"Thank You...Eva...Thank You"

As a musical person...I never had any idols...and I consciously avoided copying
anyone. I stayed away from agents...managers...and publicists...and...for the most part...the music industry as a whole. The one constant through this...which was important to me...is I kept on creating songs...having figured out...that a publisher could refuse to publish a book of mine...or a record company turn its back on my songs...but no one...except myself...could stop me...from creating what I was nudged to create. I could continue to create...without looking to these external agents to define me...or my work. Last night...I went song video surfing on YouTube...and rediscovered an artist...who whether she was strongly in the music industry...or not...[I don't really know]...transcended all of that. I am refering to Eva Cassidy...who passed on a few years ago. The thing is...the songs I was listening to her sing...were not songs she had written. They were songs...some of them old...like "Autumn Leaves"...and "Tennesee Waltz"...that she had brought her own haunting voice and interpretation to...with tremendously subtle work on the guitar...that amplified the beauty of the songs she was singing. In recent times...I've been inundated with notices about videos...with people singing cover songs...that appear to be little more than acts of hubris...with the cover song singer thinking he or she could bring something to the song...the original writer of it...or singer...could not. So...I'm not in the habit of rushing to hear someone do a cover song. Listening to Eva...last night...I was reminded that there are some artists...who are not just riding the coat tails of a well known song...or song maker...but can bring something to a song...that takes it to a higher and moving level. Never thought I'd see the day...when as someone sang a cover song...I would catch myself...as I did last night...saying to the screen on which the song was playing..."Thank you...Eva...Thank you!".....................Quester.