Dave Stewart presents a new compilation combining the best duets from his Nashville recording sessions at John McBride's famed Blackbird Studio, which resulted in releasing the album series of "Blackbird Diaries", "The Ringmaster General" and "Lucky Numbers". "Nashville Sessions - The Duets" features striking performances by Stevie Nicks, Alison Krauss, Colbie Caillat, Joss Stone and more as well as a duet sung with and co-written by Jessie Baylin.
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.
Stunning 2006 album of duets, old and new, that brings Sir Cliff together with artists as diverse as Elton John, Daniel O'Donnell, Olivia Newton John, Dionne Warwick, Barry Gibb, Anne Murray, Matt Monro and others. Also features a new track with Queen's Brian May and The Shadows' Brian Bennett. It is a part-compilation and part-studio album of duets. In the UK, the album reached #8 in the UK Albums Chart and was certified Gold. The album featured a-reworking of Move It, with Brian May of Queen on guitar as the first single as a double A-Side with 21st Century Christas. The second single Yesterday Once More a cover of a Karen Carpenter song was recorded with Daniel O'Donnell. The album also featured a posthumous track featuring vocals of Matt Monro.
Long-time collaborators, guitarists Henry Kaiser and Eugene Chadbourne perform the compositions of trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith, starting with their recording from 1977 of his "Wind Crystals", then improvising over 5 other Smith compositions, ending the album with an updated, 2017 version of "Wind Crystals"; an excellent refresh and retrospective from two incredible improvisers.
Trumpeter Chris Botti's To Love Again: The Duets picks up where his stellar 2004 release When I Fall in Love leaves off, with more gorgeously lush and heartfelt orchestral jazz via the London Session Orchestra. This time showcasing guest vocalists – as well as a handful of instrumental tracks – Botti takes an even more classicist approach than before and once again brings to mind such iconic jazz albums as Clifford Brown with Strings and Miles Davis' Porgy and Bess. Largely known as a smooth jazz artist with a sweet trumpet tone, it wasn't until When I Fall in Love that Botti dropped the smooth jazz synthesizers and pop-oriented compositions in favor of Gil Evans-style jazz orchestrations and an acoustic backing quartet.
Tony Bennett’s first album of celebrity duets (2006's Duets: An American Classic) featured an impressive cast of superstars answering the call from the dean of pop vocalists, but the arrangements were overly safe – virtually all of them ballads with soft strings or brassy finger-snappers. Duets II follows the first by five years and features, surprisingly, a cast just as star-laden, but also arrangements that are much more dynamic, and suitable for each song and its participants. (Marion Evans, a veteran whose career goes back nearly as far as Bennett's, handles the charts for a few of the best here.)
To commemorate the 20th anniversary of Frank Sinatra's groundbreaking and highly successful album, Duets, Capitol/UMe will release a newly-remastered Sinatra Duets - Twentieth Anniversary 2CD Deluxe Edition bringing together the original Duets, and the follow-up Duets II, together in one deluxe package. Included on the 2CD deluxe edition are two never-before-released recordings: 'One for My Baby (And One More for the Road)' featuring Tom Scott and 'Embraceable You' with Tanya Tucker plus the rare bonus tracks 'Fly Me to the Moon' with George Strait and two versions of 'My Way' one recorded with Luciano Pavarotti and the other with Willie Nelson.
To commemorate the 20th anniversary of Frank Sinatra's groundbreaking and highly successful album, Duets, Capitol/UMe will release a newly-remastered Sinatra Duets - Twentieth Anniversary 2CD Deluxe Edition bringing together the original Duets, and the follow-up Duets II, together in one deluxe package. Included on the 2CD deluxe edition are two never-before-released recordings: 'One for My Baby (And One More for the Road)' featuring Tom Scott and 'Embraceable You' with Tanya Tucker plus the rare bonus tracks 'Fly Me to the Moon' with George Strait and two versions of 'My Way' one recorded with Luciano Pavarotti and the other with Willie Nelson.
Marvin Gaye's Love Songs: Greatest Duets gathers most of his best-known duets, organizing them by singing partner. After getting off to a poor, but well-meaning start with a 1994 version of "Distant Lover" that pairs Gaye's original vocals with re-recorded vocals by Betty Wright and tinny-sounding production, the album does a 180 by offering up some of the best work Gaye did with his ultimate duet partner, Tammi Terrell. Along with definitive songs like "Ain't Nothing Like the Real Thing" and "You're All I Need to Get By," the collection also includes lesser-known gems such as the lovely "If This World Were Mine."