Eva Cassidy & Jimmy Scott

Subject: Eva Cassidy & Jimmy Scott
From: GUEST,Bill Kennedy
Date: 30 Oct 02 - 12:55 PM

Eva Cassidy's been mentioned often as a great singer, and I would agree up to a point, but I never understood how she got put in the Folk category when she is pure and simple a jazz singer. Listen to Jimmy Scott for a while, then listen to Eva, the phrasing, the timing, it's jazz singing, nothing else, and I think very heavily influenced by Jimmy and Nina Simone. Listen to any of the great female jazz vocalists and compare. Then listen to the female folk singers. She is a jazz singer. Not that there is anything wrong with that!

Subject: RE: Eva Cassidy & Jimmy Scott
From: Willie-O
Date: 30 Oct 02 - 01:44 PM

Sorta like Joni Mitchell says about herself.

A classmate lent me Eva Cassidy's CD "Songbird" and I am just now listening to it for the first time.

Wow. This is unbelievable.

But I would say, jazz and SOUL. Soul with control, like Aretha.

I am completely stunned. I may never sing another note.

Think I'll just listen to this for the rest of my life.

W-O

Subject: RE: Eva Cassidy & Jimmy Scott
From: GUEST,Sally R.
Date: 30 Oct 02 - 02:00 PM

Eva Cassidy gets put in the "folk" category for the same reason that many artists are put there. She played acoustic guitar on many of her songs, often solo. No matter the kind of music, to the music industry, someone who plays acoustic guitar and sings is a folksinger. You shouldn't confuse the popular (or unpopular) music industry classification of "folk" with folk music in an academic sense.

Academically speaking, there's been very little real folk music since the advent of 20th century popular culture. When Ralph Rinzler discovered Doc Watson, Doc didn't even own an acoustic guitar. He was playing electric guitar in local dance band that did early rock and roll songs they heard on the radio.

Back to Eva Cassidy. Yes, she was a jazz singer. She was also a a folk singer. She did wonderful versions of a whole bunch of traditional folk songs. She was also a pop singer and an R&B singer.

BTW, Nina Simone has included a lot of folk music in her repertoire. When she sang a folk song, she was a folksinger.

Subject: RE: Eva Cassidy & Jimmy Scott
From: GUEST,Wally Waley
Date: 30 Oct 02 - 02:29 PM

Sally,

Give us a break! "Real folk music"? And Ralph Rinzler "discovered" Doc Watson? And what do academics have to do with folk music, anyway? When it comes to that, seems to me that Jazz is both traditional and folk music--Rock and Roll, too!

Subject: RE: Eva Cassidy & Jimmy Scott
From: GUEST,Sally R.
Date: 30 Oct 02 - 02:42 PM

When I said there's been very little "real folk music" since the advent of 20th century popular culture, I was referring to the oral folk tradition of handing down "real folk music" from generation to generation. Once you start taking the music from records, books, radio, etc. you are a revivalist, not an authentic folk singer. And please note that I said I was talking in a strictly "academic" sense. Most folklorists will tell you the same thing.

You ask what academics have to do with folk music. They study it, teach us about it and preserve it. May I refer you to Childe, the Lomaxes, Ralph Rinzler, John Cohen, Mike Seeger, Helen Creighton, Edith Fowke, Kenny Goldstein, etc.

And yes, Ralph Rinzler "discovered" Doc Watson. But don't take my word for it, get the "Legacy" CD-set on which David Holt interviews Doc Watson about his life and music. Doc will tell you himself.

Subject: RE: Eva Cassidy & Jimmy Scott
From: GUEST,Bill Kennedy
Date: 30 Oct 02 - 02:46 PM

agreed, Sally. at BEST most 'folk singers' are 'interpreters of folk songs', not really in the FOLK tradition themselves, but faithful to the material. At WORST they're just someone who strums a guitar while they sing whatever comes into their head. That list is getting longer every year, sadly

Subject: RE: Eva Cassidy & Jimmy Scott
From: Murph10566
Date: 30 Oct 02 - 05:06 PM

I'll try to side-step the 'Drift' if possible...

I find Eva Cassidy's Music enchanting - whatever she chose to sing, I think her covers of the various styles are somehow unique, if only for the crystal purity of her sweet voice...

Was she a Folk Singer ?   Sometimes, yes - It's been said that her refusal to conform to a single or particular genre was the reason major labels refused to sign her - How to market ?   Who to target ?

Most recently, I picked up her CD "Imagine"... Like Willie-O, I had been 'stunned' by "Songbird" -   Once again: wonderful, wonderful Music that transcends any specific stilted style (he wrote alliteratively)...

M.

Subject: RE: Eva Cassidy & Jimmy Scott
From: GUEST,Wally Waley
Date: 30 Oct 02 - 05:10 PM

Will allow that, Sally, but with the somewhat cynical proviso,"folk music" exists only for folklorists--who are not really connected to any of the cultures that they study--so that the distinctions they make, and the labels that they assign, are also unimportant to the cultures they study--

It doesn't matter to a community how the musicians learnt the dance music that is played for their festivals, only that they play it--and it doesn't matter to them where the melodies come from, only that they satisfy the community's tastes--

I do value some of the work that the above named have done but I also hasten to point out that they did not come from any of the traditions that that collected from, and to a great degree, they picked and chose based on their own needs, tastes, and agendas--In a way, they bagged, stuffed, and mounted their material, then carried it back to academia where they presented it for their own purposes--