Eva Cassidy 8-Pack

Lessons

• Lesson 1: Kathy’s Song - Guitar Lesson

  Kathy's Song was written by Paul Simon after his return to America. He had been living and writing in England when Sounds Of Silence started getting airplay, and Columbia called him back to capitalize on the momentum. This lesson is on Eva Cassidy’s arrangement of the song, which is pretty similar to the original but a little more basic as far as the guitar part is concerned. It uses the standard alternating picking technique, along with chords in the key of G, although she capos to the third fret.

• Lesson 2: Songbird - Eva Cassidy - Guitar Lesson

  Songbird is a beautiful song, originally written by Christine McVie of Fleetwood Mac. This lesson takes a look at Eva Cassidy’s version, which appears on her 1998 compilation album with the same name. Eva’s version features a simple yet beautiful fingerpicking arrangement in the key of G, which complements her amazing and hunting voice just perfectly. The lesson covers the progression, the picking, the embellishments, such as hammer on’s and pull-off’s and the complete guitar solo.

• Lesson 3: Over The Rainbow - Acoustic Guitar Lesson

  Over The Rainbow is an amazing classic that lends itself to countless arrangements and presentations. Eve Cassidy’s version is second to none, in my opinion.
  
  She had a skill not mentioned nearly as much as her unbelievable vocal mastery, the ability to create a guitar part that was the perfect accompaniment to her singing.
  
  Generally her arrangements were somewhat simple but full of delicate nuances that can make them very hard to duplicate. This lesson is not so much a note-by-note breakdown, rather it demonstrates how to use her chord shapes and embellishments and go with the flow.

• Lesson 4: Time After Time - Guitar Lesson

  *Time After Time *is a Cyndi Lauper song from her 1983 album, She’s So Unusual, that Eva Cassidy arranged for her own vocal style, or rather one of her many vocal styles. Her arrangements generally consist of gentle arpeggios with some extended chords (add9 for example) and perfectly complement her voice. This lesson looks at how she took this 80s pop tune and turned it into a classic.

• Lesson 5: Fields Of Gold - Guitar Lesson

  Eva Cassidy has become widely known as a phenomenal interpreter of songs from many eras. Unfortunately, this has all been after her untimely passing at the age of 33 in 1996. She had the ability to create simple guitar arrangements to act as the perfect backdrop to her incredible voice. In this lesson we look at her take on Fields Of Gold, written by Sting and originally done on his album Ten Summoner’s Tales.

• Lesson 6: Autumn Leaves - Guitar lesson

  Autumn Leaves is a standard that was written in the 1940s, with English lyrics added a bit later by Johnny Mercer. This lesson looks at the way Eva Cassidy arranged it for solo guitar to accompany her voice.
  
  Eva had a great talent for simplifying chord progressions and adding extra notes to basic chords, creating brilliant backgrounds for her amazing voice.

• Lesson 7: Woodstock - Guitar Lesson

  Woodstock is Joni Mitchell’s song about the 1969 Festival that has been covered by many artists. This lesson goes into Eva Cassidy’s arrangement using a simple arpeggio style for solo guitar, the way it appeared on her Time After Time album.

• Lesson 8: San Francisco Bay Blues

  Eva Cassidy had a phenomenal ability to arrange and rearrange songs to suit her guitar playing, and of course her incredible voice. Her take on Jesse Fuller's San Francisco Bay Blues shows just how far she could take something and make it her own.
  Almost everyone else who plays this does it with the upbeat ragtime approach that Jesse used in many of his songs, not wanting them to sound too sad. Eva turns his tune into a slow blues, wrenching and soulful. 
  This lesson goes over 12/8 time and the chord families she used to put this arrangement together. There are 13th chords, 7#9, diminished, 7sus2, and of course the more common 7th and m7ths from the 'E' and 'A' families.
  She did every verse a little differently and the included tab has a measure by measure breakdown of all three verses.