Eva Cassidy - Somewhere (Blix Street) ***

4:40pm Friday 22nd August 2008

SO, is Eva Cassidy the Tupac Shakur of easy listening? This is the 10th (count 'em!) album release of previously unavailable recordings since her death in 1996 at the age of 33.

Thanks to its newly energised music policy and listeners, Radio 2 managed to break her version of Somewhere Over the Rainbow as some kind of post-millennial zeitgeist in 2000 and some six million sales have been clocked up in her name since.

This sparky, fan-pleasing set is split between reedy, acoustic country-folk on versions of Summertime, Dolly Parton's Coat of Many Colours and the traditional A Bold Young Farmer; and ballsier soulful R&B like Aretha's Chain of Fools and Won't Be Long (which work better than you might imagine) and Patsy Cline's Walkin' After Midnight.