Kate Bush sang backup on Big Country’s “The Seer”, the title track from their third album.
Kate Bush was coming off Hounds of Love in the mid eighties cementing her place as both a great musician and a popular (in the UK) musician. A status she still holds today.
Big Country haven’t lasted quite so well in the memory (in the UK) but they were considered good if not great musicians then and despite not topping the charts were very popular. Albeit they were automatically described as ‘the band with guitars that sound like bagpipes.’
Big Country front man Stuart Adamson (died far too young from alcohol abuse) was already famous for his previous band The Skids who had several hits including the absolutely fantastic Into The Valley. His time in that group led to him being considered one of the best British guitarists to emerge from the punk / New Wave era. You have to consider whether his status would have increased if he had lived longer. Although he died much older than Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and Kurt Cobain.
TLDR: At the time Kate Bush and Big Country were similar status.
TCMF-2L
Oops, I think you forgot to mention the artist. I googled, and looks like you meant Robbie Robertson.
Beyoncé makes an ethereal contribution to the end of Frank Ocean’s “Pink + White.”
The Guardian once asked various stars what their all-time favorite love songs were. Neneh Cherry picked this one.
Mark Knopfler
Mary Chapin Carpenter is pretty well known, but check out that group of backup singers! (I know, live is cheating.)
Yes Robbie Robertson’s first solo album. I was so intent on getting the song titles right I forgot to put that in.
AFAIK Neko Case is considered a full member of The New Pornographers, so that’d be a separate category: where a member of a group/band is more famous as a solo artist.
He (I?) also sang backup on Frank Zappa’s “Scumbag”
They paid it forward, singing backup on Nick Lowe’s “I Knew the Bride (When She Used to Rock ‘n’ Roll)”
I’m not sure who was bigger at the time(s), but Carole King sang backup on James Taylor’s version of Carole’s song You’ve Got a Friend, and vice-versa. And Joni Mitchell was on both as well.
King and Taylor were both fairly early in their solo recording careers: “You’ve Got a Friend” appeared on King’s second album, and Taylor’s third.
Taylor was, maybe, a bit bigger of a “star” at that moment, as his second album, Sweet Baby James, was a top 10 hit, and had “Fire and Rain,” which was also a hit. King’s first album had not done as well, but she had been a well-known songwriter for over a decade, and had had a couple of minor hits as a singer in the '60s.
So, overall, they were probably at not-dissimilar levels of fame.
(Also, their two versions of that song were recorded more-or-less at the same time, and in addition to having Mitchell on both versions, they also had many of the same musicians.)
On the recording of the song “Basketball Jones” by Cheech and Chong, the singers and musicians include George Harrison, Billy Preston, Carole King, Darlene Love, Michelle Phillips, and Ronny Spector:
“Weird Al” Yankovic provides backup vocals for “Time,” by Ben Folds.
Weird Al also plays tambourine in Hanson’s tribute to the Blues Brothers. I don’t think he sings, though.
Michael McDonald sang backup and co-wrote Kenny Loggins’ “This Is It.” While McDonald was with a more popular band, I think that Loggins had more name recognition.
Speaking of Michael McDonald, this skit belongs on this thread:
From the accounts that I’ve read and heard, Michael McDonald is one of the nicest guys in the music business.
Well, then I’ll revise my opinion (not about him personally, but about the Doobie Brothers suddenly becoming the Mikey McD band…).