Robbed hit of the week 5/30/16 - Tracy Chapman's "Baby Can I Hold You"...

"Baby Can I Hold You" - Tracy Chapman
from the album Tracy Chapman (1988)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #48

This week's 'robbed hit' comes from folk-rock singer/songwriter Tracy Chapman, whose Grammy-winning debut album had also landed her a top ten pop hit with "Fast Car" in the summer of 1988. Her politically-motivated follow-up, "Talkin' 'Bout A Revolution", was only a minor pop hit at #75, but did reach Billboard's R&B, rock, and Adult Contemporary charts. The third single, though, was one of the most beautiful love ballads ever recorded in the decade. "Baby Can I Hold You", written by Tracy and produced by David Kershenbaum, the song anchored the emotional weight of her debut disc...

While "Baby Can I Hold You" climbed to #19 on Billboard's Adult Contemporary chart, the song stalled under the top-40 in December of 1988. Internationally, the track went to #16 in New Zealand, but was only a minor hit in Australia (#68) and the UK (#94).

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In 1990, Jamaican reggae singer Foxy Brown (not to be confused with the rapper) covered "Baby Can I Hold You", and reached #56 on Billboard's R&B chart...

Irish 'boyband' Boyzone also released a version of the song in 1997, and went to #2 in the UK as well as their native Ireland...

Eight years later, Ronan Keating, who sang lead on the Boyzone version, released his own solo take on the track, and just missed the top-40 in Germany at #42 in 2005...

In 2007, Chapman duetted with opera king Luciano Pavarotti for his Cambodia and Tibet benefit...

Lastly, here's Tracy performing the song live...