American Tune brings together five new songs taken from rehearsal tapes (discovered by guitarist Keith Grimes), a few live recordings and one studio demo. Fans have been captivated by Eva Cassidy's truly remarkable voice and ability to make whichever song she turned her hand to, her own. As with all her songs, it's as though you're listening in on a private performance by a woman who was hardly known before her tragically premature death. Cassidy never knew that any of her songs would reach the global audience they have, and therein once again lies her magic. The low quality of the actual recordings on offer here merely adds to the charm.

However, it's the choice of songs that lets the collection down. "Yesterday" is a self-indulgent, cheesy parody of the Beatles classic (tellingly, it's one of her earliest recordings) and "God Bless This Child" drops the blues of the Billie Holiday standard and replaces it with a dreary and insipid interpretation. Her delicate, often haunting vocal does breathe life into the usually wet "True Colours" and both "Drowning in a Sea of Love" and "It Don't Mean a Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing)" are highlights, set apart by smoky, acoustic funk and jazzroom playfulness respectively. Anybody coming to Cassidy's legacy for the first time (there must be a few people left) would be better starting with Songbird and progressing, via 2000's Time After Time, to this--a worthwhile addition, but not a solid album. --Cortman Virtue