Duets: Friends and Legends

For her 34th studio album, recorded a set of duets with many of her favorite female singers, from to . There are a number of duet partners here, such as , , and , but there are even more -oriented women singing with , encompassing the likes of and . This makes perfect sense, as 's always straddled the fence effortlessly. Her singing on 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 (done here with a surprisingly relaxed, easy vocal from , sounding for all the world like a young ). The majority of these songs are ones which have been sizeable hits for in the past, most of which work nicely recast as duets, or at least showcases for harmony singing. There are exceptions, of course: sadly, the late 's voice doesn't fit at all, and sounds mightily out of place on But for each of those there's an on matching perfectly on and most of all, showing up with what might be the best vocal of her career on the classic clearly inspired most of her duet partners to bring their "A" games, and since she's pretty much always on hers (and , of all people, provides sterling production which knows when to stay out of the way), what results is often magical. ~ Thomas Inskeep