Country music just wouldn't be the same without duets. The blending of voices, the lyrical back-and-forth, and creative collaboration between country singers have created some of the best musical moments in country music.
Songwriter, band leader, and background vocalist Larry Cordle invited several of his famous friends to join him on the album, appropriately titled All-Star Duets, with songs Larry wrote for them. Dierks Bentley, Garth Brooks, Kenny Chesney, Terri Clark, Kevin Denny, Diamond Rio, Alison Krauss, Kathy Mattea, Daryle Singletary, Travis Tritt, Del McCoury, Rick Skaggs and Trisha Yearwood all make appearances on the project.
Country Music Hall of Fame member Ronnie Milsap released a new album that features duets with an A-list cast, including Billy Gibbons, Luke Bryan, Dolly Parton, Jason Aldean, Willie Nelson, Lucy Angel, Kacey Musgraves, Little Big Town, George Strait, Jessie Key, Leon Russell, Steven Curtis Chapman and Montgomery Gentry. The 13-track collection, dubbed Ronnie Milsap: The Duets, includes one of Troy Gentry’s final recordings on the Montgomery Gentry/Ronnie duet, “Shakey Ground.” In addition, Leon Russell, who passed away in 2016, is featured on “Misery Loves Company.” The album was recorded at Ronnie’s Place, the Nashville studio Ronnie owned from the late 1970s until 1995.
For her 34th studio album, Anne Murray recorded a set of duets with many of her favorite female singers, from Nelly Furtado to Sarah Brightman. There are a number of country duet partners here, such as Shania Twain, Emmylou Harris, and Martina McBride, but there are even more pop-oriented women singing with Murray, encompassing the likes of Celtic Woman and Celine Dion. This makes perfect sense, as Murray's always straddled the pop-country fence effortlessly. Her singing on Duets: Friends and Legends is just as effortless. Now in her fifth decade as an active recording artist, her voice hasn't lost a beat, sounding just as pure and clear as it did on 1970s "Snowbird" (done here with a surprisingly relaxed, easy vocal from Brightman, sounding for all the world like a young Olivia Newton-John). The majority of these songs are ones which have been sizeable hits for Murray in the past, most of which work nicely recast as duets, or at least showcases for harmony singing.
As part of Columbia/Legacy's ongoing celebration of Johnny Cash's 80th Birthday in 2012, the label assembled a series of compilations under the rubric "The Greatest." The concept of this 14-track compilation is clear: it is a collection of duets Cash cut for Columbia between 1967 and 1985. Some of these cuts appeared on albums by other artists ("Girl from the North Country" is pulled from Bob Dylan's Nashville Skyline), some were not released at the time (his George Jones duet "I Got Stripes" was a bonus track on the 2002 reissue of Silver), some are pulled from Cash's TV show (the opening "I've Been Everywhere" with Lynn Anderson), a few are duets with his wife June Carter Cash, and a couple are with his Highwaymen companions Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings, while most derive from albums Cash released himself over the years.
Duets is an album by country music singer Johnny Cash and his wife June Carter Cash, released in 2006. The album is made of duets by the singers mentioned before with songs that Cash had previously released. It is exactly the same as the '16 Biggest Hits' album by the same duo on Sony/BMG Legacy, only with a different cover.
On Duets: Re-Working The Catalogue, Van Morrison and the guests selected and recorded some of his songs from the catalog of 360 songs across his career. Deliberately steering away from his more well-known classics, Van enlisted some of the artists he most respects to perform these songs with him to re-craft and re-imagine them. The album was recorded in his home town of Belfast and London in the United Kingdom over the last year, using a variety of musicians and fresh arrangements.