Joel E. Siegel’s impressive liner notes on Eva By Heart

The album Eva By Heart was released by Chuck Brown’s label Liaison Records a year after Eva’s death in 1997. Joel E. Siegel, the music critic and professor of English and film studies at Georgetown University, wrote the liner notes. This was a real honour since Siegel had won the 1993 Grammy Award for Best Album Notes for his work on a Billie Holliday box set. He wrote:

Eva Cassidy was attracted to songs that express profound themes (love, loss, transcendence, redemption) drawn from a diversity of musical traditions which she transforms into haunting personal statements. Words are inadequate to capture the crystalline splendour of her singing, her pinpoint intonation and effortless control, her luxuriant multi-tracked choral backgrounds, her astonishing dynamics that range from the opalescent caress of ballads to full-throated, roof-raising blues and gospel shouts. The wonder of her sound is complemented by her fluent skills as an instrumentalist, guitar and keyboards, and the resourcefulness of her arrangements, which enfold her voice and guitar in layered harmonic textures. But even more impressive than her musicianship is the sheer, heartfelt emotion she conveys, cutting to the core of feelings all of us experience but can only stumblingly articulate.

One response to “Joel E. Siegel’s impressive liner notes on Eva By Heart”

  1. hans rump says:

    Nummer van Eva gehoord bij vrijegeluiden,haar broer speelde op viool in de band,zo kwam ik er ook achter dat we met het shantykoor waar ik in zong ook een nummer van haar zingen The Water is Wide, mooi nummer grhans rump

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