Pages tagged “k.d. lang”

Listening to the upcoming album by Lucinda Williams, Little Honey, I was thrilled to come across the voice of Elvis Costello on a song called "Jailhouse Tears." Country/rock duets have a pretty long history and even some commercial success (see Jon Bon Jovi with Sugarland's Jennifer Nettles). But recently, they've also gotten pretty damn cool. Here are the best country/rock duets of recent years (and a few don't even involve Emmylou Harris):

Subdued set of original ballads suggests it may be time for this vegetarian to try a T Bone

As a singer, k.d. lang has few peers; indeed, her vocal instrument is so extraordinary that her biggest career challenge has been coming up with songs worthy of it. The lack of sticky material that has beset each of her albums since 1992’s Ingénue continues with the self-written, self-produced Watershed, preventing it from rising above the level of tasteful mood music. The intimate, string-enriched settings suit the restrained emotionality of the 11 songs, but there’s nary a stab at a chorus hook, and the only trace of a rhythmic pulse occurs in “Coming Home.” By contrast, lang’s ultra-catchy take on “Help Me”—found on this year’s A Tribute to Joni Mitchell—makes a compelling case for her to stop relying on her own writing as her primary source of material and simply record the songs that speak to her most urgently, as she did in 1988 on the Owen Bradley-produced milestone Shadowland. If lang writes another “Constant Craving” while she’s at it, so much the better.

For better or worse, jazz vocalist Madeleine Peyroux won’t ever outgrow the Billie Holiday comparisons, despite her crooning claim, “I’m not looking backward for something that’s gone” (“Once in a While”). But looking backward is precisely where Peyroux camps, from her lounge-jazz sound to her choice of covers: Joni Mitchell (“River,” a duet with k.d. lang), Leonard Cohen (“Blue Alert” and the title track) and Serge Gainsbourg (“La Javanaise”). Only a tender take on Tom Waits’ “(Looking For) The Heart of a Saturday Night” gives Peyroux the glimmer of modernity Perfect World so desperately craves.