Open Your Eyes (Yes album)
| Open Your Eyes | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
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| Studio album by Yes | ||||
| Released | 24 November 1997 | |||
| Recorded | Summer 1997 | |||
| Genre | ||||
| Length | 74:12 | |||
| Label |
Eagle Records (UK) Beyond Music (US) |
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| Producer | Yes | |||
| Yes chronology | ||||
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| Professional ratings | |
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| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic |   |
| Entertainment Weekly | C+ |
| Vox | |
Open Your Eyes is the seventeenth studio album by progressive rock band Yes, released in 1997. It is the first album to feature Billy Sherwood as a band member, and the only one on which he is the main keyboard player.
Following the 1996 reunion of the mid-late 1970s "classic" lineup of Yes (and the release of the two live-and-studio double albums Keys to Ascension and Keys to Ascension 2), keyboard player Rick Wakeman had left the band once again, throwing future tour and album plans into jeopardy. In order to sustain momentum, the band was obliged to come up with a new workable lineup as well as new sources of song material.
Already an established engineer and progressive rock musician in America, Billy Sherwood had previously been involved with Yes as a backup keyboard player and guitarist on the Talk tour (as well as being considered as a potential new lead singer during Yes rehearsals circa 1990). More recently, he had worked as engineer and producer for part of the Keys to Ascension project. He had had a strong working relationship with Yes bassist Chris Squire since the late 1980s, when the two had begun work on a duo project called The Chris Squire Experiment (later to become Conspiracy). Yes singer Jon Anderson was impressed by some of the early Conspiracy material and became interested in singing on it, in part because of Yes' need for new material. Consequently, Sherwood, Squire, Anderson and drummer Alan White began working on several Conspiracy songs together with the aim of transforming them into Yes songs. Sherwood has said the band was falling apart after Wakeman's withdrawal and that he led on songwriting activity to keep the band going, working with Squire, White and Anderson. Guitarist Steve Howe (at the time, the band's only UK-based member) was not practically involved for most of the process and made his contributions to the album at the end of the sessions (and mainly as a player). By the end of the sessions, Sherwood was formally inducted into Yes – he would play second guitar and sing harmony vocals on tour.
Although Sherwood played the bulk of the keyboards on the album, two other keyboard players were involved. Steve Porcaro had played keyboards on the title track when it was a Chris Squire Experiment piece, and his parts were retained for Yes' rendition. Russian keyboardist Igor Khoroshev performed on "New State of Mind", "No Way We Can Lose", and "Fortune Seller". Khoroshev was hired as the band's keyboard player on the tour promoting Open Your Eyes (on which he also played percussion and sang backing vocals) and would be a full member by 1999's The Ladder, on which he was featured more prominently.
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