Song work - I'm pretty lost here.

Thanks. Camille, wouldn't you list Eva Cassidy as primarily a Jazz singer too? What would be her voice type? She is so great. I mean, was, unfortunately. She seems to have sung "covers" mainly, as well, even though I would have loved if she had done some own stuff as well. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-X1g-aEeNc&list=PLqP2d8LL7YqyovcWTIalxvwrJZgiNd1tV&index=4&t=0s  In the coments, they say there was no "oversinging" with her, so oversinging would probaly be if the singer is exaggerating too much or showing off way too much, for example? Or how would this be defined (and avoided)?

Here is something from one of the comments on youtube to Eva Cassidy's rendition of that songs which fits well what Camille said about covers: "From an interview with Doug MacLeod, who wrote Nightbird.

Interviewer: Your songs have been recorded by many artists, so which are your favorite interpretations? Doug: I have a couple of favorites. One was Eva Cassidy’s version of Nightbird. That song is about a prostitute, a prostitute that I used to live with who really watched out for me. I have no idea if Eva Cassidy knew what that song was about and I never heard it until my wife played it for me during a drive to Los Angeles from San Luis Obispo. I’m a huge baseball fan and my team, the Cardinals from St Louis, were playing the Dodgers and I wanted to listen to the game. My wife said “I got something for you to hear”, and I said, “But the Cardinals are on” and she said “This is more important than the Cardinals” and she put this CD on of Eva Cassidy. I tell you, it moved me so much, I pulled over to the side of the road and I was weeping. I have never done that song again. When people ask me to do Nightbird, I tell them that if they want to hear THE version, she is the one to listen to. And then of course she died before I got a chance to meet her to ask her how she interpreted it like that."

Joel, I'll work on a list of jazz standards with a fairly limited range!

Eva Cassidy is another favorite of mine, for sure. Can't wait to listen to "Nightbird" with that background in mind. I think of her as a jazz/blues-inspired folk singer; and as for range, she has more of an alto quality to me, though you could list her as a mezzo-soprano, too. That's the thing about voice types: they were created within classical/operatic music, and they don't apply as neatly within contemporary music. 

ok, thanks, sounds good!