Eva Cassidy tunes

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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!