Country music has a long history of two separate artists coming together to record a single or album together. We’ve also seen our fair share of duos who sing and perform exclusively together. In the 1970s it seemed like all the rage for two of country’s biggest stars to join forces. The decade saw the birth of partnerships between Conway Twitty and Loretta Lynn, and perhaps most famously, the musical marriage between George Jones and Tammy Wynette. But the trend didn’t end there and county stars have continued to sing together over the years.
A young Dolly Parton was offered a spot on Porter Wagoner’s syndicated television show in 1967. This was Dolly’s first big break since she would be exposed to a national audience every week. The two recorded some great songs during Dolly’s seven-year stint on the show. One of my favorites has always been ‘Please Don’t Stop Loving Me’.
Even though Conway Twitty and Loretta Lynn were both huge stars in their own right, the two paired up to release a string of hugely successful duets. Their first single together, the Grammy-winning ‘After The Fire Is Gone’, shot to #1 and they subsequently released over a dozen albums together and won at least as many awards. Here’s the duo in their prime.
The year 1971 also saw the debut of George Jones and Tammy Wynnete as a duo. Even though they were married in 1969, their first single release came two years later, when Jones’ Musicor contracted expired and the pair were finally on the same label. Theirs would be one of country music’s fabled and most-talked about love stories of all time. Together, they recorded some of the finest country music ever and the effects of their marriage was still evident over the rest of Jones’ recording career. Ironically, their greatest commerical successes came after their divorce. Listen to ‘Golden Ring’ or the telling ‘Two Story House’.
Other married couples have collaborated in country music, long before Tim McGraw and a pregnant Faith Hill sang ‘It’s Your Love’. One of my favorite videos that played on CMT when I was a kid was Rodney Crowell’s and Rosanne Cash’s ‘It’s Such A Small World’. The tune tells the story of two former lovers who meet by chance and spend one more magic night together. It was the first of five consecutive chart-toppers from Rodney’s landmark Diamonds and Dirt album. This was the only collaboration from their 13-year marriage, however.
Reba McEntire recorded her first of several duets with Vince Gill in 1989. Vince, a new artist on MCA Records at the time, and Reba, the superstar female on the label, hit it off immediately. The first of these, the peppy ‘Oklahoma Swing’, gave Vince his first top 20 for the new label. Later in 1992, when Reba was recording her It’s Your Call album, she had asked Kenny Rogers to sing with her on a song called ‘The Heart Won’t Lie’. When Kenny couldn’t make it, Reba called on her buddy Vince to do the duet with her and the result was a #1 smash and one of the biggest radio singles of 1993. It’s remarkable to watch them sing it live. They’ve since recorded several more songs together.
I could keep going on for hours about my favorite collaborations from people like Clint Black and Wynonna, Travis Tritt and Marty Stuart, and so many others. It’s almost always entertaining when two stars come together to make music.
What are some of your favorite collaborations in country music. And why?
Filed under: Discussions | Tagged: Clint Black, Conway Twitty, George Jones, Kenny Rogers, Loretta Lynn, Marty Stuart, Reba McEntire, Rodney Crowell, Rosanne Cash, Tammy Wynette, Travis Tritt, Vince Gill, Wynonna
Vince Gill and Patty Loveless have voices that complement each other exceptionally well. I wish they’d do more actual duets together as opposed to guest harmony vocals on the other’s records. There was talk about 10 years ago of them doing a duets album together but that never materialized.
I think the ultimate country duo was Porter Wagoner and Dolly Parton. The duo itself became its own entity (referred to, simply, as “Porter-n-Dolly”), eclipsing the solo accomplishments of the two individual stars. Dolly left to reclaim herself and expand upon herself. In my opinion, their version of “Just Someone I Used to Know” is the #1 country duet of all time – with apologies to Kenny Rogers and that island in the stream.
I am a fan of duets, especially when they are a true duet. I love Allison Krauss when she does a duet – there is just something about her voice. I have also enjoyed the recent pairings of George Strait and LeeAnn Womack, even though they are more album cuts than for radio.
But I do not consider this recent Carrie Underwood/Randy Travis “I Told You So” a duet, when Randy Travis gets to sing a whole three lines – that is not a duet – I am not sure what that is – but it is not a duet…
I guess I’d classify it as a loose duet, but “featuring Randy Travis” is probably more accurate. Vocal event?
There’s a lot of that going on these days. I don’t consider any of the songs where one artist is doing a guest harmony vocal on the other’s record — like Dolly and Brad Paisley, Patty Loveless with George Jones on “You Don’t Seem To Miss Me” or most of the Patty Loveless/Vince Gill collaborations — to be duets. But everyone seems to refer to them that way.
My favourite colaborations are Willie Nelson and Lee Ann Womack on ‘Mendocino County Line,’ and Whiskey Lullaby by Brad and Alison.
I also enjoy ‘When I Get Where I’m Going’ and ‘You Don’t Seem To Miss Me’ as collaborations even when the legends who sing on them, Parton and Jones, are reduced to background vocals, they make the songs what they are.
The way I heard the Vince/Reba story is that Kenny and her voices weren’t working right together on that song for some reason, so she originally just called Vince in to provide some backing vocals. They sounded so good together on it that a lightbulb went off in her head that she asked him if they could turn it into a duet. He said something like, “Will have to be in the video?” and she said yes, “but it won’t take very long.” It turned out taking a very long time as far as video shoots go though. At the next award show, Reba was told that Kenny was offended that the song that was supposed to be their duet had Vince doing it instead when Vince was just supposed to do the background vocals. Reba found him and apologized and said that it wasn’t aplanned thing and that she didn’t mean to slight him in anyway and Kenny was fine in the end.
I heard this story from Reba on XM Radio’s Shortcuts show, where they play each song from an artists’ new album and the artist shares the stories behind the songs or recordings. She was promoting her#1 Hits collection at the time. It was a great show.
I’ve actually heard that story both ways, Leeann. Reba has said in interviews that Kenny couldn’t make it due to scheduling conflicts and then in others that their voices weren’t ‘gelling.’ Whatever the reason, I am glad she chose Vince in the end.
Also, Reba was set to record ‘For My Broken Heart’ with Clint Black, but afer the plane crash in ‘91 (and other circumstances) she went in the studio and recorded that one solo.
It’s funny that she changes the story from interview to interview.
I agree with Razor on Patty and Vince. As much as I enjoy Vince/Reba duets, I think a Vince/Patty duets project would be heavenly. Their voices just meld together and give each other amazing body. They can really vocally rise and fall together as well, such as in “Sleepless Nights”, “When I Call Your Name” and even “Timber, I’m Fallin’ in Love.” It’s about time they do another full fledged duet. “My Kind of Woman/My Kind of Man” is good, but I think they could do even stronger material.
[...] My Kind of Country: What are some of your favorite collaborations in country music. And why? [...]
Yeah, I couldn’t really guess whose fault the discrepancies in these stories are. It’s just odd that both JR’s and my versions of the story were both from Reba while it seems that your differing versions of the Dolly story was from Dolly and a CD booklet.
Deana Carter is a nice pairing with other artists:
w/ Dwight Yoakam on “Waiting”, w/ Dolly Parton on “Love Is Like a Butterfly”, and w/ Sara Evans on a live cover of “Mamas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys” =)
Reba and Kelly Clarkson was another pretty good fit
Porter and Dolly were tops in my book, with George Jones and Melba Montgomery close behind. And of course, you can’t leave out Loretta & ET
I could never really get into ET. He had some good songs but he always seemed to sing off-key.
There are multiple versions of a lot of these stories. Whether it’s the fault of the artist or the journalist, I don’t know. The story about Kenny Rogers being offended about being replaced by Vince Gill (which I hadn’t heard before) reminds me of the Dolly Parton/Ricky Van Shelton duet “Rockin’ Years”. Dolly’s brother wrote it and she originally recorded it with George Jones. She said she ended up not going with that version because it was “too countrypolitan”. Another version was that the label didn’t like it and told her to find another duet partner. I heard that George was offended and his song “I Don’t Need Your Rockin’ Chair” was intended as a response to that sleight.
Yet when the duet version was finally released last year on Jones’ Burn Your Playhouse Down CD, the liner notes tell a different story. The song was recorded in the late 80s for part of one of Jones’ duet projects, and didn’t get used for whatever reason. It was produced by Billy Sherrill, who was producing Jones at the time. So it wouldn’t have been Dolly’s call not to release it — and why would Jones be upset with her for re-recording it with someone else 3 or 4 years later when it became obvious that the original version wasn’t going to see the light of day anytime soon?
And the Van Shelton version is better in my opinion, anyway.
The Carrie/Randy song is a little different in that he does sing a bit on his own, but I agree it’s not an actual duet. I don’t even understand why people call the others a duet.
When Carrie and Randy performed it live on American Idol she sang the first verse and he sang the second… sounded like a duet to me
Although I noticed that for some reason, my radio station always played the solo version from Carrie’s album… which disappointed me
I heard the first Carrie Underwood/Randy Travis “I Told You So” when it first came out and was racing across the airwaves like wildfire. How do I know? I was visiting my daughter in Kansas and was heading back home to Kentucky and each county I entered I scanned for a new country station. Each one was promoting and saying how great that duet was and played that version. I admit I liked it gobs better than Carrie’s solo version. His deep bass complimented her soprano and just brought some depth to the song. But unfortunately, my home radio station always played just Carrie’s version even though daily I’d request the other.