Eva Cassidy, the now-internationally renowned singer who died from melanoma some 24 years ago this month, is once again breaking hearts as her signature rendition of Cyndi Lauper’s classic “Time After Time” serves as the soundtrack for the new national advertising campaign from Kay Jewelers. The Someday campaign, as in “someday I’ll marry you,” was rolled out in October on various primetime cable shows on E!, AMC, Oxygen, TLC and others and is now expanding to include :15 second, :30 second and long form variations on the theme, all containing Cassidy’s voice.
This renewed U.S. exposure for Cassidy’s incomparable voice has already included upwards of 230,000 views for the initial commercial on YouTube. It can be viewed here:
Born in Washington, DC, Eva Cassidy recorded and performed in the area for several years until her untimely death at age 33. She left behind a small, but prodigious canon of recordings that has been meticulously curated and compiled by Blix Street Records, an independent label now based outside of Seattle, with the support of her parents, Barbara and Hugh Cassidy.
In April, 1998, Blix Street posthumously released SONGBIRD, a collection chosen primarily from two other Cassidy albums, LIVE AT BLUES ALLEY and EVA BY HEART. It featured Sting’s “Fields of Gold” and Eva’s unqualified signature performance of “Over the Rainbow” (taken from an album called THE OTHER SIDE recorded with Washington, DC’s “King of Go-Go” Chuck Brown). Later that same year, Blix Street also released the complete LIVE AT BLUES ALLEY and EVA BY HEART, the first national exposure for both albums, followed in May, 2000 by TIME AFTER TIME, a new compilation selected from her then-unreleased material.
2001 would see Eva Cassidy become an “overnight sensation” as SONGBIRD reached #1 on the British charts, setting off a feeding frenzy among the media on both sides of the Atlantic. In the U.S., everyone from People Magazine to ABC News Nightline to The Today Show to VH-1 News had weighed in on the Eva Cassidy phenomenon. SONGBIRD has been certified Platinum in the U.S. for sales of more than 1,000,000 units and is 6x Platinum in England.
Cassidy’s wide-ranging, but unerringly tasteful, sense of material kept her from a recording contract during her lifetime, but that taste continues to propel interest in her recorded work all these years later. Her versions of iconic songs have made their way onto myriad soundtracks, among them Love, Actually, Maid in Manhattan, Smallville, Dawson’s Creek and the current television phenomenon, This Is Us. US Ladies Figure Skating Champion Michelle Kwan skated to Eva’s Fields of Gold during the closing ceremonies of the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, and her voice underscored the In Memoriam segment of the Annual Emmy Awards. Additionally, there is the continuing use of her arrangements and recordings on television talent shows such as The X Factor, The Voice, American Idol, America’s Got Talent and Dancing With The Stars.
A new Eva Cassidy 20-track acoustic collection featuring her version of “Time After Time” is being planned for release in the new year from Blix Street Records.
Visit: www.blixstreet.com
