Eva Cassidy-'Over the Rainbow' Reaction

Oh and Tim, btw, Eva was my highest recommendation in the list I sent to you one year ago LOL You are slightly discovering the artists in the list anyway 😄

In Quebecois or French popular styles: you’ll hear “robbed time” in emotional delivery — where phrases breathe and flex around the beat. You nailed the single most piece of "musicality" that made smile hearing how she made this her own. “Robbed time” means one note is played slightly longer (“borrowing time”) and the following note is played slightly shorter (“repaying the debt”), so the total measure length stays the same. As you artfully pointed out, it’s like a tiny push-and-pull of timing — expressive elasticity — often used in romantic, jazz, and vocal phrasing. I just simply refer to it as syncaption but there are subtle difference that I didn't understand before. Now I do, and that's why I'm an ambassador member, to learn new things you teach me. To a listener (like ME), both can feel like: “Wait, the rhythm isn’t perfectly square — but it feels good.” So, robbed time is often felt like syncopation because it creates that same playfulness with pulse and placement. And her phrasing! Very "Lara-esque", Right? (e.g. "Bambina").. There’s an unpredictable elegance to her phrasing — every line feels freshly discovered. There is something deeply moving in the way she suspends time through her phrasing. Her subtle bending of time in this performance feels almost symbolic — as if she were reaching beyond the cirumstance of the moment? "Kev"

She has such a beautiful and distinctive voice. Thank you, Kevin, for requesting this lovely version and telling us about the journey of her music.

This is the song that made her rediscovered in UK, 5 years after her death. It created a tsunami, albums were released and they topped the charts, with sales numbers only The Beatles and The Rolling Stones had reached before. She is one of the main inspirations of the new generation: Katie Melua, Angelina Jordan, Lucy Thomas, Emilie Linge, … are her fans for instance. She is now very famous in Europe, and I attended many concerts where this song was played and I recognized immediately they chose her arrangements and to do it in the "Eva way". She also had completely made her own some classics such as Fields of Gold, Autumn Leaves, Nightbird, …