THE THING TO remember, as the story of Bowie native Eva Cassidy goes global and becomes part of musical lore, is that the voice -- and not the tragedy -- is what first grips people. It's an absolutely arresting voice with the rare power to make old songs seem like new releases.
When Cassidy reshapes "Over The Rainbow," the impossible happens: I forget about Judy Garland. When she sweetens Sting's "Fields of Gold," it's as if I never heard the original, and I easily imagine Cassidy walking through the barley and letting her hair down. Same with "Songbird." Fleetwood Who?
I believe that I would feel this way, even if Cassidy had not died in 1996 -- even if we still could have the pleasure of hearing her perform at a club in Washington or Annapolis or, say, at the Columbia Festival for the Arts, where she appeared a few months before doctors at Johns Hopkins told her she had cancer.
I can't say for sure, of course, because one of her old friends, the gifted singer-songwriter Niki Lee, told me the whole sad story before slipping Cassidy's best-selling-in-Britain "Songbird" album into a CD player and punching up a track called "I Know You By Heart."
Knowing that the singer had died -- at 33 -- does affect the listener in a profound way. But it's not tragedy that hits you in the heart; it's the purity, uniqueness and gentle power of the voice.
"I Know You By Heart" reminds us of a lover distant but vivid in memory, or of a long- absent friend; there's some mysterious feeling of loss and longing in Cassidy's singing of it. I find the song as transfixing to the ear as a fire to the eye on a cool autumn night.
Others must have these feelings about this singer. I don't think sympathy, guilt or fascination with tragedy is what made "Songbird" a No. 1 selling album in the United Kingdom and put her other albums at the top of Amazon.com's charts. It's the talent, the sound of hope and love in that voice.
"She could sing anything -- folk, blues, pop, jazz, R & B, gospel -- and make it sound like it was the only music that mattered," wrote Richard Harrington in the Washington Post. "She was a secret slowly exposed by word of mouth from those who stumbled into her world and emerged forever fans. It explains why so many musicians sought Eva Cassidy out. Everybody felt like she was a part of their mix."
