Eva’s live rendition of “Nightbird” by Doug MacLeod is the title track on the 2015 album release NIGHTBIRD, and her studio recording is on the album EVA BY HEART.

Any information about the NIGHTBIRD album will be found on the “What’s New” page.

According to Chris Biondo, “Nightbird” was one of the first songs Eva wanted to do when they put the Eva Cassidy Band together. She performed it at the band’s debut at Fatty’s in Rockville, and it was usually part of her set list after that. For the recording on EVA BY HEART, Biondo comments, “We hired the dobro player from the Hula Monsters, Eva really dug that, then we hired a guy from [Annapolis funk/rock band] Blue Miracle named Jon Gillespie to play keyboard vibes. Eva sang backgrounds on their record. He’s the guy who played organ on ‘Time is a Healer.'”

Singer-songwriter Doug MacLeod, who wrote the song “Nightbird,” was interviewed for the web site “Early Blues.” In the interview he was asked about other artists performing his music. Here’s his reply:
‘I have a couple of favourites. One was Eva Cassidy’s version of Nightbird. That song is about a prostitute, a prostitute that I used to live with who really watched out for me. I have no idea if Eva Cassidy knew what that song was about and I never heard it until my wife played it for me during a drive to Los Angeles from San Luis Opisbo. I’m a huge baseball fan and my team, the Cardinals from St Louis, were playing the Dodgers and I wanted to listen to the game. My wife said “I got something for you to hear”, and I said, “But the Cardinals are on” and she said “This is more important than the Cardinals” and she put this CD on of Eva Cassidy. I tell you, it moved me so much, I pulled over to the side of the road and I was weeping. I have never done that song again. When people ask me to do Nightbird, I tell them that if they want to hear THE version, she is the one to listen to. And then of course she died before I got a chance to meet her to ask her how she interpreted it like that.’

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