''Two Eyes'' is the third studio album by the American singer/songwriter

Brenda Russell Brenda Russell (née Gordon; born April 8, 1949) is an American singer-songwriter, producer, and keyboardist. Russell has a diverse musical range which encompasses Rhythm and blues, R&B, pop music, pop, soul music, soul, dance music, dance, and ...

, released in 1983 on

Warner Bros. Records Warner Records Inc. (known as Warner Bros. Records Inc. until 2019) is an American record label. A subsidiary of Warner Music Group, it is headquartered in Los Angeles, California. It was founded on March 19, 1958, as the recorded music division ...

. The album got to No. 16 on the ''

Blues & Soul ''Blues & Soul'' is a British music magazine, established in 1967 by John Abbey. ''The Independent'' has noted ''Blues & Soul'' as being the equal of magazines such as ''NME'' and '' Q''. ''Billboard'' magazine has called ''Blues & Soul'' "a r ...

'' Top British Soul Albums chart.

Overview

Artists such as Michael McDonald,

Rita Coolidge Rita Coolidge (born May 1, 1945) is an American recording artist. During the 1970s and 1980s, her songs were on ''Billboard'' magazine's pop, country, adult contemporary, and jazz charts, and she won two Grammy Awards with fellow musician and th ...

Stevie Wonder Stevland Hardaway Morris (; Judkins; born May 13, 1950), known professionally as Stevie Wonder, is an American and Ghanaian singer-songwriter, musician, and record producer. He is regarded as one of the most influential musicians of the 20th c ...

Pattie Brooks Pattie Brooks (sometimes credited as Patti Brooks and Patty Brooks) is an American singer most frequently associated with the disco dance era of the 1970s. She was born in Fort Riley, Kansas to a military family. Her first break came in 1968 w ...

Randy Crawford Veronica "Randy" Crawford (born February 18, 1952) is an American retired jazz and R&B singer. She has been more successful in Europe than in the United States, where she has not entered the ''Billboard'' Hot 100 as a solo artist. However, sh ...

Christopher Cross Christopher Cross (born Christopher Charles Geppert; May 3, 1951) is an American singer-songwriter and guitarist. He won five Grammy Awards for his eponymous debut album released in 1979. The singles "Sailing" (1979), and " Arthur's Theme (Best ...

James Ingram James Edward Ingram (February 16, 1952 – January 29, 2019) was an American singer, songwriter and record producer. He was a two-time Grammy Award-winner and a two-time Academy Award nominee for Best Original Song. After beginning his career ...

Patrice Rushen Patrice Louise Rushen (born September 30, 1954) is an American jazz pianist, R&B singer, record producer, multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, and music director. At the 25th Annual Grammy Awards, her 1982 single, "Forget Me Nots", received a no ...

and

Al Jarreau Alwin Lopez Jarreau (March 12, 1940 – February 12, 2017) was an American singer and songwriter. His 1981 album '' Breakin' Away'' spent two years on the ''Billboard'' 200 and is considered one of the finest examples of the Los Angeles pop and ...

appeared on the album. In 1990, singer

Lalah Hathaway Lalah Hathaway (born December 16, 1968) is an American singer-songwriter and music producer. Credited as the "Honorific nicknames in popular music, First Daughter of Soul", she is the first-born daughter of musician and soul singer Donny Hathawa ...

covered the song "It's Something" under the title "Somethin'" on her self-titled debut album. Later in 2013 Lalah Hathaway with

Snarky Puppy Snarky Puppy is an American jazz fusion band led by bassist Michael League. Founded in 2004, Snarky Puppy combines a variety of jazz idioms, rock, world music, and funk and has won five Grammy Awards. Although the band has worked with vocalis ...

did another rendition of the song for the album 'Family Dinner - Volume 1', which on January 26, 2014, won a Grammy Award in the "Best R&B Performance" category.

Critical reception

Daryl T. Hazelwood of the

New York Daily News The ''Daily News'' is an American newspaper based in Jersey City, New Jersey. It was founded in 1919 by Joseph Medill Patterson in New York City as the ''Illustrated Daily News''. It was the first U.S. daily printed in Tabloid (newspaper format ...

declared, "the overall album is a winner."

Track listing

Personnel

* Brenda Russell – lead vocals, backing vocals (1-4, 6-9), vocal arrangements, rhythm arrangements (2, 3, 4, 6-9), acoustic piano (6, 8, 9) *

Bill LaBounty Bill LaBounty is an American musician. He was initially a singer-songwriter in the soft rock genre. As a solo artist, LaBounty recorded six studio albums, including four on Curb/Warner Bros. Records. His first charting single, " This Night Won't ...

– acoustic piano (1) *

Leon Pendarvis Leroy Leon Pendarvis (born 1945) is an American session musician. He plays keyboards and is a background vocalist. He is also an occasional guitarist. Early life The son of a first-grade primary school teacher, Pendarvis grew up in South Carolin ...

–

Fender Rhodes The Rhodes piano (also known as the Fender Rhodes piano) is an electric piano invented by Harold Rhodes, which became popular in the 1970s. Like a conventional piano, the Rhodes generates sound with keys and hammers, but instead of strings, t ...

(1, 4, 6-9), rhythm arrangements (1, 4, 6-9) *

James Newton Howard James Newton Howard (born June 9, 1951) is an American film composer, orchestrator and music producer. He has scored over 100 films and is the recipient of a Grammy Award, an Emmy Award, and nine nominations for Academy Awards. His film scores ...

– synthesizers (1, 3-8), synthesizer arrangements (1, 4-8),

LinnDrum The LinnDrum, often erroneously referred to as the LM-2, is a drum machine manufactured by Linn Electronics between 1982 and 1985. About 5,000 units were sold. Development The LinnDrum was designed by the American engineer Roger Linn. It was ...

(3), rhythm arrangements (3) * Robbie Buchanan – additional synthesizers (1, 6, 7) *

David Foster David Walter Foster (born November 1, 1949) is a Canadian record producer, composer, arranger, and musician. He has won 16 Grammy Awards from 47 nominations. His career began as a keyboardist for the pop group Skylark in the early 1970s befor ...

– acoustic piano (2), synthesizers (2), rhythm arrangements (2), synthesizer arrangements (2) * Michael McDonald – Fender Rhodes (3), synthesizers (3), LinnDrum (3), rhythm arrangements (3) *

Don Grusin Donald Henri Grusin (born April 22, 1941) is an American jazz keyboardist, composer, and record producer. He is the younger brother of Dave Grusin. Career Don Grusin grew up in Littleton, Colorado. His father, a native of Latvia, was a classica ...

– Fender Rhodes (5), additional synthesizers (5), rhythm arrangements (5) * David Williams – electric guitar (3, 4-7, 9) *

Dean Parks Weldon Dean Parks (born December 6, 1946) is an American session guitarist and record producer from Fort Worth, Texas. Parks has one Grammy nomination. Albums Parks was member of the North Texas State One O'clock Lab Band before moving to Los A ...

– electric guitar (6) *

Caleb Quaye Caleb Quaye (born 9 October 1948) is an English rock guitarist and studio musician best known for his work in the 1960s and 1970s with Elton John, Mick Jagger, Pete Townshend, Paul McCartney, Hall & Oates and Ralph McTell, and also toured w ...

– electric guitar (8) *

Nathan East Nathan Harrell East (born December 8, 1955) is an American jazz, R&B, and rock bass guitarist and vocalist. With more than 2,000 recordings, East is one of the most recorded bass players in the history of music. East holds a Bachelor of Arts ...

– bass * John Robinson – drums *

Jeff Porcaro Jeffrey Thomas Porcaro (April 1, 1954 – August 5, 1992) was an American drummer. He is best known for being the co-founder and drummer of the rock band Toto, but is also one of the most recorded session musicians in history, working on hundr ...

– tambourine (3) *

Paulinho da Costa Paulinho da Costa (, born Paulo Roberto da Costa on May 31, 1948) is a Brazilian percussionist. Beginning his career as a samba musician in Brazil, he moved to the United States in the early 1970s and worked with Brazilian bandleader Sérgio Me ...

– percussion (4, 7, 8, 9) * Kim Hutchcroft – alto saxophone (1), tenor saxophone (6, 7),

flute The flute is a member of a family of musical instruments in the woodwind group. Like all woodwinds, flutes are aerophones, producing sound with a vibrating column of air. Flutes produce sound when the player's air flows across an opening. In th ...

(9),

piccolo flute The piccolo ( ; ) is a smaller version of the western concert flute and a member of the woodwind family of musical instruments. Sometimes referred to as a "baby flute" or piccolo flute, the modern piccolo has the same type of fingerings as the ...

(9) *

Larry Williams Lawrence Eugene Williams (May 10, 1935 – January 7, 1980) was an American rhythm and blues and rock and roll singer, songwriter, and pianist from New Orleans. He is best known for writing and recording some rock and roll classics from 1957 to ...

– tenor saxophone (1, 6, 7), horn arrangements (1, 6, 7, 9), flute (9), piccolo flute (9) * Bill Reichenbach Jr. – trombone (1, 6, 7),

bass trombone The bass trombone (, ) is the bass instrument in the trombone family of brass instruments. Modern instruments are pitched in the same B♭ as the tenor trombone but with a larger bore, bell and mouthpiece to facilitate low register playing, and u ...

(9),

baritone A baritone is a type of classical music, classical male singing human voice, voice whose vocal range lies between the bass (voice type), bass and the tenor voice type, voice-types. It is the most common male voice. The term originates from the ...

(9),

tuba The tuba (; ) is the largest and lowest-pitched musical instrument in the brass instrument, brass family. As with all brass instruments, the sound is produced by lip vibrationa buzzinto a mouthpiece (brass), mouthpiece. It first appeared in th ...

(9) * Gary Grant – trumpet (1, 7) *

Jerry Hey Jerry Hey (born 1950) is an American trumpeter, flugelhornist, horn arranger, string arranger, orchestrator and session musician who has played on hundreds of commercial recordings, including Michael Jackson's '' Thriller'', '' Rock with Y ...

– trumpet (1, 6, 7) *

–

harmonica The harmonica, also known as a French harp or mouth organ, is a free reed wind instrument used worldwide in many musical genres, notably in blues, American folk music, classical music, jazz, country, and rock. The many types of harmonica incl ...

(8) *

, Joe Esposito,

Donny Gerrard Donald Bradford Gerrard (March 19, 1946 – February 3, 2022) was a Canadian singer. He was a member of the band Skylark in the early 1970s, and in later years performed and recorded as a baritone backup singer for artists such as Mavis Staples ...

, Bill LaBounty,

David Lasley David Eldon Lasley (August 20, 1947 – December 9, 2021) was an American recording artist, singer, musician and songwriter. He was best known as a touring background singer for James Taylor, as a session singer on recordings by artists including ...

, Michael McDonald, Caleb Quaye,

, Cinnamon Sharpe and

Leon Ware Leon Ware (February 16, 1940 – February 23, 2017) was an American songwriter, producer, composer, and singer. Besides a solo career as a performer, Ware was best known for producing hits for other artists including Michael Jackson, Quincy ...

– backing vocals on "Look Down, Young Soldier"

Production

* Producer – Tommy LiPuma * Executive Producers – David Nathan and Paul Tarnopol * Recorded and Mixed by

Al Schmitt Albert Harry Schmitt (April 17, 1930 – April 26, 2021) was an American recording engineer and record producer. He won twenty Grammy Awards for his work with Henry Mancini, Steely Dan, George Benson, Toto (band), Toto, Natalie Cole, Quincy Jone ...

* Assistant Engineers – Bob Bullock, Terry Christian, Don Koldon, Peggy McCreary and Steve Schmitt. * Mastered by Mike Reese at The Mastering Lab (Hollywood, California). * Creative Director – Rich Kamerman * Art Direction – Simon Levy * Cover Design – Laura LiPuma * Photography – Paddy Reynolds

Charts

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Two Eyes (Brenda Russell Album) Brenda Russell albums 1983 albums Albums produced by Tommy LiPuma Warner Records albums