Eva Cassidy: Imagine

By GRAHAM REID

(Herald rating: * * * * )

Famous for being famously dead when she was discovered by the wider world, Washington DC singer Cassidy could turn a melody sideways without losing track of it, and either soar past the clouds or be as intimate as a lover's stolen kiss.

This posthumous collection won't disappoint the many thousands who discovered her on the previous Songbird, although a powerful but sexless Fever and the portentous treatment of Lennon's title track prove there were some things beyond her grasp. As for the rest, the opener is a superb reworking of You Don't Matter Anymore, she drifts between folk (Sandy Denny's Who Knows Where the Time Goes?, Gordon Lightfoot's Early Morning Rain) and jazz (You've Changed) and is as at home on Tennessee Waltz as Stevie Wonder's I Can Only Be Me. None of these recordings — some live, others just studio run-throughs — was intended for release, which is even more persuasive evidence of her particular genius. Others could work for months trying to create music this affecting, intimate and impressive. Cassidy just seemed to put them out there, right up in 1996 when she died at 33. Extraordinary.

Label: Hot