 May 01 - 10:58 PM Wilf Carter in Canada = Montana Slim in the U.S. ! Eva everywhere else = Hopalong in the U.S. |
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Subject: RE: Eva Cassidy on Nightline From: Peg Date: 26 May 01 - 12:57 AM They also did a special on her on CBS Sunday Morning a few months ago. Sorry I missed the Nightline special; bet it was good.
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Subject: RE: Eva Cassidy on Nightline From: alison Date: 26 May 01 - 03:15 AM if you haven't heard her.... try to get hold of some recordings.. she has the most beautiful pure voice... slainte alison |
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Subject: RE: Eva Cassidy on Nightline From: GUEST,Arkie Date: 26 May 01 - 11:08 AM I hope those who had never heard of Eva were able to watch the Nightline presentation. Isn't it amazing how long it takes for a gifted performer to be discovered when they sing from the heart and not from the hip where they keep their wallet? |
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Subject: RE: Eva Cassidy on Nightline From: CarolC Date: 04 Jul 01 - 11:47 PM They're re-airing it right now. It's a mind blower all right. |
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Subject: RE: Eva Cassidy on Nightline From: CarolC Date: 05 Jul 01 - 12:04 AM Breathtaking. |
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Subject: RE: Eva Cassidy on Nightline From: Musicman Date: 21 Oct 02 - 11:04 PM you know... just had bill staines here over the weekend..... one of the first things he said to me when i picked him up.. 'you ever heard of Eva Cassidy??" "YOu gotta hear this".. and he pulls out a cd of hers he just bought in portland, org. all weekend, whenever he would meet some of my friends.. "you heard of eva cassidy??, you gotta hear this!!".. then.. 'sorry paul.. you've been getting this all weekend.. *grin*" and we'd play the cd he had..... well... stunning voice.. i wasn't minding at all..... bill was overly impressed.. and so was I.... worth a listen.. a lady who can sing Sting 'Fields of Gold', Somewhere over the rainbow like you've never heard it before and a multitude of other styles.. so easily and so gracefully... wonderful singer.... too bad so short in this world....... musicman |
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Subject: RE: Eva Cassidy on Nightline From: GMT Date: 22 Oct 02 - 06:16 AM You're right Musicman; Somewhere Over the Rainbow and Fields of Gold are superb renditions. She saw her job as an interpreter of songs. On these two and others she certanly succeded. Her biography shows she was also a talented artist, but a painfully shy performer. A sad loss. Gary |
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Subject: RE: Eva Cassidy on Nightline From: Bobert Date: 22 Oct 02 - 08:41 AM Danged. Snooze and ya loose. I loved her voice. She was really something. The world is defiantely a better place having had 33 years of Eva Cassidy. That's fir sure... Bobert |
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Subject: RE: Eva Cassidy on Nightline From: Murph10566 Date: 22 Oct 02 - 09:59 AM I also joined Eva's growing legion of fans too late, but no less enthusiastically than many of the rest of you who've posted so far... I heard her father interviewed on a local radio station, and they concluded the segment with Eva's rendition of 'Over the Rainbow'. I was mesmerized, and continue to be whenever I play her music. That morning I ordered her CD 'Songbird'. Most recently I picked up the latest release entitled 'Imagine' - again, it's a special collection (no great surprise) that gives me such listening pleasure, even as I lament her tragic story... Such a Gift - Such a Loss... M. |
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Subject: RE: Eva Cassidy on Nightline From: Stilly River Sage Date: 22 Oct 02 - 12:37 PM ABC replayed this program recently. I've heard it at least three times now. Dave Marish produced this one, and I think takes every opportunity to use it again. SRS |
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