Michael Stipe duets

There was a time (the late 1980s) where Michael Stipe of REM popped up on all sorts of albums, usually to give an up-and-coming or unknown band some help or publicity. This was of course at the time when his main band were making probably some of the best music of their career (leading up to Green) and were poised at the tipping point between indie heroes and global superstars.

Some his protegees poked fun at this help, like the late great Vic Chesnutt did on his Stipe-duet 'Guilty by association' (which unfortunately I could not find any clip of on Youtube) but there remains no doubt that Stipe could add a tingle to any spine when he appeared in their songs. A classic example of this is 'Kid fears' by the Indigo Girls, which I did find a live clip of below:

I love the way he sidles onto the stage in the shadows and wonder how many of those in the audience at that gig knew he would show up. He starts his bit a lot higher than the spooky way he does it on the album version, which is well worth checking out.

Another band he supported around that time was 10,000 maniacs, and their album 'In my tribe' features Stipe on the jaunty 'Campfire song', which again I could not find on Youtube, but I did find another duet below:

I have recently written about the third in my trinity of lovely Stipe-vs-female vocals of that time, with Kirsten Hersh on 'Your ghost', but he also did duets with male performers, and I like the duet below on Patti Smith's 'Because the night' (which I love) with Bruce Springsteen:

And I will finish on a song which presented a rare case of Stipe including a duet on an REM album, which was 'E-bow the letter' on 'New adventures in hi-fi', seen here with Thom Yorke not being even slightly mistaken for Patti live:

I have written before on this blog about the best duets Stipe ever did, in my mind, which were again with Natalie Merchant of 10,000 Maniacs, in a guitar shop called McCabes, and which I have on very poor quality cassette bootleg. To hear them singing 'Leaving on a jet plane' and 'Sunday morning', together and simultaneously, and having the sort of fun one would not traditionally associate either of them with, is absolutely lovely and special, and I hope someday someone will clean up that audio and make that great show available again!

Hint, hint, hint.