Inside the Music: Van Morrison

Duet albums have been around forever. Frank Sinatra famously put out the first of two back in the early 1990s; Barbra Streisand released one in the early aughts; then there's the king of duet albums, Tony Bennett, who's released three.

Sometimes it’s a way for long-established artists to mix it up with younger performers and, in the process, gain new fans. And sometimes, it's just something they've wanted to do — forever. That's how it was for Irish superstar Van Morrison.

It took him a while to make it happen, but once the ball got rolling, the singers came to Morrison — and they're some of the best of the best. Today on Inside the Music, you’ll hear a feature documentary called Van Morrison: Duets. It’s the backstory to his album Duets: Reworking the Catalogue. Listen to the full documentary above.

Inside the Music airs Sundays at 3 p.m. (3:30 NT) and Wednesdays at 7 p.m. (7:30 NT) on CBC Radio 2.