Musical collaborations that never were, but you'd like to hear

Cafe Society
1

I did a search on music collaboration and didn’t see anything that quite fit this idea, so I thought I would start this thread.

Basic idea is to create a collection of artists, of any era or genre, living or not, that you think would create an interesting result had they gotten together to cut a few tracks.

I’ll start with this: Johnny Winter, James Brown, and Prince. You can guess what Johnny and James bring to the game, but adding Prince as a catalyst would likely result in something I like to hear.

What are your fantasy collaborations?

2

Half fantasy: Jimmy Buffett actally wrote a song, I Love the Now, released on the Floridays album, with Carrie Fisher. Yes, that Carrie Fisher. Even among Buffett fans that fact isn’t well known because neither one ever really promoted or even explained the collaboration. However I would’ve loved to hear them sing it together as a duet, something that of course never happened.

3

I have that album, like that song, and did not know that. I often wonder how musicians get together in the first place to work together. I suppose much of it might be by chance.

4

Mozart + Beethoven, obviously.

5

Hmmm…

How about we make Elvis and former son-in-law Michael Jackson do Pancho and Lefty?

6

Meat Loaf and Celine Dion should have recorded “It’s All Coming Back To Me Now” as a duet.

7

A supergroup with

George Hurley, drums
Les Claypool, bass
Wayne Horvitz, keys
Thurston Moore, guitar
Peter Brotzmann, saxophone
Mark E. Smith, vocals

8

Paul McCartney and John Fogerty.

Both are phenomenal songwriters. John wrote nearly all CCR’s hits.

Put those two together for a couple weeks and record an album.

They are older now and probably wouldn’t want to work 12 hour days. I’d settle for ond great ballad from them.

9

Styx fronted by Freddy Mercury.

10

How about George Gershwin performing on the piano with a modern orchestra?

That actually happened, thanks to the magic of a 1925 Gershwin piano roll and an imaginative conductor.

11

Toni Tennille and Tom Waits doing 5 songs Tom’s choice and 5 songs Toni’s choice.

12

Tennille taking on ‘Jockey Full of Bourbon’? Yeah, I would like to hear that.

13

There was a rumor about Jimi Hendrix moving to London and joining ELP.

Unfortunately, Hendrix died before that could have happened. I would have liked to have seen that collaboration!

14

I’ve said it for a long time: Rick Rubin should produce a Dylan album.

15

Yeah, this for sure. I’d pay real money to see this. Or should say, I would have.

16

Mozart and Prince. Mozart was limited by his era; he’d’ve done much better being born in the 1950s. And while he could collaborate with any good musician to great effect, I think Prince is the perfect match. Assuming their personalities didn’t clash too much, but I like to think that genius recognizes genius.

17

Not a specific artist, but I’ve always wanted to see a good Japanese Taiko drum group cover the drum solo from In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida.

18

I would love to hear the instrumental might of The Who behind the vocal harmonics of The Beach Boys.

Alas, this is as close as it gets…

19

Another recommendation for a thundering Who performance with Beach Boys like vocals and harmonies:

20

What if Cream had included Steve Winwood on keys & vocals? Now THAT would have been a REAL supergroup!
Of course they would still have imploded since Bruce and Baker would have come to blows sooner or later…