More News

In her song "Early One Morning," local legend Eva Cassidy asks how she will be remembered.

"So I sit on yonder hill and I wonder if anyone thinks of me still?"she sings.

With the release of her album "Somewhere" last month, 12 years after her death, people still do.

"It makes me cry when I listen to her," said recording artist Chuck Brown of Brandywine, the widely proclaimed godfather of go-go, who collaborated with Cassidy regularly and released the album "The Other Side" with her in 1995. "I've never been so inspired by another person… I refused to perform another album with another lady after she passed."

A Washington, D.C. native, Cassidy moved to Bowie during her youth, attending High Bridge Elementary and finally graduating from Bowie High School in 1981. She was an unknown in those days, performing rock and roll covers at battle of the band competitions, recalled her parents, Barbara and Hugh Cassidy. It was a far cry from legendary covers such as Judy Garland's "Over the Rainbow" that first propelled Cassidy to the top of the charts in the United Kingdom in 2001, and subsequently earned her international stardom years after her death from cancer in 1996 at the age of 33.

"In high school they did pieces from Kiss and other groups that were fashionable at the time," Hugh Cassidy said.

"The guys often overpowered her so she would have to ask them to turn it down," Barbara Cassidy said. "You really have to strain to sing above a loud set of drums."

Critics have praised Cassidy for her gift at making the songs she covered her own. Prior to the release of Blix Street Records' "Somewhere," Cassidy's albums showcased her skill for covering songs but never contained any of her own creations. Her longtime producer Chris Biondo said after her death and subsequent fame he wanted to provide fans with new material. The latest release contains two songs she co-wrote, giving even her parents new insight into her talent. Other previously unreleased songs on the album were remastered.

"Two of the songs my wife had never heard before," said Hugh Cassidy, who originally taught Eva Cassidy to play guitar and had both she and her brother, Danny Cassidy, play together in a family band.

The Cassidys, who now reside in Shady Side, agreed "Somewhere" is more eclectic than their daughter's previous releases. Among her wide scope of influences, the new album melds together jazz, country and blues standards such as a soul-laden rendition of Aretha Franklin's "Chain of Fools" and one of Cassidy's own, the folksy, dobro-accompanied "Early One Morning."

"Whatever style it was didn't matter to her," Hugh Cassidy said.

Barbara Cassidy said her daughter had to create and valued her free time more than anything.

The songs on the album were recorded throughout Cassidy's career, with the title track first emerging as an uncharacteristic synthesizer-influenced song she composed with Biondo.

"I think she would have liked this song better now," said Biondo, of the remixing of the song to include more harmonies and piano. "I hope she likes it. I wanted to at least go about doing it in a way that was based on knowing what she liked."

E-mail Andrea Noble at anoble@gazette.net.