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Postmortem duets. Who likes 'em?

post #1 of 6
1/26/07 at 8:59pm
Thread Starter 
I just heard Celine Dion "dueting" on "All the Way" with Frank. I don't know if it was put together before or after his death, but it was clearly his old recording with her voice patched in. Not impressed. Just like I'm not impressed with Natalie Cole being grafted onto her father's "Unforgettable." I understand that there's not much that they can do with a preexisting track, but it just becomes a matter of the living singer repeating exactly what the dead singer just sang, and that doesn't exactly make for a compelling duet.

But, somebody has to like them.
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post #2 of 6
1/31/07 at 10:42pm

Re: Postmortem duets. Who likes 'em?

I liked Hank Williams Jr. singing with Hank Williams on "Tear in my bear" with the accompanying video back in the late 80's. Of course I was a little kid at the time, and the technique amazed me, especially on the video.


As for other duets I'm not so impressed. I did like the Beatles work on "Free as a Bird," but I guess that wasn't a duet.
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post #3 of 6
2/1/07 at 9:43am

Re: Postmortem duets. Who likes 'em?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Greg_S_H
But, somebody has to like them.

Who? Dead singers, of course!
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post #4 of 6
2/2/07 at 3:15am

Re: Postmortem duets. Who likes 'em?

I have liked Natalie Cole's duets with her dad but not much else I have heard. There is something about the father/daughter duo that makes those seem ok to me. Hank Williams, Jr. and his dad get my ok as well, but I haven't heard the song mentioned here and don't recall if Jr. has done others.

Celine Dion with Frank Sinatra sounds awful as a concept to me and I haven't heard the recording and didn't even know it existed.

Chris
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post #5 of 6
2/2/07 at 11:11am

Re: Postmortem duets. Who likes 'em?

Better get used to them. It's like using dead actors spliced into current or recent films (there is one made 2 years ago, I believe, that spliced in old footage of Laurence Olivier, for example). With digital technology, aural and visual manipulation of this kind will only become more common. Can it be done tastefully? I suppose it can. Will it be tasteful? More often than not, I'd say no--but then, you don't need dead performers to be tasteless.
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post #6 of 6
2/4/07 at 2:00pm

Re: Postmortem duets. Who likes 'em?

I hate them all....save one.

I have always been partial to Cindy Lauper's recording of Santa Claus is Coming to Town. She laid down vocals over the original Frank Sinatra recording from 12-28-1947. This was released on the "A Very Special Christmas 2" CD in 1992. The interplay between Lauper and the original Sinatra recording is extremely well-done. It continues to be one of my favorite Christmas tracks. Also, the Axel Stordahl arrangement was recreated beautifully.

I guess this doesn't really qualify to the spirit of the thread since Frank was still alive at the time...although his skills had greatly diminished.

Those "Duets" recordings Sinatra made at the time were absolutely abominable. All those tracks were recorded separately from his duet partner...completely unlike the recent Tony Bennett Duets CD in which Tony insisted on live performances of the two principals together!

There was also a duet mix of Sinatra with Nat King Cole on the The Christmas Song which was released on his 80th Birthday Collection ("All the Best", Capitol Records) which didn't work at all.
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