>From Paul:-
A couple of years ago I saw a post on a newsgroup
from a lady named Laura Bligh about the difficulty
of getting airplay for music that didn't fit "the formula" -
in particular, Eva Cassidy.
I wrote to her agreeing and saying how much I liked
Eva's 'Songbird' album which had not long been released
on a small label in Brighton in the UK. Turned out
Laura was Eva's cousin and, since her death a couple
of years earlier, she'd had been trying hard to keep her
music alive, but felt like she was beating her head against a
brick wall. Whilst all the specialist folk radio shows were
all raving about her voice, mainstream radio just weren't
interested. One major commercial radio station, even though
they had been sent a press release saying that Eva died
of cancer in 1996, had even written back rejecting it, but saying
that it "showed promise" and to let them know when she recorded
her next album. (!)
Knowing that I loved Joni, Laura wrote to tell me that they
were planning to include Eva's version of 'Woodstock' on
another posthumous album they were putting together -
('Time After Time').
What has happened over here in the last few months
is truly amazing. It seems the producer of Terry Wogan's
morning show on BBC Radio 2 decided to play Eva's
version of 'Somewhere Over the Rainbow' and the BBC
switchboards just went nuts. Meanwhile another BBC
TV producer had seen some old black and white footage
of Eva singing 'Rainbow' recorded live at Blues Alley in
Washington and decided to include it on Top of the Pops 2 -
getting the highest audience response they've ever had.
Suddenly all the newspapers were writing articles about her,
and this last week alone there have been features on national
breakfast television and on a major evening ITV news show.
More than two years after its release, it has just been announced
today that 'Songbird' is Number 1 in the Official UK Album Chart
this week.
US Radio, your call.
PaulC
Hi Paul,
Just catching up on my posts and had to reply to this and tell a little story.
I first learnt about Eva from this list and from a friend who listens to
Wogan and to Michael Parkinson who also champions her cause on Radio 2. Dave
lent me Songbird which I liked and then I remember you sent me Time after
Time to take to Ashara when I visited and I have fond memories of listening
to that album in her car as we drove up to Connecticut. Anyway, last Monday I
went to a brilliant Bert Jansch concert in Brighton and just before that I
was having a meal with a friend and asking her, as the restaurant played
Sting's Field of Gold, if she had heard of Eva Cassidy. She said that she had
but only because a fellow librarian was married to a guy who worked for the
record company who promoted her and that she had seen him on tv talking about
the affect Eva's recent popularity had had on the company. The next day, my
friend went to work and told her colleague that I liked Eva and the next day
she appeared with 2 albums for us. This morning the husband was interviewed
again on local radio and this evening on local TV. What a phenomonon!
Also coincidentally, Paul, I was studying your album cover this evening, as
my daughter is at the final stage of preparing art work for a cd had friend
has just made, and we were checking to see if anything vital had been missed
off!
Looking forward to meeting up with you at the Kashmir in April.
Jacky
.
