Bobby Caldwell - Open your eyes
An amazing amazing song.
Bobby Caldwell is an amzing song writer and multi instrumentalist whose work will be featured more than once in this series. This song was on his 2nd album and achieved moderate success because other singles on that album became monster hits (one of them will be featured on this series). As a side note, because Mr Caldwell's voice and overall sound was blues & R&B like, his record label went to great lengths to hide the fact that he was white. His album covers had him in silhouette, promo ads and stuff had other images. It wasnt till his first live performance that the secret was revealed to all.
Most people are familiar with this song because Common samples it in his song The Light. This song was the second single off his Like Water for Chocolate album in 2000. Common uses this song as a love letter to someone - widely speculated to be his then girlfriend Erykah Badu.
The Platinum Pied Pipers whose stuff i stumbled on by mistake last year are a Detroit based R&B / Hip Hop Group. Waajeed & Saadiq (not their birth names) essentially lay down hot hot tracks and beats and their work typically features guest artists on vocals. In 2003, this talented duo had Dwele on a track called Ridin' High b/w Open your eyes (which is the first thing i heard from them) which samples Bobby Caldwell's Open your eyes.
I have featured on the soundbyte these 3 tracks.....
So who works it best?
Enjoy!
8 comments:
oh.i didnt like the first guy, i dnt see why they try to hide him being white, its about the music isnt it. anyway i never really knew about the song until common did it,.,common is a really good artist,i love everything he does.
I really love what Common did with it, but I love the original as well. This is the first time I'm hearing about Platinum Pied Pipers...
Interesting how easy it can sometimes be to identify when a song was made. The original by Bobby Caldwell really does follow the nineteen seventies formula. It is probably unfair to choose between Common's and The Platinum Pied Pipers' since one is a sample and the other is a cover, but I prefer the latter.
Just looked the original, released in 1980 on the Cat In The Hat album . . . shows you what little I know about sounds and eras.
awwwwwwwwwwww im loving this uzo
pls email me the bobby caldwell one abeg - aramide at gmail dot com
i think im gonna scoop that esnips player too
meanwhile come and finish ur discussion on ribadu sisi lol
The original is pretty good. But of course, Common's song is great. Thanks for educating me about this.
i like all 3... but at this moment.. totally feeling Platinum pied pipers
I don't think there is anyone who is passionate about this your latest series out there than I do.I wish to recieve further enlightening emails on your usica series.Keep up the good work
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