Joe Nichols and Rhonda Vincent

Ira and Charlie Louvin wrote the song, and they recorded it on 4 May 1956 at Music City Recordings in Nashville, with Ken Nelson producing, Ira on mandolin, Charlie on guitar, Paul Yandell and George McCormick on guitars, Lightnin’ Chance on bass and Buddy Harman on drums; Capitol issued it as a single, F 3523. Gram Parsons later recorded it on his posthumous album Grievous Angel.

The tribute began when Ira Louvin’s daughter, Kathy Louvin, asked Jackson, about two years before its release, whether he would produce one. Jackson listened through the Louvins’ eight-CD Bear Family box set, narrowed it to forty or fifty songs, and sent each singer who signed on four or five to choose from, and many of the tracks pair two voices. Universal South released the album on 30 September 2003, with sixteen Louvin songs, and the Nichols and Vincent duet comes first after a short spoken introduction. Other pairings included Marty Stuart and Del McCoury on “Let Us Travel, Travel On,” Emmylou Harris and Rodney Crowell on “My Baby’s Gone” and James Taylor and Alison Krauss on “How’s the World Treating You.” At the 2004 Grammy Awards it won Best Country Album, and Taylor and Krauss won Best Country Collaboration with Vocals; the IBMA named it Recorded Event of the Year in 2004.

Nichols, born in 1976 and raised in Rogers, Arkansas, had signed with Universal South after early deals with Intersound and Giant; his album Man with a Memory came out in July 2002, “Brokenheartsville” became his first number one country single in 2003, and that year the Country Music Association gave him its Horizon Award. Vincent, from Kirksville, Missouri, had grown up in her family’s Sally Mountain Show and made two country albums for Giant before returning to bluegrass on Rounder in 2000 with the Rage; the IBMA named her Female Vocalist of the Year every year from 2000 to 2006, and in 2003 she released One Step Ahead.