Music helped Eva Cappelli overcome the tough stuff life threw her way. She’s hoping her own songs can do the same for others.
“I have survived a lot of abuse over the years and I’m still standing,” she says. “I wouldn’t trade a day of it, because it made me strong and who I am today. I am very happy with who I am. At this point in my life I hope to be able to help others learn to do more than just survive. It’s not enough—you have to learn to live well, too. A lot of my music reflects horrors and misery, especially my earlier songs. It kept me alive and helped me get through the darkness.”
The Easthampton musician melds an array of influences—blues, country, folk, rock, 1940s torch songs, Latin, Tex/Mex—into her own funky stew. She enjoys keeping her audience guessing, drawing liberally on inspirations ranging from Gershwin and AC/DC to Patsy Cline and Koko Taylor.
Although she’s always loved music, she didn’t start creating it until her sixth decade.
“Although I’ve had music in my soul all my life, I really only just started out when I turned 50 and took my life back,” she says. “Ever since I can remember I have had music and songs in my head—songs that I’d never heard before. I don’t know where they come from. Sometimes I think I channel them somehow, but I don’t question it.
“It’s what I should be doing. I know that now.”
She’s not alone in her endeavors. She draws support, musical and otherwise, from The Watershops Band, a collection of top-notch local musicians cultivated by guitarist Joe Carvalho. The two met at a Westfield open mic in 2008.
“It was kismet,” says Cappelli of that fateful night. “Joe asked if I had ever recorded. I told him no, so he said he would call me in a couple of weeks to set up a time. He called the next day and we recorded our first CD in three days.”
They released that debut to a supportive crowd that Cappelli says had been waiting as long as she had for the event. She recalls the house being packed to overflowing, and people waiting outside on a cold December night for the second half of the show.
Two more albums followed, and work is underway on several more at the Watershops Studio in Springfield, a musical home base the two have been building over the course of their partnership. They also use the space to cultivate young local artists and provide vocal, songwriting and performance coaching.
Cappelli loves what she’s doing, even with the realization that she might be something of an anomaly: “What 50-year-old woman starts a musical career,” she muses, “when she should be knitting for grandchildren?”
For shows and more information, visit http://evacappelli.com.
