Who would you like to see together?
Don’t be perverted—not like that! No, more along the lines of Here are two people who I’d love to see do whatever it is they do, together.
I was watching clip of k.d. lang singing a Leonard Cohen song, and thought, Man, I wonder what she’d sound like with Cassandra Wilson?
Two amazing vocalists and interpreters, together.
So, my first duet: k.d. lang and Cassandra Wilson
Then again, I’d long thought that it would be great to listen in as Hannah Arendt and Edward Said argued.
Thus, the first duel (albeit a friendly one): Arendt and Said.
Who else?
- Arendt and Rosa Luxemburg
- Frederick Douglass and Malcolm X
- Arendt and Malcolm X
- Malcolm X and Bernard Lazare
- Janis Joplin and Cass Elliot
- PJ Harvey and Patti Smith (definitely a duel)
- Godspeed You! Black Emperor and Dawn Upshaw (Really. Have you heard her on Golijov’s Ayre? The woman can sing anything.)
- Eddie Cochran and The Clash
- Brett Favre (back in the day. . .) and Randy Moss
- Martina Navratilova (back in the day. . .) and Serena Williams
- k.d. lang and Lizz Wright
- Kate Bush and Leonard Cohen (just for the hell of it)
- Marvin Gaye and Joni Mitchell (hot and cool, together)
Who else?
I can’t be the only one who wastes her time thinking about this kind of thing. . . .
AbsurdBeats 
In an odd coincidence I’ve been listening to k.d. lang singing Leonard Cohen all week. I picked up her “Hymns of the 49th Parallel” at the library last week as part of my “listening to new stuff to get over the tedium of driving everywhere but trying not to spend money on music” program. Her voice is amazing in these songs. Several times I’ve pulled up and waited till the end of the song before getting out of the car. I love her version of “Bird on a wire.” I agree that she and Cassandra Wilson would be a great pairing. Or how about her and Mark Knopfler?
The clip I was watching was from the Max Sessions, filmed at the Sydney Opera House, and happened to be ‘Bird on a Wire.’
k.d. lang is such an amazing vocalist that I think she could be paired with almost anyone. She has a way of wrapping her voice around both words and sound that she can play off of or sidle up next to another singer.
Have you heard her contribution to Jane Siberry’s ‘Cry like an angel’? The intimacy of both the words and voices is stunning.
Er, crap, that’s ‘Calling all angels.’
I knew that ‘cry like an angel’ sounded wrong (and I think it’s a Shawn Colvin tune—or at least a line from one).
So. ‘Calling all angels.’ Listen to THAT one.
In a drastic change of mood — from the sublime to the ridiculous, I suppose — I was recently introduced to a mashup of Rick Astley and Nirvana.
Not what I would have picked, but honest to God, it was AWESOME!
You are ahead of your time…you called mashups before they happened.
Honestly, the first thing that popped into my head was…
Jimi Hendrix and Sting. The Police with a real guitarist!
Then…
Sublime and Any Winehouse. “High there…”
Ida Maria and Slash. Yes, a bit up tempo.
Lilly Allen and Bob Marley. Serious whimsy.
Notorious BIG and Miley Cyrus. Oh that’s a real one! Party and bullsh…
I have a hundred more but this is your blog.
Yeah, man: startcher own blog!
Then again, I DID ask what you’d want to hear. . . .