Angel Olsen shares ‘Big Time’ duet with Sturgill Simpson
The country duet is a long and storied tradition in most American music genres. From Johnny Cash and June Carter falling in love with sparring in ‘Jackson’ to Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers transforming a Bee Gees track into southern gold with ‘Islands in the Stream’, a good duet can turn an average country song into a stone-cold classic.
But what happens when that song already happens to be great? Well, that’s when you get something special. The title track from the most recent album by folk-indie-genre blender extraordinaire Angel Olsen was ‘Big Time’, a hefty and heartfelt ode to leaning into the more emotional parts of life, whether they be uplifting or harrowing. Big Time was an album centred around the dichotomy of love and loss, but all you had to do was listen to the title song in order to really feel what Olsen was going for.
So how do you make it even better? Add another master of heartbreaking beauty. This time it comes in the form of cosmic country star Sturgill Simpson, who adds a new vocal to the original recording of ‘Big Time’. As he takes on the second verse, Olsen’s call for coffee and nature gets a boost from Simpson. The new perspective adds a palpable twang to the arrangement and a fresh angle to the song.
“It’s crazy to write a song and then watch someone else you really admire sing your words, kinda turns the whole thing on its head,” Olsen says in a statement. “I loved the song already but hearing Sturgill’s take on ‘Big Time’ made me smile ear to ear, he made it come alive on a different level.”
Simpson has been on a bit of a rest as of late, having recovered from a vocal chord haemorrhage that has sidelined him for nearly a year. The duet on ‘Big Time’ is Sturgill’s first new music since 2021’s The Ballad of Dood and Juanita, and with an appearance in the upcoming Martin Scorsese film Killers of the Flower Moon, it wasn’t certain whether Simpson was returning to music any time soon. While it’s not a major release, his contributions to the new version of ‘Big Time’ prove that he’s not quite done with country yet.
Check out the duet of ‘Big Time’ down below.
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