If you’re a singer, a would-be singer, or a guitarist, you may want to express your own “inner Eva Cassidy” and try out Eva’s arrangements of the songs she performed. Now Eva’s fans have a large selection of songbooks and karaoke discs available, and many lyrics and tablature websites on the Internet also include songs from Eva Cassidy albums. Have fun! But as Eva herself would tell you, don’t try to sound exactly like her. Express your own creativity and sing it YOUR way!
EVA CASSIDY SONGBOOKS
A number of Eva Cassidy songbooks have been published, featuring arrangements for piano and/or guitar of the music on Eva’s albums. Some of them may be out of print; others may be available in Europe but not in the United States, and vice versa. Check with your local music stores to see what they have and what can be ordered. There are many Internet sources as well.
THE EVA CASSIDY SONGBOOK FOR GUITAR: HIGHLY RECOMMENDED for guitarists, The Eva Cassidy Songbook for Guitar, published in the fall of 2002 is a must have. The songs in it are: Ain’t No Sunshine, Anniversary Song, At Last, Autumn Leaves, Fields of Gold, I Wandered by a Brookside, Nightbird, Over the Rainbow, Penny to my Name, Say Goodbye, Songbird, Time After Time, Wade in the Water, Way Beyond the Blue, Wayfaring Stranger, and What a Wonderful World.
The late Tina Davidson, who transcribed the arrangements for the book, once told me, “As you can see, it is a variety of songs from all Eva’s albums. Some of the songs just have Eva’s accompaniment — with her strum/picking style written out in tablature. Others have her intros & solos written out (Autumn Leaves, Over the Rainbow, I Wandered by the Brookside, Fields of Gold, Songbird, Time After Time).
I asked Tina Davidson whether she noted that Eva often used a capo. She replied, “Yes, I have indicated the capo-fret on each song — AND have transposed the songs to the capo key. For instance, if Eva played a song in the key of G, capo on the first fret — that’s really concert pitch of G# (or Ab), so I wrote the song out in the key of G so the guitarist is reading the music in the same key as the chords they are playing. The piano books have written the songs in concert pitch, and guitarist don’t like to play the chords that are in rotten keys [for guitar]. Eva’s guitar solos and accompaniment are also written out in tablature — I’m very proud of the work!!!” Tina Davidson wrote over 50 songbooks for children and adults, including the “Woody Guthrie Song Book.” She was also an expert in Braille music transcription.
THE BEST OF EVA CASSIDY songbook was published by International Music Publications in 2002. This is a songbook with piano/vocal reductions and guitar chords. It is fully authorized by the Cassidy family, with an introduction by Eva’s father, Hugh Cassidy. The songs in the “Best of” book are: Ain’t No Sunshine, At Last, Autumn Leaves, Blue Skies, Blues in the Night, Dark End of the Street, Easy Street Dream, Fields of Gold, How Can I Keep From Singing?, Kathy’s Song, Need Your Love So Bad, Over the Rainbow, People Get Ready, Songbird, Stormy Monday, Time After Time, Way Beyond the Blue, and What a Wonderful World. You can order it from the Eva Cassidy Artwork website, among other places.
YOU’RE THE VOICE: EVA CASSIDY: “You’re the Voice” is a well-regarded series featuring the music of popular singers. Their Eva Cassidy book features arrangements of ten songs for voice, piano and guitar, and the CD has backing tracks for all ten. The songs are “Ain’t No Sunshine,” “Autumn Leaves,” “How Can I Keep From Singing,” “Imagine,” “It Doesn’t Matter Anymore,” “Over the Rainbow,” “Penny To My Name,” “People Get Ready,” “Wayfaring Stranger,” and “What a Wonderful World.” Fran at Warner Bros. Publications (an Eva fan herself) told me when the book was first released, “‘You’re the Voice’ is available through Internet retailers (just type in Eva Cassidy You’re the Voice into Google and many will come up). In addition, it will get picked up by various brick and mortar retailers around the US.” She adds, “I love the book and CD accompaniment. The company that does the studio sessions is fantastic and I think you would enjoy it.” If the price seems expensive, remember that you get both a book and a CD.
SONGBIRD Songbook: The first of the songbooks to be published, “Eva Cassidy: Songbird” includes all the songs featured on the SONGBIRD album. I am told there are two versions, one with “Piano and Voice, with Guitar chord boxes” and the one with “Guitar Tablature, with chord symbols.”
IMAGINE songbook: The songbook for the album IMAGINE contains lyrics, guitar chords and piano reductions for all the songs on the album, plus two bonus tracks — “The Bold Young Farmer” and “Wayfaring Stranger.” The IMAGINE songbook is published internationally by Wise Publications. The preface was written by Elana Byrd, a friend of the Cassidy family, including her reminiscences about seeing Eva perform. The introduction also reproduces some photos Eva took herself on the trip to Nova Scotia where the album cover photograph was taken.
SOMEWHERE songbook: The songbook for the SOMEWHERE album has all 12 songs from the CD, arranged for piano & voice, with chord diagrams for guitar. A three page introduction by Elana Byrd includes 12 photos of Eva and her artwork. You can order it from the Eva Cassidy Artwork website, among other places.
AMERICAN TUNE songbook: This seems to be out of print? Try eBay.
BACKING TRACKS AND KARAOKE
With the recent publication of the Eva Cassidy Songbook for Guitar, and other songbooks, many people will be able to enjoy singing and playing Eva’s wonderful arrangements. But what about those of us who don’t play the guitar? There are Eva Cassidy “backing tracks” and karaoke discs. At one time I had some detailed listings, but both the offerings and the companies have changed. I recommend you do your own online searches. However, I will comment that I had the chance to listen to some of the ZOOM karaoke tracks discs a few years ago, and it was ASTONISHINGLY faithful to the musical accompaniments on the albums. For those of you who enjoy singing along with Eva, like me, or people who do the karaoke thing for relaxation and fun, or even singers who need backing tracks for “open mikes,” I definitely recommend these discs. One thing that surprised me was that I don’t know the lyrics as well as I thought I did. That’s where a proper Karaoke machine can help, I suppose, since these are CD+G discs that can give you the lyrics one line at a time.
LYRICS SITES
I have to have a section for Lyrics because I can’t change the title of the page without changing all the links that go to it.
Online lyrics sites have proliferated since I started this web site, when the Internet was newish. They are pretty much ALL TERRIBLE and I hate them. They exist to deliver ads and to give you incorrect lyrics and chords in difficult-to-read formats. They are also shameless violators of copyright (the above songbooks are all properly licensed). Shun them.