The Duets

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  • Ronnie Milsap
  • A Rose By Any Other Name
  • Night Things
  • 20/20 Vision
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  • Only One Love in My Life
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  • There's No Gettin' Over Me
  • Out Where the Bright Lights Are Glowing
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  • One More Try for Love
  • Lost in the Fifties Tonight
  • Christmas With Ronnie Milsap
  • Heart & Soul
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  • Back to the Grindstone
  • True Believer
  • Sings His Best Hits for Capitol Records
  • Christmas in Dixie
  • Live [Imagine]
  • Just for a Thrill
  • My Life
  • Then Sings My Soul
  • How Sweet the Sound
  • Country Again
  • Summer Number Seventeen
  • Gospel Greats
  • The Duets

Release Date

January 18, 2019

Duration

50:45

Genre

Styles

Recording Location

  • ocean way
  • Sound Stage Studios, Nashville
  • ThirtySeventeen
  • Tracking Room
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Ronnie Milsap

The Duets

  • AllMusic Rating
    6
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AllMusic Review by

Duets, an album released on the eve of Ronnie Milsap's 76th birthday, kicks off with something unexpected: a heavy, clanking blues stomp assisted by ZZ Top's Billy Gibbons, who is only too happy to salute "Southern Boys and Detroit Wheels" with the country singer. The pairing may be slightly unexpected -- Milsap is pure honey, Gibbons a hard patch of gravel -- and the song may not be well-known, but that's what gives the cut a kick that's not often heard elsewhere on Duets. Frequently throughout the album, Milsap and his partners favor the smooth and familiar, playing such big hits as "Stranger in My House," "Happy Happy Birthday," "Lost in the Fifties," or "Smokey Mountain Rain." The latter is distinguished by a game appearance by Dolly Parton, who hits the sweet spot between crowd-pleasing and interpretation. Kacey Musgraves hits that too with "No Getting Over Me" -- hearing her on this simmering, soulful piece of country-pop, it's clear that Golden Hour is indebted to the golden era of yacht-country -- but a lot of the other highlights find Milsap connecting with straight roots of some sort: singing hardcore country with George Strait on "Houston Solution," skipping through the twilight with Willie Nelson on a "A Woman's Love," and getting down and dirty with Leon Russell on "Misery Loves Company." The presence of Russell suggests many of the cuts on Duets may have been sitting around for a while -- he died in 2016, a little over two years prior to this release -- but that doesn't affect how the album plays. Listened to as a whole, without sweating the sources, Duets is an amiable, enjoyable testament to the many different facets of Ronnie Milsap.

Track Listing

Sample Title/Composer Performer Time
1
Bobby Carmichael / Billy Henderson
Ronnie Milsap
03:27
2
Mike Reid
Ronnie Milsap
04:17
3
Kye Fleming / Dennis Morgan
Ronnie Milsap
03:45
4
Mike Reid
Ronnie Milsap
04:15
5
Sam Hunter / Mike Reid
Ronnie Milsap
03:33
6
Gilbert Lopez / Margo Sylvia
Ronnie Milsap
03:47
7
Walt Aldridge / Tom Brasfield
Ronnie Milsap
03:02
8
Fred Parris / Mike Reid / Troy Seals
Ronnie Milsap
04:29
9
Paul Overstreet / Don Schlitz
Ronnie Milsap
03:35
10
Mike Reid
Ronnie Milsap
04:20
11
Jerry Reed
Ronnie Milsap
04:39
12
Warren Felder / Marcus Hummon / Shane Stevens
Ronnie Milsap
03:45
13
Jeffrey Bowen / Alphonso Boyd / Eddie Hazel
Ronnie Milsap
03:51
blue highlight denotes track pick