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Tag: duets

  • Van Morrison does duets

    Van Morrison does duets

    Van Morrison does duets on his latest album Duets: Re-Working the Catalogue.

    It doesn’t take much to get me to purchase an album by Van Morrison. When my friend Barbara let me know on Facebook that Van Morrison had a new album for sale, I was quick to purchase it. I didn’t need to hear it first, either. Morrison’s latest effort, Duets: Re-Working the Catalogue was released on March 23, 2015. He joins a long list of popular singers who have released duets albums. Van Morrison and his guests have redone sixteen of Morrison’s songs, deliberately staying away from his best known hits and retooling some of his deeper cuts. They have come up with new arrangements, breathing new life into old classics.

    I really like Van Morrison’s music, though I’m not as passionate about it as some people are. I own a number of his albums and go through phases where I’m in the mood to overdose, but I don’t listen to him all the time like I do, say, James Taylor. Now, as I listen to these duets, I feel like listening to the old versions and comparing them.

    I was glad to see that Van Morrison also includes a broad range of guests, too… everyone from George Benson to Steve Winwood have a turn on this latest release. One thing I like about Re-Working the Catalogue is the fact that it offers a taste of some artists who have aroused my curiosity, yet haven’t yet made it into my music collection. Case in point, as I write this, I’m listening to Van Morrison sing with Joss Stone. I have heard Joss Stone sing on a number of collaborations and I enjoy her music. I just haven’t had the chance to buy an album yet… but I’m going to get there soon! There are other duet partners on here that I hadn’t heard of until I listened to this album. I’m grateful to be exposed to them, just as I’m happy to hear Van Morrison sing with well known people with long, established careers in music.

    I think most of these duets are well-crafted and considered. I particularly enjoyed what Van Morrison did with George Benson on the song, “Higher Than The World”. I think his turn with Joss Stone on “Wild Honey” is also very ethereal and elegant, while his work with P.J. Proby on “Whatever Happened to P.J. Proby” is playful and bluesy. It’s definitely fun! Kind of reminds me of “Moondance”, minus the sexy mood. Clare Teal sings with Van Morrison on “Carrying a Torch” and reminds me a little of classic Linda Ronstadt, while Van Morrison and Gregory Porter make a jazzy and fun rework of “The Eternal Kansas City”. I think my favorite song is “Irish Heartbeat”, which Morrison performed with Mark Knopfler, who sings a little higher here. Daughter Shana Morrison also impresses as she sings “Rough God Goes Riding”; that’s another strong effort.


    Van Morrison and Mark Knopfler team up…

    In my humble opinion, Duets: Re-Working the Catalogue is absolutely worth the price of admission. These are sixteen well-made re-works. Of course, whether or not they are better than the originals depends on your taste. I like these new duets and I think most of them sound refreshingly authentic, not over-produced or slickly made over. If you like Van Morrison’s music, I recommend picking up this latest effort.

  • Sharing SingSnap with friends…

    Sharing SingSnap with friends…

    It’s been awhile sing my last karaoke post. I’ve been sharing SingSnap with friends and now I want to share with you!

    Back when I first started writing on Pop Rock Nation, I wrote about SingSnap.com. SingSnap is an online karaoke site. I joined it when it first started in 2006, then took a several year hiatus. I got active on the site again in 2013, when someone who was reading my private music blog wanted to hear my singing voice. I remembered SingSnap and realized it wouldn’t take much to oblige his request. I quickly got hooked on online karaoke and have been hanging out there ever since.

    Over the past few months, I’ve gotten involved in a private duet thread on SingSnap. This thread is where people who enjoy singing duets gather to find partners. It’s a good place to find people who share your taste in music and like to harmonize. Recently, we had a “challenge” which involved singing duets that met certain pre-determined requirements. The duet thread administrators paired couples up every few days and then that couple would work together to come up with a fresh duet. The first week, we had a “ladies choice” challenge. The women were responsible for choosing a song. I ended up being paired with an old Epinions friend named Andrew and together we sang this… I should mention that I have never met Andrew in person, but we both used to write for Epinions.com and have become “virtual” friends! I’m sure we’d be friends offline, too!

    This is not an easy song to sing, especially if you’re a guy. Andrew did a good job!

    Another challenge involved taking a song that was ordinarily not a duet and turning it into a duet. My partner for this challenge was a guy who loves to sing. I found one of his old recordings that he did fairly well and we turned it into this…

    It never would have occurred to me to turn “Your Wildest Dreams” by The Moody Blues into a duet, but I think it worked pretty well. It was a bit of a challenge to pull this off, but we had fun with the process.

    And sometimes, it’s just fun to learn new songs. This SingSnap user named Bullfrog and I have done a number of duets together and he learned “Somewhere In The Vicinity of the Heart” for our challenge.

    This is a country song featuring Shenandoah and Alison Krauss. It’s not so often that I find guys who can sing this one. My partner had to learn it.

    Other times, it’s just fun to find someone who can really sing and duet with them. Last week, I sang “You Don’t Have To Be A Star” with a SingSnap user from Texas named OBSEQUIOUS. It was a blast!

    I think this guy belongs on a stage…

    Yesterday, I was hanging on one of my favorite message boards and someone started a thread about karaoke. Naturally, I had to pipe up with my experiences with online karaoke and I think I might have gotten a few more folks to try it. I like to sing at live karaoke shows because it’s a lot of fun to have a real time crowd. But SingSnap is a great tool for people who like to sing, for learning music, working on technique, and meeting new people from around the world. It’s also a great place to learn some basics of sound engineering. I also confess that I get a lot of ideas for my music blogging from hanging out on SingSnap, especially on my private blog DungeonOfThePast, which is mostly about songs from the 70s and 80s. I only hope my neighbors don’t mind that I sing all the time. If I’ve inspired you to check out SingSnap, I hope you’ll give it a whirl. You can join for free and sing a limited number of songs. If you like it, you can get a paid membership for less than $100 a year.