k.d. lang

Seems like you couldn't get away from "Constant Craving" in 1992 and 1993, not that you would've wanted to, it's such a lovely song. k.d. lang's duet with Roy Orbison on "Crying" is a show-stopper that netted a GRAMMY® for Best Country Collaboration with Vocals in 1989. On her Hymns of the 49th Parallel album, she paid tribute to fellow Canadian songwriters, notably covering Neil Young's "Helpless."

The concept album Drag featured songs related to smoking, and yielded a particularly lush cover of the Willard Robison's "Don't Smoke In Bed," which compares favorably with better-known versions by Peggy Lee, Nina Simone, and fellow Canadian Holly Cole. k.d. lang rocks up the Joe South classic "I Never Promised You a Rose Garden," made famous by Lynn Anderson, and reels it back in on Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah." And don't miss her star turn with Tony Bennett on "What a Wonderful World."

Often compared with Patsy Cline, k.d. lang decided to employ Cline's producer, Owen Bradley, on the Shadowland album. His reverb-laden sound made her recordings of "(Waltz Me) Once Again Around the Dance Floor" and Chris Isaak's "Western Stars" sound as though they'd sprung fully formed out of the '50s. And her emotion-laden performance on "Wash Me Clean" is just plain breathtaking.

Kathryn Dawn Lang can emote, she can evoke, she can whisper, and she can whoop. First pegged as a country singer, she grew far beyond the confines of the barbed-wire fence into a full-throated diva (and we mean that in a good way). After enjoying some Canadian success, lang was taken under the wing of Sire Records' Seymour Stein, who sent her career into the stratosphere with her fourth Sire release, Ingénue. In all, she's won four GRAMMYs®, two of which were for collaborations (her partners being Tony Bennett and Roy Orbison).