Eva Cassidy’s posthumous album is splendid and passionate

On November 2, 1996, at the age of 33, Eva Cassidy he died due to cancer. The honors that the American musician did not receive in life were obtained once she passed into the afterlife. There are many posthumous releases in his discography. We offer you the review he wrote for us Ernesto Assante of the 2023 album “I Can Only Be Me” in which his voice is accompanied by London Symphony Orchestra.

Yes, agreed, today’s music is essentially digital, electronic, played with instruments created in the last twenty or thirty years, if not even later. Yes, agreed, the word often dominates over the melody and the latter, even when it is present, is often minimal. And in this world we are, sometimes with pleasure, immersed. But the advent of platforms, with their horizontality, has made all music ‘contemporary’, and has also given the right of citizenship to different sounds, which we would once have defined as more ‘traditional’.

And it is to this category that, at first glance, Eva Cassidy’s beautiful, passionate, splendid posthumous album belongs.

But it’s not a traditional album, or ‘old’ or ‘ancient’, rather it’s a beautifully contemporary album. First of all for its creation: the vocal tracks of the singer, who passed away in 1996, were isolated and cleaned up, made more precise and brilliant using the same technology used by Peter Jackson in “Get Back” to isolate the voices of the individual Beatles in their chats in studio, and once brought to an extraordinary listening level, new arrangements were created written by William Ross (only one song, ‘Autumn Leaves’) and Christopher Willis for the London Symphony Orchestra, to create an album that in in reality it is a pure product of today’s technology, but with levels of splendor and depth truly never heard before.

The album seems, and it is incredible to use the verb ‘seem’, recorded in the studio by the singer and the orchestra together, so strong is the feeling, the presence, the actuality of Eva Cassidy’s voice. But that’s not the case, it’s a laboratory operation, precision work, a cold and calculated operation, which instead achieves the incredible result of one of the most emotionally engaging albums we’ve happened to listen to recently. In short, a ‘new’ album by an artist who passed away in 1996 and who never sang these songs with the orchestra.

Of course, Eva Cassidy’s entire career was post-mortem: in life the young American singer did not experience success or fame, she was ‘discovered’ after her death and nine studio albums and two live albums were published, many of which, including the latter, have had great international success. So why still be surprised? Because the album is perfect, because there is no fiction, even though it is fake, even though the vocal parts have already appeared on other albums, even though all of this is the work of others and not her.

And this leaves us speechless, while we are moved by listening to “Tall trees in Georgia” or “Songbird”, or “Time after time” or “Ain’t no Sunshine”, sung today, now, before our ears. A beautiful album, which cannot leave anyone who loves music indifferent, due to Eva Cassidy’s magnificent interpretations and the beautiful orchestrations that support them. Far from today, but totally of today.