Two years in the works, Ronnie Milsap: The Duets (Riser House/Sony) is done, and slated for release at the top of the new year. The 13-track collection, spanning mainstream country, Christian, Americana, rock & roll and roots music, will be released January 18, 2019. To give longtime fans a taste of what the eclectic project contains, the six-time Grammy winner teamed with People and Relix to debut the first tracks, available at all digital retail outlets now.
People offered Kacey Musgraves’ spunky duet of the 1982 Grammy-winning “There’s No Getting Over Me,” creating a boy-girl frisson that sparks the original’s mid-tempo cautionary rejoinder. As reported exclusively at People, the country legend said of their duet, “Singing with Kacey is so much fun. She’s a pure vocalist and knows how to lean into a melody. Having her on this gave the song a whole new twist, which is what music is all about. How do you take what you know and make it even more?”
Recorded at Ronnie’s Place, the studio the former Entertainer of the Year exactingly built at the height of his success, Ronnie Milsap: The Duets marries his much loved hits with a few new gems.
“A Woman’s Love,” Milsap’s duet with Willie Nelson, premiered at Relix today. Ironically, Nelson so took to the track, he ended up recording the Mike Reid-penned song on his own God’s Problem Child project.
“It’s a compliment to me that Willie loved the song enough to want to record it on his own,” Milsap explains. “It says so much about the quality of the song, because the best songs want to be recorded over and over. Ray Charles heard ‘Lets Go Get Stoned’ all those years ago, and he cut it. It just shows how universal music can be, and how it brings people together.”
LISTEN TO RONNIE MILSAP AND KACEY MUSGRAVES
LISTEN TO RONNIE MILSAP AND WILLIE NELSON
Co-produced with long-term collaborator Rob Galbraith, Ronnie Milsap: The Duets also includes collaborations with fellow Entertainers of the Year Jason Aldean, Luke Bryan, George Strait and Dolly Parton, as well as CMA winners Little Big Town and Montgomery Gentry, on what may be Troy Gentry’s final recordings. The album also features collaborations with Rock icon Billy F. Gibbons, Christian music’s Steven Curtis Chapman, newcomers Lucy Angel and Jesse Key, as well as with Leon Russell for what is probably the Songwriters and Rock & Roll Hall of Famer’s last recording.
With its roots in the Academy of Country Music 50th Anniversary Duets special, where Milsap sang “Stranger in My House” with Luke Bryan, Ronnie Milsap: The Duets served as a floating jam session. Merging legends, superstars, young artists and myriad generations, the project was met with enthusiastic support from the many collaborators.
The critics agree — USA Today wrote of his 2013 Summer #17, “A lot of today’s country singers make records with an R&B influence, but they have nothing on Ronnie Milsap,” CMA Close-Up also recognized his genre-smearing sound, explaining, “Milsap had no fear of mixing the genre’s past and building his sound on what he retrieves” and The Tennessean praised, “Milsap has long thrived by ignoring genre distinctions…”
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About Ronnie Milsap:
Ronnie Milsap, blind since childhood, has used music to navigate the world. Beyond his Top five R&B hit “Never Had It So Good,” written by Ashford & Simpson and issued on Scepter Records, from 1974 through 1991, Milsap placed 48 consecutive hits on Billboard’s Country’s Top 10. A six-time Grammy-winner, known for “Please Don’t Tell Me How The Story Ends,” “Smoky Mountain Rain,” “Prisoner of the Highway,” “Lost in the ’50s Tonight,” and “There’s No Getting Over Me,” the CMA Entertainer/Album/Male Vocalist of the Year winner has charted singles in each of the last six decades.
RONNIE MILSAP: THE DUETS
(RISER HOUSE/SONY)
JANUARY 18, 2019
TRACKLISTING:
1. Southern Boys and Detroit Wheels ft. Billy Gibbons
2. Stranger in My House ft. Luke Bryan
3. Smokey Mountain Rain ft. Dolly Parton
4. Prisoner of the Highway ft. Jason Aldean
5. A Woman’s Love ft. Willie Nelson
6. Happy Happy Birthday ft. Lucy Angel
7. No Getting Over Me ft. Kacey Musgraves
8. Lost in the Fifties ft. Little Big Town
9. Houston Solution ft. George Strait
10. What a Woman Can Mean to a Man ft. Jessie Key
11. Misery Loves Company ft. Leon Russell
12. You’re Nobody ft. Steven Curtis Chapman
13. Shakey Ground ft. Montgomery Gentry
