I’m talking about fake “duets” involving a live person a recording of a now-dead performer, usually to boost fame and/or fortune of the former at the cost of the dignity of the latter. What brought this to mind was hearing the atrocious Scarlett Johansson & the corpse of Dean Martin singing “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” on the radio a few minutes ago. Got others?
There’s A Tear in My Beer - Hank Williams and Hank Williams, Jr.
Truck Drivin’ Man by Lynyrd Skynyrd with Johnny Van Zant and his late brother Ronnie trading lead vocals
Natalie Cole’s riding on her daddy’s coattails with Unforgettable. As far as these go, that’s not bad.
The Beatles’ Free As A Bird has the then-surviving members singing along with John.
Berry Manilow’s Dream Duets, in which he digs up an entire cemetery of stars to sing with: John Denver, Sammy Davis Jr., Louis Armstrong, Whitney Houston and others. Indeed, Cemetery Of Stars would have been a more appropriate title.
Ditto their song Real Love (though they only provide harmonies and Zombie John does lead vocals on his own).
Martina McBride and Dino (again), “Baby, It’s Cold Outside”.
I call these “necro-duets”. The Natalie Cole ones are “necro-incests”.
I remember one concert where, right after “they” performed this, everybody walked out in the middle of the concert. Okay, okay, it was a National Memorial Day Concert where, right before the song, the D.C. Police ordered an evacuation to get everyone home before severe weather came into the area; they had her perform the song so they could use it to branch into a recording of the dress rehearsal seamlessly and pretend that the concert went on as planned.
I attended a Paul Anka concert 20+ years ago where they played a piece of film featuring Sammy Davis, Jr., and PA and the orchestra sang and played to it. Chee-Z. Thank Lord Frith the tix were free.
Kenny G playing sax while zombie Louis Armstrong sang “What a Wonderful World.”
How about a song with the undead?
The weird part about these is that Dean Martin died on Christmas Day in 1995.
No death involved, but former boy soprano and current saccharine TV presenter Aled Jones is doing duets with his younger self, mostly because his performing career peaked with “Walking in the Air”.
And a necromantic solo: Freddie Mercury’s resurrection for the closing ceremony of the 2012 London Olympics was pretty much the high point of the ceremony.
I remember thinking that Freddy was the ONLY performer at the closing ceremonies who showed any life or energy at all.
Manilow has done dueths with Louis Armstrong(It’s A Wonderful World), Dusty Springfield(The Look Of Love) and even Marilyn Monroe(I Want To Be Loved By You).
It’s common in collaborations for the vocals to be recorded separately. Trio with Dolly, Emmylou Harris, and L. Ronstadt is an example. Their schedules were much too busy for them to be in the room at the same time. IIRC they used at least two studios.
They did meet beforehand to discuss songs and how to arrange the material. Trio is described in Ronstadt’s book.
These days its pretty rare for artists to share a microphone and harmonize together. It’s quicker to record each voice separately (while listening to the track with headphones) and mix it.
It may be a little more difficult using an old performance of a deceased artist. Getting the EQ correct and allowing for the difference in recording technology.
I loved Natalie Cole’s recordings with her father’s voice.
Cyndi Lauper and Frank Sinatra, Santa Claus is Coming to Town. It seems Christmas is the time to do these things.