Humberto Tan honorary member Eva Cassidy Fan Club

Dutch talkshow host Humberto Tan is pleased with his honorary membership of the Eva Cassidy fan club. In his TV-show RTL Late Night as well as in newspaper interviews he praised the late American singer on a regular basis: “If you know Eva, my plea for more musical appreciation of her voice and her catalogue doesn’t add anything. But what if you don’t know her voice? Check, listen and enjoy! I’m sure that you won’t be disappointed!” Apart from being a sports connoisseur Humberto Tan is a real music devotee. Recently he published Let’s Dance, My Dance Classics (Luitingh-Sijthoff). In this sound book Tan shows his passion for soul music.

Humberto Tan voting for Eva Cassidy

In 2013, just before the start of his series of highly rated talk shows Tan buried himself in Eva Cassidy’s biography. In an interview with De Volkskrant the presenter explained how Eva’s life story had inspired him: “Eva Cassidy was a singer who became famous only years after she died. Why? If you hear her sing, you are stunned by her talent. But Eva Cassidy had one problem: fear of performing. She struggled with stage fright her entire life. Eva was one of the most brilliant musicians of her generation. She died from cancer when she was 33 years old. She had pain and had difficulty walking. Her friends organised a tribute concert for her. They didn’t know whether she could sing or not. At the end of the show Eva entered the stage with a walking frame. She started singing ‘What A wonderful World’. She looked at her friends and sang ‘What A Wonderful World’, while she knew that she would die soon; that would be the end of it. She had thrown away her fears. And not until then she realised: how good is this, with this talent. What had scared me all the time? Fear of being rejected? Because I am a perfectionist? Insecurity?

I am not Eva Cassidy. But it is my story, in combination with my personal past, which makes me think: ‘Hey guy, you can make up all kinds of doom scenarios, but just do it! Dare to fail! Make sure you do anything to succeed, anything. But bear in mind that it’s possible that you won’t.”