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CNN Showbiz Today's Mark Scheerer's full interview with Eagle-Eye Cherry (20 minutes)
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Thursday, February 11, 1999 1:43:48 PM EST

From Correspondent Mark Scheerer

NEW YORK (CNN) -- One of last year's more impressive arrivals on the music scene was a young man who goes by the rather unusual name of Eagle-Eye Cherry.

"Save Tonight," a song from his debut CD "Desireless," earned him a Grammy nomination. And it has changed his life.

During a recent interview with CNN at the Jazz Standard in New York, Eagle-Eye was asked about how he got his name.

"No one has ever asked me that before!" he joked. "Actually, my dad named me Eagle-Eye. What happened was, he was checking out his new son and I was in the crib and I was sound asleep and I woke up and opened one eye, and he said, 'Ah, Eagle-Eye.'"

His dad was Don Cherry, an avant-garde jazz trumpeter who died in 1995. Eagle-Eye's mother is Swedish; his early years were spent in Stockholm, his teen years in New York.

His stepsister is the London-based R&B star Neneh Cherry. They are collaborating on a biography and a documentary about their father, though they've yet to collaborate musically.

"I think we are going to have to do it so people stop asking," he says. "I'd love to do something with her. She has one of the most original voices, you can spot her in any context."

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Eagle-Eye has been catching the attention of MTV viewers with the video for "Save Tonight." In it, he stars in several different roles, and thanks to camera tricks he interacts with himself. The lyrics to "Save Tonight" focus on spending as much time as he can with his girlfriend, hoping to "fight the break of dawn."

The song's Grammy nomination this year in the category of pop performance by a male has changed his life, he says.

"The irony is that the more success the song has brought, the more my life has become the song -- constantly leaving my girlfriend behind," he says. "But I think what's cool about the song is that it is a story anyone can relate to. And also the concept of not wanting tomorrow to come, and that can be applied to being at a great party or a concert. It's like, 'Oh man, does this have to end?'"

The fans of Eagle-Eye Cherry are hoping success, for him, is more than just a one-night stand.