from GEMS – THE DUETS COLLECTION
written by Sting
Sting’s evocative masterpiece, “Fields Of Gold,” from his 1993 album, “Ten Summoner’s Tales,” became one of the trademark songs of the late, American singer, Eva Cassidy. Cassidy was an amazing vocalist who walked in a fascinating music world between jazz, blues, folk and pop.
This gifted woman left the world way too soon in 1996 at age thirty-three. She released a few critically acclaimed records that revealed her beautiful, unique voice singing evergreens like “Autumn Leaves,” “People Get Ready,” “Over The Rainbow,” “Ain’t No Sunshine” and “Time After Time.”
Recently Michael Bolton started working on his new project eventually entitled “Gems – The Duets Collection,” an album, as the title suggests, devoted to several duets with big names like Rascal Flatts, Seal, Chris Botti and Lara Fabian.
Bolton’s idea was also to cover “Fields Of Gold” as a tribute to Cassidy and he and David Foster, who produced a few tracks for the album, decided to try and record the song as a duet using Cassidy’s original performance. After getting the green light from Cassidy’s family they went into the studio and created a moving masterpiece.
Bolton’s performance is restrained and respectful and perfectly matches Cassidy’s gorgeous voice. Foster also kept the late singer’s acoustic guitar only adding some minimum keyboards and the final result is a tender, extremely well done tribute to Eva’s art. Here’s a few words that Sting, the amazing writer of “Fields Of Gold,” dedicated to Eva and her rendition of his song: “I remember being sent this song by a friend of hers – it was long before the success – and she explained how her friend had died and how she would have loved me to hear the song. I was almost in tears because it’s such a beautiful version. It then became this huge hit, but I was saddened that she didn’t live to see her success. I was proud to be the writer of the song. It’s a song about continuity and having romantic love turn into something more romantic and more mellow.”
Listen
[audio:https://www.fozfan.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/fields_of_gold.mp3|titles=Fields Of Gold|artists=Michael Bolton & Eva Cassidy]
Lead Vocals: Michael Bolton
Lead Vocals & Acoustic Guitar: Eva Cassidy
Keyboards: David Foster
Produced & Arranged by David Foster
Lyrics
You’ll remember me when the west wind moves
Among the fields of barley
You can tell the sun in his jealous sky
When we walked in fields of gold
So she took her love for to gaze awhile
Among the fields of barley
In his arms she fell as her hair came down
Among the fields of gold
Will you stay with me will you be my love
Among the fields of barley
And you can tell the sun in his jealous sky
When we walked in fields of gold
I never made promises lightly
And there have been some that I’ve broken
But I swear in the days still left
We will walk in fields of gold
We’ll walk in fields of gold
I never made promises lightly
And there have been some that I’ve broken
But I swear in the days still left
We will walk in fields of gold
We’ll walk in fields of gold
Many years have passed since those summer days
Among the fields of barley
See the children run as the sun goes down
As you lie in fields of gold
You’ll remember me when the west wind moves
Among the fields of barley
You can tell the sun in his jealous sky
When we walked in fields of gold
When we walked in fields of gold
When we walked in fields of gold