An amateur live recording made Eva famous, posthumously!
Eva Cassidy was an American vocalist and guitarist who didn’t reach fame until years after she passed away.
An amateur recording of Eva playing Over The Rainbow in a small jazz nightclub called Blues Alley in Washington D.C. was played on Top of the Pops 2, a TV show in the UK.
The producer, Mark Hagen, was having doubts about putting it on air due to the video’s poor quality and amateur style recording but took the risk on December 13th ’00.
The video had a phenomenal reaction from viewers. People were bombarding the studio with calls about the song, trying to find out more information about the completely unknown Eva Cassidy.
The album Songbird (released three years earlier) quickly took off in the charts and rose all the way to the top.
The attention the chart success provided brought Eva Cassidy worldwide fame and sales of 10 million albums.
In the advanced acoustic guitar course, I break down her now-legendary live version of Over The Rainbow, note for note, mistakes included!
In my opinion, Eva’s version of Over The Rainbow is the best amateur acoustic guitar arrangement ever recorded. Since Over The Rainbow was voted the best song of the last century, that’s a pretty big deal!
Once you’ve calmed down over how incredible her version of Over The Rainbow is, do check out her other tunes Time After Time (Cyndi Lauper), Autumn Leaves (Chet Baker), Kathy’s Song, Summertime, and Bridge Over Troubled Water (Simon & Garfunkel).
All these tunes are covers, although she really does make them her own.
If you want to become an established artist, you should start performing covers, aiming to make them your own, before you start writing.
Music history is packed with artists who have done this, as well as those who have gone straight for writing their own tunes but lacked depth.
Eva Cassidy tunes | Related pages
Autumn Leaves
You can learn how to play Autumn Leaves by Chet Baker using chords, lyrics, chord analysis, and the original recording.
| Am7 | D7 | Gmaj7 | Cmaj7 |
The falling leaves drift by my window…
Over The Rainbow
You can learn how to play Over The Rainbow by Eva Cassidy using chords, lyrics, TAB, chord analysis, and Spytunes video guitar lessons.
| Gsus2 /F# | Em /D | Bm7b13 | G7 Amadd4 /B |
Somewhere over the rainbow…
Summertime
You can learn how to play Summertime by Billie Holiday using chords, lyrics, chord analysis, and the original recording.
| Bbm7 F7b9/C | Db6 F7b9/C | Bbm7 F7b9/C | Db6 F7b9/C |
Summertime and the living is easy…
Eva Cassidy on the web
